[EM] PR favoring racial minorities

[James Gilmour]

Raph Frank > Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 10:22 PM
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 7:23 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm 
> > If the voters vote a straight party ticket, wouldn't the method reduce 
> > to party list PR? Well, a strange sort of party list PR that allocates 
> > some of the seats according to a quota rule and others according to a 
> > divisor method, but party list PR nonetheless.

> Right.  One of the features of STV is that parties tend to 
> try not to alienate (much) the supporters of other parties.
> 
> In 2007, the Greens got 4.7% of the FPV and 3.6% of the 
> seats. SF got more FPV (6.9%) but fewer seats 2.4%.
> 
> This was because none of the other parties' supporters were 
> willing to transfer to them, due to their links to the IRA.
> 
> It is probably a matter of opinion if that is a good or bad feature.

Surely, this is not a matter of opinion?  Surely, the result obtained was more representative of the expressed wishes of the voters
than if SF had won more seats than the Greens?   Irrespective of the policies of the parties involved, it is the wishes of the
voters as recorded by their preferences on the ballot papers that should be the criterion for assessing the results from any
particular voting system.

James

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