[EM] [Election-Methods] [english 94%] PRfavoringracialminorities

[Raph Frank]

On 8/18/08, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:
>  That sounds like MMP. I think MMP can work if done right (with STV instead
> of FPTP as base, and reweighting to avoid lista civetta). Using party list
> here is probably better than the party-neutral version where you'd rank
> representatives for local, regional, and national levels, and then it keeps
> the reweighting at each stage; simply because there would be an immense
> number of candidates at the national level, and ranking them all would be
> Herculean.

It is different to MMP as it only counts
votes which don't elect someone locally.

In the MMP situation, it would be like having
a rule that only votes which don't vote for the
local winner count for working out proportionality
at the national level.

(Though this is inexact as in single seaters, the
'quota' would be nearly 100% of the local
votes cast, so nobody would be elected locally).

One possible issue is that voters would
just vote for their party's local candidates
and then for their party's national list, i.e.
it would greatyly decrease the importance
of cross party transfers.

This would eliminate the need for partys
to be civil to each other as it reduces the
need to avoid alienating the supporters of
other parties.

There would be little need for voting pacts
and the like.

OTOH, it is likely that things like personal
votes would still matter for the local stage.

Also, it would be giving voters what they
want.

I think parties would allow freedom for their
candidates when setting lists, as long as
they rank all party members before non-party
members.  For example, a candidate
might rank candidates from nearby
constituencies before ones that are
far away.  Alternatively, they might
rank members who are in the same
wing of the party near the top.

It could work like:

- before the election each candidate submits
their list ranking any other candidates (they
aren't allowed rank local candidates here).

- PR-STV is run at the local level as normal, except

Exhausted ballots remain with the last candidate
to hold the vote (or perhaps the voter directly selects
who the ballot goes to).

The quota is the same nationwide

- Once local counts are completed, national level
PR-STV fills the remaining seats

The votes that each candidate retains at the end
(i.e. exhausted ballots) are cast for their candidate
list at the national level.

A voter who supports a small party might just vote
for that party's candidate as first choice.  when the
candidate is eliminated, the candidate would
continue to hold the vote and it would be cast for
the party's list in the national level PR-STV.  This
would allow small/distributed parties to get people
elected.