[EM] STV district magnitude

[Alex Small]

> For your next remark, I said single-membered districts, not
> single-winner districts.

The single-membered vs. single-winner distinction confuses me.  Either we
have some sort of language barrier here, or you mean that every district
will elect one person, but the winners will be chosen to assure an overall
national balance.  i.e.  If a party got a certain percent of the vote, it
would get roughly the same proportion of the seats, but each seat would be
assigned to a different virtual constituency based on the votes cast by
that constituency.

I have to admit that I was confused by the first description of SPPA, and
since then I haven't had a chance to look into it more.

> I thinks it's normal... It seems hard to remove
> something as solid (tengible in french) as constituencies. But please
> note that what I suggest just goes further in the direction showed by
> multi-member districts of STV and pure PR models... It is not really a
> revolution, just the next step in accepting our neighbours are, now in
> 2003, anyone on this 12000 kms diameter planet. An alaskian maybe that
> far of a floridian, they can be both concerned by whales fishing laws (I
> just hope you get the point).

Well, given that geographical districts chosen by PR would be a HUGE
improvement over the current situation in the US, I think that will be
higher on my list of election reform priorities than a system of virtual
districts.

Doesn't Ireland have something akin to virtual districts for part of its
parliament, based on which university people studied at?



Alex