[Election-Methods] Matrix voting and cloneproof MMP questions

[Markus Schulze]

Dear James Gilmour,

you wrote (10 July 2008):

 > If you are going to mess about with MMP to the
 > extent that you suggest in the hope of making
 > some significant improvements to what is
 > basically a very poor voting system, why not
 > just adopt STV-PR and do the job properly?

When you promote pure STV in a country that
already uses proportional representation by
party lists, then you will be accused immediately
that you were dishonest and that your real aim
was to increase the effective threshold to gain
representation.

My own experience says that, when you want to
promote STV in a country that already uses
proportional representation by party lists,
then your proposal must contain provisions
to compensate party proportionality on the
national level. Otherwise, your proposal is
a non-starter.

Markus Schulze