[EM] [Election-Methods] [english 94%] PR favoring racialminorities

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Aug 15, 2008, at 9:23 AM, Juho wrote:

> On Aug 15, 2008, at 18:45 , Jonathan Lundell wrote:
>
>> On Aug 15, 2008, at 7:40 AM, James Gilmour wrote:
>>
>>>> Jobst Heitzig said:
>>>>> It is of no help for a minority to be represented proportionally  
>>>>> when
>>>>> still a mere 51% majority can make all decisions!
>>>
>>>> raphfrk replied
>>>> I disagree.  The advantage is that it allows 'on the fly'
>>>> coalition re-organisation.
>>>
>>> I also disagree, but for a different reason and even when there is  
>>> no chance at all of on-the-fly coalition re-organisation.  A
>>> minority of 49% can be very effective in holding the majority to  
>>> account and ensuring that the majority's proposals and decisions
>>> are subject to public scrutiny.  Here in Scotland, our 32 local  
>>> authority councils were all elected from single-member wards (small
>>> electoral districts) by FPTP.  We had become used to one-party  
>>> states, like Glasgow City Council where one party could hold 74 out
>>> of 79 seats for just 49.6% of the votes city-wide, or Midlothian  
>>> Council where one party held 17 of the 18 seats with just 46% of
>>> the votes.  When such distorted one-party rule persists for  
>>> several decades the political effects are very serious.  But we  
>>> put an
>>> end to that in May 2007 when we elected all our councillors by STV- 
>>> PR.  Now there is effective opposition and scrutiny in every
>>> council and the minority voices are heard.
>>
>> We see something like that in my local five-member school district  
>> (on the California coast hard by Silicon Valley). The electorate is  
>> factionalized (never mind the issues) and there's a consistent  
>> 55-60% majority that elects all five members. As a consequence, the  
>> board can hold closed meetings with impunity. STV-PR (these are  
>> nonpartisan elections, so party lists are out) would solve the  
>> problem nicely. (Full disclosure: I ran for the board a few years  
>> ago, losing respectably.)
>
> If you have some issue X, wouldn't it also be natural to have one  
> list "for X" and one list "against X"? I.e. lists but not "party  
> lists". You may need to arrange the candidates anyway according to  
> their opinions in some "lists" to make it clear to the voters who  
> are "against" and who are "for". STV-PR gives the voters some  
> flexibility that the list (or tree) based methods do not give but  
> here I didn't see anything special that would speak against the use  
> of lists. (Lists may also be more practical in some cases, e.g. if  
> the number of candidates is high.)

What JG said.

Also, such a scheme would be, I think, highly susceptible to agenda  
manipulation: who decides which issue is to be effectively on the  
ballot, and who decides that the candidates associated with X and not- 
X are sincere? In a party system, we generally have a degree of party  
discipline such that a voter has some reasonable expectation that a  
candidate on the party list will in fact vote for the party agenda.  
Not so for ad hoc issue-based lists.

Candidates can choose to emphasize issues (maybe X vs not-X, maybe  
others) that they think will garner voter support. Perhaps a candidate  
will successfully make the case that Y is a more important issue than  
X, once the campaign is underway. If he can persuade the voters, he  
can be elected under STV-PR, which is how it should be, according to me.

STV-PR seems most appropriate here, where the voter votes for a  
candidate who will be a relatively independent agent when elected.  
Voters are then free to listen to candidates making their cases and  
vote accordingly.

>
>
>> I'm a little skeptical of supermajority or consensus systems, which  
>> can easily lead to paralysis if an sufficient minority simply  
>> refuses to compromise. The California state budget rules are a case  
>> in point; a 2/3 majority is required in both legislative houses to  
>> pass a budget. The result is a perennial budget stalemate.
>
> In that kind of questions either a simple majority should be enough,  
> or alternatively one could only reopen the discussion with >1/3  
> support but at the second round simple majority would be enough. I  
> think supermajorities have a more natural role e.g. when changing  
> (or amending) constitution.