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

[James Gilmour]

Raph Frank > Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 12:22 AM
> > Jonathan Lundell wrote:
> > I could see a kind of proxy front end to STV elections. I'm not sure 
> > I'm convinced it would be a good idea, or even practical to implement, 
> > but suppose that any person or group (including parties) could 
> > register an STV ranking, and a voter could select that ranking instead 
> > of ranking individual candidates.

I think this is fantasy for real public elections.  The practicalities and deadlines for nomination, the preparation of ballot
papers and the distribution of postal ballots are already so tight that allowing this further step after the candidates have been
nominated is not practical.  I am also extremely sceptical about its potential to contribute anything useful to the political
process.

 
> I think a reasonable compromise is the system where a voter 
> picks a list and can override it.  This could include a 
> system where any voter can register a list prior to the election.

I would recommend against any provision for "above the line voting" (picking an pre-ordered list) of any kind in STV-PR.  This is
standard in Australia but it has perverted STV-PR from being a sensitive voter-centred system to being little more than a
closed-list party-list PR system.  There are complicating factors in Australia that may have helped to drive the voting system in
this direction, specifically, compulsory voting, the requirement to mark preferences for all or a very number of the candidates, and
the large number of candidates a party must nominate in some States to be recognised as "a party".  "Above the line voting" suits
the registered political parties just fine, but it shifts the balance of power and accountability from the voters to the party
machines  -  just what STV-PR was designed to prevent.  And  I don't think registered "voter chosen lists" will ever get off the
ground.


> The voters can then pick one of the lists that made it to the 
> ballot or enter the write-in code for the list that they want 
> to use (or just leave blank to truncate after their 'manual' 
> rankings).
> 
> Combined with an override option this gives allows maximum 
> expression balanced with reasonable convenience.

There is no evidence, apart from Australia which has both compulsory voting and compulsory marking of preferences, that marking all
the preferences you want is in any way inconvenient for the voters.


> One nice feature of a list system without override is that it 
> allows much larger PR-STV elections.  If there was a limited 
> number of lists (say <5 lists per candidate) and each voter 
> picks one list as their ballot, then the polling stations can 
> just announce the total for each list.
> 
> In principle, it would allow a single PR-STV district for 
> electing a legislature with 100's of members.  (Though in 
> that case, the number of lists might be restricted to 1 per 
> candidate).  With the write in option, it wouldn't be that 
> restrictive, as all a minority party supporter would have to 
> remember is 1 number.

The evidence from countries which presently have single-member districts but are considering reform of the voting system, is that
electors want a balance between proportional representation of the main political groups AND guaranteed local representation.  It is
difficult enough to convince them that with STV-PR they really can get both with modestly sized multi-member districts.  It would be
impossible to persuade them of the benefits of PR reform if all the members were to be elected at large (UK House of Commons = 646
MPs, Scottish Parliament = 129 MSPs).  STV-PR was once viewed in this utopian way in the UK (in the 1880s), but now it is promoted
by practical reformers who are more attuned to the concerns of real electors.

James Gilmour


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