[EM] British Colombia considering change to STV

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Sun, 3/5/09, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think a candidate list system is better though as it
> allows more
> general inheritance ordering.  Ofc, it is always going
> to be a
> tradeoff between precision and complexity (both for the
> count and for
> the voter).
> 
> Closed party list
> Open party list
> Tree based lists
> Candidate list
> PR-STV

Yes. In the above list the order of
inheritance moves from a party centric
model to a vote centric model. Party,
candidate and voter impact is different
in each case (and may vary also within
the categories).

> Party list would allow a much smaller ballot.

In some sense I'd be happy with a
system where "lazy" voters may just
point out one candidate (or even party)
while voters with more specific needs
could cast more detailed votes (e.g.
rank the candidates within a grouping
or just pick some random individuals).

> > Yes. One could try to limit the number of
> > candidates to keep voting easy from the
> > voter point of view and to keep the size
> > of the ballots sheets manageable.
> 
> I think a reasonable compromise here would be to allow
> candidates to
> register as official write-in candidates.  They could
> be given a code,
> and included on a list in the polling station.

One related topic:
When the number of candidates grows it
is possible to switch to codes only. In
the Finnish open list system ballots are
very simple. One just writes the number
of the candidate on a sheet of paper. It
would be possible to do also rankings,
maybe including party/group codes this
way. Maybe with some fixed small number
of slots in the ballot would be enough.
One has to write the numbers but on the
other hand there is no limit to the
number of candidates. Ballots are
simple.

> Also, candidates might form the tree based on geography
> rather than
> ideology.  Ofc, that would depend on what issues the
> voters think are
> important.

I tend to see geographical districts
as one form of proportionality. In
addition to ideological proportionality
requirements there may be regional
proportionality requirements. In a way
people living in district X are forced to
vote for the district X candidates.
(Typically the proportions are determined
based on number of citizens, not voters.)

(There could be also other simultaneous
proportionality requirements like sex,
ethnicity, age, religion or occupation
related. They could be mandated opinions
(like in the regional case) or voluntary
(like in the ideological case). And it is
possible to force many proportionalities
to be exact at the same time (unlike in
typical current systems where the
regional proportionality is exact and the
ideological proportionality is less exact
because ideological allocation is counted
separately at each district).)

Juho