[EM] Populism and Voting Theory

[James Gilmour]

Raph Frank  > Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 2:45 PM
> Anyway, you would rank PR-STV behind single winner election methods?

This is an illogical question.  By definition, "single winner elections methods" are for electing single winners.  By definition
"PR-STV" is for obtaining proportionality of the voters for which several winners must be elected together.  So you are not
comparing like with like.

Single winner voting systems should, of course, be used only for single-office elections, like city mayor or state governor.  Single
winner voting methods should never be used to elect assemblies, like a city council or a state legislature.

In contrast, PR-STV is a voting system that in its PR form can be use only to elect an assembly, either at large or in parts (from
two or more multi-member electoral districts).

There is, of course, a separate debate about the nature of assemblies elected by PR voting systems (of different kinds) and those
elected by single-winner voting systems.  But that is essentially a political debate about how representative or how distorted you
want the assembly to be, and about some of the other effects of some single-winner voting systems, such as the tendency of some
single-winner voting systems to manufacturing single-party majorities within the assembly even when no such majority exists among
the voters.  Some see such distortion of the voters' wishes as highly undesirable, while others see that distortion as highly
desirable, indeed, as an essential feature of the political system for "good and effective government".

James Gilmour

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