[EM] Why proportional elections - Power arguments needed (Czech green party)

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Kristoffer, dear readers,

Kristofer, you wrote below: "A minor opinion within the party might need
time to grow, and might in the end turn out to be significant, but using a
winner-takes-it-all method quashes such minority opinions before they get
the chance."

Thanks, yes I have used this line of argument a lot (we actually have a
global charter of the greens, according to which the greens are obliged
to put the same principles into practice in thei organizations as they work
for in society).
The problem is, that this argument does not "stick", it is simply not sexy.

Would it be possible to measure the "utility" or "happiness" among the
voters in the party compared to different election methods. I saw you
Kristofer did some work on this but I didn't understand it, I guess I lack
the preliminaries.

I guess the notion of "Bayesian regret" or something similar could be used
to argue that proportional elections are better than block-voting, but I
have no idea of how to explain this, as I don't know the subject at all
(pareto optimal social allocations, or whatever).

It seems intuitive that economic tools could be used (I know almost no
economics), since ranked ballot elections simply are explicitly stated
preference orderings.

I guess that voting and elections, could be indeed one of the best
imaginable real-world examples, where preference orderings of the
actors actually are known, and thus all of the machinery of economic
equilibria and social welfare functions could be applied (like the
Bernoulli-Nash social welfare function).

I am personally interested in the possiblity of measuring utility, is there
some (preferably short) literature on social welfare, utility and voting
theory for proportional elections (I know some undergrad maths and
statistics)?

Best regards
Peter

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 1:03 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:

> Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>  thank you for your help with the election system for the council
>> elections of the green party.
>> I will try to move on with technical testing of Schulze's methods and the
>> specification of the elections to the party lists as soon as time allows.
>> Thanks all for the support and all methods supplied.
>> I never could imagine that I would get such a response.
>> When advocating proportional elections in the party, I have found it
>> difficult to explain to other members of the green party why proportional
>> elections to our party organs is a good thing.
>>
>
> As far as I remember, your party, the Czech Green Party, is a minor party.
> Therefore, it might be possible to draw an analogy to the proportional
> methods used by the Czech Republic itself. Without proportional
> representation, the Green Party would have next to no chance of ever getting
> into parliament. However, since your nation does use proportional
> representation, there is some chance.
>
> The same argument could be used within the party. Since the Green Party is
> a minor party, I reason that the party membership honestly believes the
> presence of that party is a good thing. Thus, they would also know (to some
> extent, at least), that minor groups of opinion - like their own party in
> comparison to the major parties - can be good and can add valuable ideas to
> governance. Then could not the same argument be used for the party itself? A
> minor opinion within the party might need time to grow, and might in the end
> turn out to be significant, but using a winner-takes-it-all method quashes
> such minority opinions before they get the chance.
>
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