[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics

[Juho]

On May 8, 2008, at 5:52 , Fred Gohlke wrote:

> re: "I already commented earlier that the "groups of three" based  
> method that you have studied does not implement proportionality in  
> the traditional way."
>
> You're right.  It's not traditional, but it sure is proportional.   
> One of the unspecified conditions I intended for the 'groups of  
> three' method was that participation in the election process should  
> be mandatory, as it is in (I believe) Australia, Singapore and New  
> Zealand.  If every person in the electorate participates in the  
> process of selecting those who will represent them in their  
> government, there can be no greater proportionality.

Well, I think proportionality is at its best / strongest when n% of  
the voters get n% of the seats. Extensive participation in the  
election process is a good thing but "proportionality" is not a very  
descriptive name for this.

> re: "Large parties (or whatever opinion camps) tend to get more  
> representatives to the higher layers (more than their proportional  
> size is)."
>
> Is that assertion not based on the assumption that large parties  
> (or opinion camps) must dominate our political existence?

Only on the (country independent) technical properties of the "groups  
of three" method.

(If there are e.g. two parties, one small and one large, the  
probability of getting two small party supporters (that would elect  
one of them to the next higher level) in a group of three is so small  
that in the next higher level the number of small party supporters is  
probably lower than at this level.)

Juho





	
	
		
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