[EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not

[Juho]

I commented in another mail that any system where people can change  
the system itself can be said to be a democracy. Even a two party  
system that bans third parties may still fall within this definition.  
Also multi-party systems have the same problem although in a milder  
form. The representatives of the voters may well make decisions that  
the voters do not approve, and they may not make decisions that the  
voters want. That is possible as long as the representatives do not  
get so arrogant in doing this that the voters would use their power to  
focus on this particular question in the (few) coming elections an  
force the system to change. Direct democracy is more direct than the  
two above mentioned forms of indirect representative democracy.

(I'll once more advocate tree voting a bit. One key idea behind it is  
that it would be possible that members and voters of all leading  
parties would form a pro-x interest group within their own party. Once  
all these subgroups within each party would grow and together reach  
 >50% of all the seats then that change (x) would happen. This change  
would take place in a very peaceful way, allowing the voters to stay  
within their "own" parties without the need to abandon them or vote  
against them or disagree with them, just slowly changing the opinion  
balance within these parties.)

Juho


On Nov 3, 2009, at 7:45 PM, James Gilmour wrote:

> Kristofer Munsterhjelm  > Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:34 PM
>>> James Gilmour wrote:
>>> Why in any country that would merit the description "democracy"  
>>> would
>>> you want to impose a "two-party system" when the votes of the voters
>>> showed that was not what they wanted?
>>
>> That is my question, too.
>
> Maybe what the "two-party" advocates really want is guaranteed  
> single-party majority government.  If that IS what they want, there
> is a VERY simple and effective electoral solution.  If no party wins  
> an absolute majority of the votes and seats, give 55% of the
> seats to the party that wins the largest number of votes and divide  
> the remaining seats among the other parties in proportion to the
> their shares of the votes.
>
> It has been done and it works.  Importantly, it's honest.  It sets  
> out clearly what is considered to be the over-riding electoral
> criterion and it fulfils it.  In the UK we suffer from a lot of  
> nonsense about the desirability of single-party majority government
> and even worse nonsense about the importance of FPTP in securing  
> that.  In fact, in two of the most critical elections since 1945,
> when the government of the day (one Labour, one Conservative) was  
> seeking a renewed mandate for the continuation of its policies,
> FPTP elected the wrong government. In both cases the outgoing  
> government won the referendum on its policies (votes) and lost the
> election (seats).
>
> James Gilmour
>
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