[EM] No geographical districts

[Stéphane Rouillon]

Dear Raph,

your understanding is perfect.
Of course using still FPTP with virtual districts would typicaly produce an 
assembly with all the
seats of the same party. It was designed to be used with an open list 
system, as much proportional as possible (to the integrality limit). The 
list is filled from individual support gathered from
each candidates, having equivalent sample of the electorate let us suppose 
that the one which have the best results promote the best ideas. SPPA 
provides some other details like the possibility to vote None and an option 
to garantee an almost majoritarian government at most for stability purpose.

http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public/get_involved/submission/R/ROUILLON-65
You are welcome to comment. At least I hope you have fun reading it if you 
find the time.

>From: "Raph Frank" <raphfrk at gmail.com>
>To: "Stéphane Rouillon" <stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca>
>CC: juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk, election-methods at electorama.com
>Subject: Re: [EM] No geographical districts
>Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 02:25:24 +0100
>
>On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 2:00 AM, Stéphane Rouillon
><stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> > Hello Juho,
> >
> > using age, gender or other virtual dimension to build virtual districts
> > replaces geographic antagonism by generation antagonism.
> > The idea is to get equivalent sample that are not opposed by intrinsec
> > construction.
>
>A simple option would be to convert the date of birth into a number,
>but have the year the the least significant part..
>
>16-04-82 would become 160,482
>
>The public could then be sorted by those numbers.  In effect, you are
>splitting people by the day of the month they are born on, if there is
>a tie, you use month and only use year at the end.
>
>This would give a mix of ages, genders and any other measure in each 
>district.
>
>It is pretty much equivalent to just randomly distributing the voters
>between the districts, but unlike a random system, it is harder to
>corrupt.
>
> > Thus we may find neutral decision takers that will minimize the overall
> > bad impacts of a decision, thus maximize to the best of their knowledge
> > the decisions for all the electorate.
>
>You make a good point.  It would reduce the pork issue, but it gives
>minorities no representation.  A group with a majority will probably
>win all the seats.
>
>The probability of a group with 55% of the votes not getting a
>majority in all the districts would be tiny due to the law of large
>numbers.
>
>If that group is geographically concentrated, you are back where you 
>started.
>
> > The Irish senate based on profession seems one step toward getting 
>neutral
> > decision takers
> > for deciding the localization of projects for example.
>
>Professionals are also a defined group.
>
>However, I like your idea to use a group that is non-local to decide
>localisation issues.
>
>What about having 2 houses.  The geographic house is elected by
>PR-STV.  The national one is elected using your method.
>
>The geographic house might decide that a hospital needs to be build,
>but the national house would then decide where.
>
>Ofc, if the country was ethnically divided and the majority ethnic
>group lived in the East, then the national house would probably direct
>most projects in that direction.
>
>Btw, the Irish Senate looks (somewhat) good in theory, but doesn't
>actually work that way in practice.  The nominating boards (which
>represent different professions) have very little power.  The county
>councillors are the ones who actually vote for the Senators.  It is a
>secret ballot, but most councillors vote for their party (or as part
>of a voting pact).  This means that the Senate elections tend to
>follow the distribution of county councillor seats.
>
>The exception is the university seats, they are elected by graduates
>of certain universities (but not all ... grrr).
>
>Also, the Taoiseach (PM) gets to appoint a few.  The combination of
>the county councillor (the governing coalition should have at least a
>strong minority of those seats) and the fact that the Taoiseach gets
>to appoint some mean that generally the Government has an easy
>majority in the Senate.