[EM] Districts (was: Proportionality in perspective)

[LAYTON Craig]

Blake,

(first I have to apologise to everyone for clogging up their in-trays - but
people keep directing comments at me!  I guess that being anti-approval is
just inviting trouble)

I'm undecided.  I agree that there are some good arguments for list PR.
However, I'm generally uncomfortable, especially in a two party system, with
parties getting to decide who gets into parliament (rather than voters).
Just as an example, I'll tell you how I vote in Upper House (STV PR)
elections (leaving out the very minor parties that have no chance of winning
a seat); I vote Labor (Left Faction), then my favourite Democrat candidates
(a centre party), then Labor (centre faction / non aligned candidates), then
the Greens, then the rest of the Democrats, and then the right faction Labor
candidates.  I would be distressed if there was a list system that didn't
allow me to distinguish between the left and right factions of the Labor
party, because I like some other significant parties (Greens & Democrat)
better than Labor Right, but not as much as Labor Left.  I also have
feminist friends who vote for female candidates (across parties), because
they believe that increased representation for women is more important than
which party is in power.  You're basically suggesting that this kind of
voting should be disallowed in your closed list system?

>Are you claiming that less educated voters will vote meaningfully
>between the candidates of one party in STV, but will not in an open
>list method?  

Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting.  Tasmania uses a non-list STV
system with rotated ballots, and seven members per electorate (droop quota,
fractional transfer values).  The differences in the amount of votes that
candidates from the same party get is significant (there may be info at
www.aec.gov.au).  In contrast, when large numbers of candidates are listed
in party groups (as on State-wide ballots), voters overwhelmingly vote
1,2,3... straight down the party's ticket, and there is almost no instances
of a candidate further down on the list getting elected before the
candidates higher up on the list (I think it was the 60's when voters were
given the option of ticking a single party box, corresponding to a full list
of preferences.  I'm referring to the period before this change).  I'll see
if I can find the comparitive figures.  The difference in voting patterns,
based solely on the layout of the ballot paper and the number of candidates,
is staggering.

I would like to know what you would intend to do with surplus votes, or with
votes on parties that do not get enough to get a candidate elected.  List
systems tend to be plurality systems, and they have all the same problems as
plurality elections (particularly the very bad vote splitting problem).  If
you can solve this problem, and have some way of allowing voters to choose
between candidates, I might convert.