[EM] tiny addendum to STV posting

James Green-Armytage jarmyta at antioch-college.edu
Sun Jul 13 01:53:01 PDT 2003


A small point I forgot to mention, in the category of STV vs. party list:

	Open and closed lists aside, in list PR there is also the possibility
that you will cast a vote for a party who doesn't get any seats at all.
This is a wasted vote, basically, and so voters are given some incentive
to avoid voting for parties they think might be a "lost cause".
	The advantage of STV, of course, is that you can vote for such a party or
candidate, and if they fail to get a seat, your vote will be transferred
to make a difference between the marginal candidates.

	In general I am not very sympathetic with the desire on the part of some
people to keep smaller parties out of government. Actually, I find it a
little shocking how commonly this sentiment is expressed in discussions of
PR, as it seems pretty anti-democratic to me. Having a government
dominated by a few well-connected heavy hitter parties, with entry barred
by a steep threshold (be it a formal threshold or an effective threshold)
hardly sounds good to me.


- James




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