[EM] Request comments on MMP?

[Donald Davison]

Re: [EM] Request comments on MMP?      July 23 2003

Dear John B. Hodges,

You wrote: "...I imagine that MMP would be good for the U.S. Senate. One
member chosen from each state by some single-winner method, the rest
allocated to parties by party-list PR so as to make the TOTAL 100-seats
distributed proportionally, or as close as possible thereto."

Donald here:  You imagine wrong.  The US Senate was not set up to be a
proportional election.  Each state has two seats and those seats are not to
be elected by voters outside the state, that was the deal.

The best way to add some proportionality to the Senate is for each state to
become a two-seat district, that is, for states to elect both their seats
at the same time using Preference Voting/STV (of course, different states
would elect both their seats in different years).

John: "...but after imagining the House of Representatives chosen by STV-PR in
>districts of 3, 5, or 7 seats..."

Donald:  Why do you have an odd number of seats for your small districts?
Why not have an even number of seats?

There is no reason for small districts to have an odd number of seats.  A
majority is not needed in any small district of many districts.  A majority
only comes into play when all the district results are added together.  On
the other hand, an even number of seat would give us better proportionality
for political parties and gender because most districts would be divided
closer to fifty-fifty for parties and gender.

John: "I know a lot of folks are suspicious of party organizations, and
>hence of Party-list PR, and most PR-advocates would rather avoid
>single-winner elections whenever possible, so perhaps MMP is just the
>worst of both worlds."

Donald:  Those people are not the majority.  The majority supports party
organizations and are well adapted to voting in single-seat districts, so
perhaps MMP is not the worst of both worlds.

Before you toss out the baby with the bath water, let's give MMP credit
where credit is due.  Top-Up MMP is the only district system in use in
which the proportionality of each small district is linked to the
proportionality of the entire jurisdiction.  It is quite simple for us to
create other district election methods that also have this feature of
linking proportionality.  We are not restricted to single-seat districts
and party lists, we can use two or more seat districts and Preference
Voting/STV.

Simply put, an election area would be divided into small sub-districts.
Ten or more sub-districts would be combined into a Greater District.  The
entire electorate could be one Greater District.  Candidates would need to
live and run in a sub-district, but the math of the election would be
calculated per the Greater District.  The math could be the math of some
multi-seat election method like Open Party List or Preference Voting/STV.
This will yield the member-link of a small district and the party
proportionality of a twenty or more seat district.

Regards, Donald Davison


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The entire text of John's letter:

[EM] Request comments on MMP?           July 23 2003

>Greetings- For my continuing effort to educate myself on these
>issues, I'd like to ask for people's views on the "mixed member
>proportional" system, the prototype of which is Germany. (I've heard
>New Zealand also has recently adopted this system, I'd like to learn
>more details of that case also.) In fantasy/utopian thinking, I
>imagine that MMP would be good for the U.S. Senate. One member chosen
>from each state by some single-winner method, the rest allocated to
>parties by party-list PR so as to make the TOTAL 100-seats
>distributed proportionally, or as close as possible thereto. This
>would require a Constitutional amendment, so I know it won't happen,
>but after imagining the House of Representatives chosen by STV-PR in
>districts of 3, 5, or 7 seats (the best outcome I can believe might
>actually happen) I'd like to give smaller parties some alternate
>route to representation.
>
>USA voters are so accustomed to single-member districts that
>commentators who should know better are seriously proposing
>Cumulative voting in "superdistricts" of three seats, as a radical
>and daring reform. I agree it would be an improvement over
>SMD-plurality, but Gee, any reform is going to be hard enough to get,
>we should try to do better than that.
>
>I know a lot of folks are suspicious of party organizations, and
>hence of Party-list PR, and most PR-advocates would rather avoid
>single-winner elections whenever possible, so perhaps MMP is just the
>worst of both worlds. Perhaps the best we can hope for for the Senate
>is some single-winner method, pick your favorite.
>
>Party-list PR, for all its faults, has some aspects that could be an
>advantage, especially if applied only to part of the system. It
>allows much larger district magnitudes than STV, so the threshold for
>winning a seat can be much lower. Candidates on a list can be chosen
>AS an ensemble, i.e. deliberately chosen to be attractive to voters
>as a team, which would (and empirically does) lead to more women and
>minority officeholders than even STV. It subjects those officeholders
>elected BY party-list to serious "party discipline", which in turn
>makes party platforms into meaningful documents, which voters can
>read and compare, gaining MUCH more information about how
>officeholders are likely to vote on issues. It might be argued that
>even the aspect of list-PR that gives party heavyweights "guaranteed
>seats" could have a place as one piece of a large and diverse
>governing system. (For example, candidates for President are usually
>either Governors of large states, or Senators. MMP would give smaller
>parties at least a few "secure seats", where their officholder can
>accumulate experience, lay down a record of his/her votes on
>legislation, and develop name recognition.)
>--
>----------------------------------------------
>John B. Hodges, jbhodges@    @usit.net