[EM] Unicameral single-member + PR in Germany (Re: Competitive Districting Rule)

[Claes Wallin]

James Gilmour wrote:
> If you want a bicameral legislature, why would you want one chamber
> elected so that it is unrepresentative of those who voted for its
> members?  You can have both districts and PR for the same chamber.
> Of course, you cannot have single-member districts and PR, but STV-PR
> offers a good compromise of effective local representation (in
> modestly sized multi-member districts) and overall PR.

I may misunderstand your statement, but the German system for the
national parliament is exactly "single-member districts and PR".

You cast one vote for a FPP election of your district representative,
and one vote for a proportional list election. The districts get half
the chamber and the other half is filled with party representatives, so
that the total chamber represents the list vote. The party
representatives are the people who ran for district but weren't elected
in the first round. The district reps not supported by the proportional
vote get their seats as extras beside the proportional system.

This system could be subverted if two similar parties decided to
instruct their voter to vote for party A in the district and party B
nation-wide. If A+B have 50% and C has 50%, this would yield
(A,B,C) = (20%,40%,40%), since A would recieve extra seats worth 25% of
the base seats. (25%,50%,50%), so to speak.

Makes you wonder why the CDU voters didn't all vote for FDP in the local
elections.

   /c

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 249 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20060718/0e66152d/attachment-0003.pgp>