[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics + a method proposal

[Juho]

On Jun 2, 2008, at 1:58 , Fred Gohlke wrote:

> You apparently found aspects of my suggestion unacceptable.

I think that the Active Democracy / "groups of three based method" is  
ok.  I just pointed out that it does not guarantee full proportional  
representation.  There are however many kind of elections and not all  
of them require strict proportionality.

> Therefore, it seemed worthwhile to encourage the development of a  
> different approach.

The vote counting of the new proposed method used (conventional)  
summing of the votes.  I was expecting something more radical from  
you :-), maybe in line with your "groups of three" style or in line  
with the random ballot and other styles that I discussed.  But the  
nomination process is anyway something that clearly differs from  
typical current methods and is very "bottom-up" as I'd expect from  
you.  The method seems to be quite open for anyone to become a  
candidate.

The rules still seem to contain many options (not as carefully  
thought yet as the Active Democracy method).  They resemble Range  
voting in the way how the given preferences are summed up.  The  
method also seems to have some elements of IRV in how the "order of  
preference" was handled in the votes (it was not quite clear from the  
explanation if this ordering was used to actually elect the  
candidates or just check which ones are electable).

> An aspect of Active Democracy that may have escaped notice is:
>
> "The process is inherently bi-directional.  Because each elected  
> official sits atop a pyramid of known electors, questions on  
> specific issues can easily be transmitted directly to and from the  
> electors for the guidance or instruction of the official."

Yes, this relationship is strong.  The length of the contact chain is  
relatively long because of the small size of the groups.  Some  
members of the groups may also not consider the elected member to  
represent themselves.  If the groups are formed geographically based  
on where people live then the method will obviously create strong  
"local representation".

Juho





		
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