[EM] No geographical districts

Juho juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk
Thu Sep 11 06:30:06 PDT 2008 

On Sep 5, 2008, at 4:00 , Stéphane Rouillon wrote:

> Hello Juho,
>
> using age, gender or other virtual dimension to build virtual  
> districts
> replaces geographic antagonism by generation antagonism.

Ok, also that may happen. Each society should pick dimensions that  
suit them best. (I'm just listing different options.)

> The idea is to get equivalent sample that are not opposed by  
> intrinsec construction.

If the intention is not to divide people to groups that defend the  
interests of that group (or just feel like being part of the same  
group), then one could get rid of the districts altogether and use  
only one nation wide district.

> 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. If you split representative  
> into groups who have divergent opinions, the result will not  
> optimize common interest, it will only illustrate the "rapport de  
> force"
> (maybe translated as power struggle) between the representatives.  
> Age representatives would hardly stay neutral while deciding  
> retirement fees and pensions for example.
>
> The Irish senate based on profession seems one step toward getting  
> neutral decision takers
> for deciding the localization of projects for example.
> I prefer equivalent samples of the entire electorate (phone numbers  
> or hash tables using names could work too, but it has some slight  
> discrepancies and problems...)

Yes, if one wants to avoid any groupings (like age groups, regional  
groups, races, political parties) then maybe electing a random set of  
citizens (trying to avoid giving them the opportunity to organize  
themselves) could be the best approach. Some groupings are however  
likely to emerge afterwards even if we would elect the  
representatives by some random selection method.

Juho


>> From: Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk>
>> To: Election Methods Mailing List <election-methods at electorama.com>
>> Subject: Re: [EM] No geographical districts
>> Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 00:13:34 +0300
>>
>> 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
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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