[EM] Who is your representative under Asset Voting?

[Jan Kok]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
<abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
>> - If you vote for someone who gets more than the quota, then the
>> excess votes get passed on to help elect other candidates. So who did
>> you elect? Who is your representative?
>
> You elected your representative, the one you voted for, or the one your
> representative voted for. The contingency that your representative votes for
> more than one exists, but can be handled. I think it will probably be rare.
> If I have N votes to assign, I can gain maximum access to one whom I choose
> and give all my votes to, than by distributing them. I then distribute my
> influence, diluting it and making it less significant.

Suppose I as an elector have .4 of quota and am forced to give away my
assets and drop out. And suppose there are two candidates C and D that
I'm happy with who each have .8 of quota. I could give all my assets
to C and let him distribute the excess to whoever he wants (which
might not be D). Or I could split my assets and push both C and D over
the top.

Wouldn't you rather have TWO "representatives"?

My point is that in any PR system, I don't think it makes sense to say
that you have exactly _one_, specific "representative". And I don't
think it matters.

What I think is important is being able to get your ideas put in front
of the legislature. You want access to whichever legislators might be
friendly to your ideas. With Asset Voting, as you point out, your best
bet is to go through your elector, who can send your idea up through
the lattice of electors to an elected representative.

So there could be an advantage for electors to distribute assets to
multiple candidates. If C doesn't like your idea, maybe D will. And if
D doesn't, maybe E or F (who I like but who were already elected by
the time I had to distribute my assets) would be interested.