[EM] PR favoring racial minorities

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Aug 25, 2008, at 7:28 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:

> Jonathan Lundell wrote:
>> Apropos this general subject, David Hill wrote an article on the  
>> subject of STV with constraints (Voting matters <http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P1.HTM 
>> >). He concludes (and I agree):
>>> I believe that the approach given above is the best way, within  
>>> STV, to implement constraints but that they should not be employed  
>>> unless it cannot be avoided.
>>> The mechanisms of STV are already designed to give voters what  
>>> they want, so far as possible, in proportion to their numbers. It  
>>> should be for the voters to decide what they want, not for anyone  
>>> else to tell them what they ought to want.
>>>
>>> The magazine Punch in 1845 included "Advice to persons about to  
>>> marry - Don't". My advice on constraints is similar.
>
> Dividing a nation into districts before performing STV elections is  
> itself a constraint on the geographical distribution of the  
> candidates. If constraints should be done away with, do you think  
> that nations employing STV should have only one district? If not,  
> why not?
>

I think it's reasonable to restrict the size of an STV ballot somehow;  
presenting hundreds of candidates to a voter doesn't strike me as a  
great idea. Does the restriction need to be geographic? Perhaps not,  
but we see from the proliferation of mixed-member list systems that  
the idea of local access to representatives is attractive.

I suppose that with electronic voting, you could have the voting  
machine recommend candidates, Amazon.com-style. "Other voters who  
voted for Candidate X also voted for the following candidates...."

(That was a joke.)