[Election-Methods] Fwd: Measuring power in a multi winner election

Sat Sep 22 23:01:27 PDT 2007

Second try

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Date: September 22, 2007 1:23:31 GMT+03:00
> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] Measuring power in a multi winner  
> election
>
> Some random observations on the theme.
>
> "Seats != power" seems to assume that there is a hard party  
> discipline (=all party representatives will/must vote as told by  
> the party). Or alternatively representatives could have different  
> weights (different number of votes each).
>
> You skipped the "normal" rule of proportional systems where votes =  
> seats quite quickly. It has its problems but I guess also possible  
> power measurement based methods would have some problems. Let's say  
> there is a rule that one can modify the constitution with 75% of  
> the votes. There are three parties: 45%, 45% and 10%. Should we now  
> give the smallest party more power by allowing it to modify the  
> constitution together with one large party in some cases (with only  
> 55% of the votes)?
>
> With 50% limit and parties 30%, 30%, 30%, 10%, should we allow  
> minority decisions in some cases to allow the small party to decide  
> in some cases?
>
> One alternative approach would be to require higher percentage of  
> votes in some cases, e.g. after decisions have been made with lower  
> percentages for few times. In this case 30%+30% would not be enough  
> any more in some cases but the the approval limit would go up from  
> 50% e.g. to 65% at some point.
>
> Note that if the parties will make majority decisions that then  
> require all the party representatives to vote as decided this means  
> that some of the party representatives may have to vote against  
> their will. The party is allowed to wield power but part of the  
> representatives will wild the power against themselves. The party  
> has power but the representatives and supporters would in some  
> cases be hurt by this power (maybe the alternative that lost had  
> majority support among (all) the representatives and voters). The  
> party "won" but maybe not all of its representatives and supporters.
>
> I guess the basic idea behind party discipline is that this way the  
> party is able to reach a better negotiation position. A party that  
> is internally split 50%-50% on some question can still do horse  
> trading and agree with some other party to support that party in  
> this vote if that party will support this this party in some future  
> vote. The power of the parties now follows the power measurement  
> schemes instead of "votes = power". But in principle parties that  
> together have sufficient majority may take a dictator role. It is  
> hard to design systems that would eliminate the possibility of this  
> kind of party negotiation level voting discipline (if one party can  
> do this, why not a group of parties too).
>
> Voting methods that would take the power measurement aspects into  
> account may give more power to the small parties in order to allow  
> them to decide more than they would otherwise be allowed to. This  
> could lead to a strategic for the big parties to split at least  
> formally but still after the elections use strong party discipline  
> that would now cover all the party fragments.
>
> How about using the more traditional votes = seats method and  
> discouraging the use of the party discipline? That could be just a  
> recommendation, or maybe a rule that would ban disciplinary actions  
> towards representatives that have voted against the party majority  
> opinion. One approach would be to introduce more structure in the  
> party structure. I have few times promoted the idea of allowing a  
> tree like structure within the parties (and between them too). That  
> would make it easier to the right or green wing of a party to vote  
> differently than the rest of the party (they could feel close to  
> being required to do so in some "right" or "green" situations).
>
> Also methods that do not rely on the party structure (e.g. STV) are  
> more likely to lead to a having representatives that will make  
> independent decisions, maybe sometimes working together with other  
> right wing representatives, sometimes together with other greenish  
> representatives etc.
>
> I'm not aware of methods that would take some of the power  
> measurement formula into account.
>
> I welcome multi-winner discussions. No need and no reason to limit  
> the discussions to the single-winner theme. (What would be the  
> reason to do so? Often single-winner and multi-winner systems are  
> alternatives to each others => both needed to cover the field  
> properly.)
>
> Juho
>
>
> On Sep 21, 2007, at 18:22 , Howard Swerdfeger wrote:
>
>> I know that this list is primarily single winner elections but I  
>> thought
>>   given the low volume as of late a slight change of topic would  
>> be welcome.
>>
>> with that, I was wondering about multi winner elections. specifically
>> the  parliamentary kind typical of most former British colonies.
>>
>> Do to the inadequacies of the FPTP system in creating a government  
>> many
>> of these countries are looking at alternative systems, New Zealand  
>> moved
>> to MMP, Scotland as well, BC tried to once, and will try again  
>> move to
>> STV, Ontario is looking at MMP.
>>
>> The drive behind thes moves it usually that the old system fails to
>> translate votes into seats "fairly". (Votes != Seats)
>>
>> but most of these reforms fail to recognize that that Seats do not  
>> equal
>> power. So we are still still stuck with a similar problem (votes ! 
>> = power)
>>
>> I was looking into 2 methods of measuring power in a weighted  
>> voting system.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banzhaf_Power_Index
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley-Shubik_power_index
>>
>> I was wondering first if there are any methods of measuring power  
>> in a
>> legislature that I am unaware of? Secondly if anybody has tried to
>> design a generic system where by votes are kept proportional to  
>> power,
>> via allocation of seats?
>>
>> ----
>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for  
>> list info
>

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