[EM] Vote Management

[Olli Salmi]

At 11:32 +0100 12.4.2003, James Gilmour wrote:
>If a party wins three or four seats in a larger district, the proportionality
>will be better.  But the effect of the small districts with STV-PR 
>is not so bad
>as you think compared with open party list PR.  Consider a party that wins two
>seats in most STV-PR districts and has two main factions within it.  It is
>likely that the factions will each win one seat in each district, so giving
>reasonable PR of views within the party.  But under open party list, with
>non-transferable votes, all the support for one faction could be pilled up on
>their most popular candidate (so they win only one seat instead of half of the
>party's allocation) or spread very thinly over the all the candidates who are
>sympathetic to the faction (so that they fail to win any seats, or 
>certainly far
>fewer than their half share).

You might have separate parties under a list system. Much depends on 
the average district magnitude. I think a good list PR uses joint 
lists. In Finland they are mainly used in students' unions, because 
the party structure is very fluid in them.

Of course STV is beautiful if you don't mind the complicated count.

Olli Salmi