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

[Tom Round]

Under Droop-quota STV (with, say, 5 seats, quota 16.67%), if a group polls
20% of the vote it does win 20% of the seats in an electoral district (ie,
one of five); 40% does give it 40% of the seats (ie, two of five), and so on.

It doesn't mean that a group with 2% of the vote will necessarily win 2% of
the seats (unless we increase the total seats per electoral district to
somewhere around 50). But that's a function of the number of seats. Hare
quota won't give the 2% group 2% of  the seats either until you get up
around the 50-seats range.

At 05:45 24-10-99 -0400, you wrote:
>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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Tom Round, BA (Hons), LL.B,
Research Officer, Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice & 
Governance (KCELJAG), Griffith University,
Queensland 4111, Australia
ph (07) 3875 3817, fax 3875 6634