[EM] Dumb question

[stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca]

Dear John,

approval and ranked pair are not as described proportional methods,
but you are right they could be used as inner motor to produce proportional methods. However, you have to be careful about how you do this.

The key into converting a single-winner method into a motor for
a proportional multiple-winner method is to make them able to produce
weights as an output. Why? Because of fairness issues: first a system
needs to be fair between parties, next between candidates and finally
between voters. It is one think to have a single-winner method that
avoids vote-splitting, does not favor cloning and gives an equal power to every voters (wheter approval fits or not is not the debate here), it is anoter matter to preserve those qualities while
building your proportional model using such a single-winner method.

For examples, take approval and let`s use it as you said to build a proportional model. It is obvious that it would introduce a bias toward parties with the same program or alike. Imagine all ridings with 3 parties at first, each with a 33% support. Then one of the party (Liberal for example) would split into three others over a detail, presenting 3 candidates for each riding. Instead of approving only my liberal candidate I would approve all three candidates. So the final support toward every party would now be measured as 20% for every party. Clearly the fractional support
becomes dependent of the number of candidates using such a method...

Works calls back, I will continue later.

Steph
PS: If you are interested SPPA on fairvote canada's site deals
with such issues...


> 
> De: "John B. Hodges" <jbhodges at usit.net>
> Date: 2003/09/23 mar. AM 09:46:18 GMT-04:00
> À: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com
> Subject: [EM] Dumb question
> 
> As a method of proportional representation, for electing members of a 
> legislature, what would be the drawbacks of using Open Party List, 
> with Approval voting (Or, for that matter, ranked-pairs Condorcet) to 
> rank the candidates on each party's list? Candidate with greatest 
> number of approvals goes to the head of the list, candidate with 
> second-greatest number goes second, and so forth.
> 
> One obvious tactic the nefarious party bosses could use would be to 
> field only the number of candidates they expected the party could win 
> seats for; this would nullify the effect of the open list. This 
> tactic could be countered by legally requiring each party to put on 
> the ballot everyone who had gathered X number of signatures from 
> party members supporting their candidacy. Essentially this would 
> require each party to hold a party primary, aspirants qualifying to 
> be candidates by gathering signatures from some percent of party 
> members. In the general election, anyone who votes for that party can 
> either accept the ordered list that the party bosses provide, or fill 
> out their approvals or rankings of the specific candidates on the 
> list. The number of seats granted to the party would be proportional 
> to the percent of voters who voted for that party, and who gets the 
> seats would be determined by the approvals or rankings each candidate 
> got.
> 
> So, repeating the question: as a method of PR for legislative 
> elections, what's wrong woth this picture?
> -- 
> ----------------------------------
> John B. Hodges, jbhodges@  @usit.net
> Do Justice, Love Mercy, and Be Irreverent.
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>