[EM] No geographical districts

[Juho]

Geographical proportionality is one specific dimension. Most other  
dimensions could be called political dimensions. Also groupings that  
do not live in any specific compact area could be called political  
groupings. In principle they could form a party and that way get a  
proportional number of representatives. (This is also in line with  
the geographical proportionality related target of guaranteeing  
representation from all _geographic_ areas.)

Many political systems have chosen geographical districts to be fixed  
in the sense that people automatically "vote" for the district where  
they live in. In the political dimension people are typically allowed  
to pick the group that they want to represent them.

It is possible to have election methods that support multiple  
dimensions, i.e. more than these two. One could e.g. simply have  
multiple orthogonal "party" structures and then in the vote counting  
process force the representatives to be elected so that  
proportionality will be respected in all dimensions.

There could be also additional "fixed dimensions" like automatic  
fixed sex or age based proportionality.

Some of the additional dimensions could also be "virtual districts"  
in the sense that each voter would be registered in exactly one of  
them, and probably also vote only for candidates that belong to one's  
own "virtual district". I understood that you would use virtual  
districts to replace the current geographical districts (and the  
geographical proportionality that they represent).

The simplest (not necessarily optimal) approach to implement multiple  
dimensions is one where you simply elect representatives starting  
from the ones with strongest support (e.g. best candidate of the  
largest party in the largest district), skip candidates that can not  
be elected any more (e.g. district already full, party already full),  
and continue until all seats have been filled. At some point in the  
chain all "requirements" of all dimensions are met if they are strong  
enough (and if there are suitable candidates left).

(Some dimensions could be one-directional in the sense that one would  
aim at guaranteeing  at least a proportional share of the seats but  
would not limit them to this number. For example one could allow all  
members of some minority to require proportional representation by  
marking this in their ballot. Other voters would however not be  
required to vote either for or against this minority. Any candidate  
(or any party, of any regions etc.) could belong to this group. One  
should however not allow these lists to overrule party  
proportionality or other "complete dimensions" (to avoid riding under  
two flags (party and "minority") and getting also corresponding  
double representation).)

Small ad here too. Trees (hierarchical candidate lists) offer  
multiple dimensions in a simplified framework, but with priorities  
involved too. One can e.g. be a greenish red or a reddish green.

Juho



On Sep 4, 2008, at 1:01 , Stéphane Rouillon wrote:

> Hello electorama fans,
>
> regarding that last comment, I invite those interested in non- 
> geographical district
> to consider astrological district. The idea is to obtain equivalent  
> samples of the electorate
> in term of any distribution (age, geography, profession, language,  
> religion,...) like
> poll survey use. For example, in Quebec with near 4 000 000  
> electors, we could
> obtain around 73 (73 x 5 = 365 days) of less than 55 000 electors  
> each.
> Thus electorate results could indicate a better performance from  
> some candidates
> instead of reflecting the district bias produced by its design.
> For example the first district could be formed with all Quebecors  
> born between
> 1st and 5th of january, the 2nd with Quebecors born between 6th and  
> 10th of january
> and so on...
>
> For more details of an electoral system using such "districts",  
> search for SPPA
> (Scrutin Préférentiel, Proportionel et Acirconscriptif in french).
> An english version is available on the electoral reform website
> of the British-Colombia citizen assembly.
>
> ...
>> However, even something like "they should be compact" favours some
>> people.  If you are part of a group that is spread evenly, then  
>> you do
>> worse if the districts are compact.  The problem is that philosophy
>> that districts should be geographically based.
>> ----
>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for  
>> list info
>
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for  
> list info


		
___________________________________________________________ 
Try the all-new Yahoo! Mail. "The New Version is radically easier to use" – The Wall Street Journal 
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html