[EM] 02/03/02 - STV for Candidate Lists:

[Adam Tarr]

While I agree with most of what you said, I think open list is almost 
unambiguously better than closed list.

>1.  It allows districts/constituencies to be eliminated.  They tend to 
>corrupt the process.
>2.  It provides a high degree of proportionality.
>3.  It is simple both to use and understand.  Voter's need not even be 
>literate.

All of these advantages are shared by open list. (Note that in Open list, 
there's no reason to stop people from just voting for the party, a la 
closed list, and not voting within the party.  I only mention this for the 
sake of the illiterate voter argument.)

>4.  More importantly, the elections themselves are easier to understand, 
>because they are so partisan.

True, it becomes party vs. party.  But do you have any evidence that this 
actually reduces spending?  Perhaps it will reduce the personality-based 
campaigning, but I'm not certain that's a social good I want to work toward 
anyway.  If people want to elect representatives they like over 
representatives they agree with, that's their prerogative.

One thing I _am_ certain I want to do is minimize is the control the 
parties have over the debate.  When you pit party versus party, then the 
voters have to pick between the party platforms.  When you allow voters to 
pick an individual candidate in a party, the voters can now pick between 
all the subtle variants of the individual platforms, and thereby achieve a 
closer match to their own views.

>5.  Although there are strategy issues, party list doesn't have many of 
>the peculiarities of other methods.

Open list essentially has the same strategy as closed list, with the 
addition of the strategy for picking a candidate within a given party.  But 
even if that choice is completely intractable, you still have as much 
control of the outcome as you do with closed list.  In reality, the choice 
within the list is basically a SNTV vote, which is not a terribly tough 
strategic problem.  If you vote sincerely you will generally do pretty well 
from a utility-maximizing standpoint.

>6.  Voters are voting for a known entity, a pre-determined party list. 
>Voter's aren't forced to make every decision, but they are able to respond 
>effectively when list makers make bad choices.  That's a more realistic 
>model of democracy than the micro-management model.

Open list basically takes some control out of the party leadership's hands 
and gives it to the electorate.  I can't see this as a bad thing.  It 
fosters independence in the representatives, as they don't need to vote in 
lock-step with the party line in order to advance up the ranks.  This is a 
very real problem in many closed list democracies.

-Adam