[EM] STV is suppose to be a PR method.

[Donald E Davison]

Greetings,

     STV is suppose to be a method of Proportional Representation(PR),
which the dictionary defines as: "an electoral system designed to represent
in a legislative body each political group or party in proportion to its
actual voting strength in the electorate."
    I can say the same in a more mathematical form: "If a group receives
one percent of first choices, in the entire election, that group shall be
able to elect one member per hundred members of the legislative body." This
form allows us to pin down the results of an election and subject them to
an evaluation.
      It follows that a Eight Percent Group will elect eight members per
hundred member, and a Forty-Eight Percent Group will elect forty-eight
members per hundred.
     If you do not believe in this policy, then you have no business
claiming to support PR. If you do believe in this policy, then you have no
business supporting features and actions that make a system less
proportional.
     There are people who support small district STV and/or Droop Quota
and/or exhausted ballots being given to the remaining candidates. These
three features make STV less proportional. One or more of them would not
allow the Eight Percent Group to elect any members, but they would allow
the Forty-Eight Percent Group to elect fifty-eight members per hundred.
     Do you fear it is necessary to give the larger political parties
something in order to get them to come on board for PR?  Sort of like,
"Tossing a bone to the dogs". Better to have some reform than none at all -
right?
     Wrong!  Your fears are unfounded. There are people in the world who
have voted into law, election systems better than Droop STV, and the people
in your part of the world can do the same. MMP, while not perfect, is
better than Droop STV.
     Even Party List is better. With exception of a few remainder members,
all the members are elected by the same amount of votes - no less - no
more. There is no Droop Quota, no exhausted ballots and no transferring of
these ballots to remaining candidates. Of course Party List has its flaws.
People will always try to corrupt any method. The list should be an Open
List instead of a Closed List and there should not be any artifical
threshold imposed, but that's another discussion.

Regards,
Donald

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   |                         Q U O T A T I O N                         |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |       except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."    |
   |                            - Age 10                               |
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