[EM] Re: PR not representing median voter, and a system using best of PR and single seat.

[James Gilmour]

Clinton sang the praises of electing in single-member districts
so loudly that I was prompted to dig out the figures for recent
elections to the Australian Federal House of Representatives
(Adam Carr's archive).  As he said, they use IRV in these
single-member districts. In this table the parties are arranged
in descending order of their first preference votes in the 2001
election.

	1996	1996	1998	1998	2001	2001
Party	%FPV	Seats	%FPV	Seats	%FPV	Seats
ALP	39%	49	40%	67	38%	65
LP	39%	76	34%	64	37%	69
NP	8%	18	5%	16	6%	13
AD	7%	0	5%	0	5%	0
AG					5%	0
ON			8%	0	4%	0
Others	8%	5	7%	1	4%	3
						
Total		148		148		150

I would not consider these results acceptable in terms of
representation or stability.  There is serious distortion of the
voters' wishes (as measured by first preference votes) and the
distortion switches in a way that cannot be controlled by the
voters.

The problem is not IRV, but single-member districts.
James