[EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[Juho Laatu]

I was also looking for pure proportional representation. The compromise decisions would take place after the election in a representative body or in a government. The election methods need not be tampered. My theory was just that in the case that the majority (of parties) that forms the government is considerably larger than 51% the decisions could have wider support than in the typical 51+% governments of a two-party system. The larger government would have to make compromises that are at least acceptable to all parties in the government.

Juho


On 6.8.2011, at 17.39, James Gilmour wrote:

>> Juho Laatu  > Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 5:12 PM
>>> On 4.8.2011, at 14.21, James Gilmour wrote:
>>> There is only one real issue in elections: representation of the 
>>> voters.
>>> 
>>> If in a single winner partisan election the voters vote 51% for A and 
>>> 49% for B, we have a major problem in representation.
>> 
>> Ok, 49% of the voters without representation.
> 
> This throws the problem into its sharpest perspective.  There are related, difficult problems when there are three, four or more
> candidates for the one seat.
> 
> 
>> If one uses single-member districts to elect multiple 
>> representatives, then this means also some randomness in the 
>> results. This is not really a problem of single-winner 
>> methods themselves but a problem in how they are used (as 
>> multi-winner methods).
> 
> I agree.  It is fundamentally wrong to use any single-winner, single-member district voting system to elect the members of a
> "representative assembly" (e.g. city council, state legislature).
> 
> 
>>> But if the voters vote in the same way (51% to 49%) in a two-member 
>>> election, any sensible voting system will give one seat to A and one 
>>> seat to B.
>>> 
>>> Compared to that difference in providing "representation of the 
>>> voters", all the other differences between single-winner and 
>>> multi-winner elections are trivial.
>> 
>> From this point of view single-winner methods are more 
>> "problematic" than multi-winner methods (at least when used 
>> to elect multiple representatives from single-member 
>> districts).
> 
> No  -  not just when (improperly) used to elect the members of a "representative assembly".  THE problem is inherent in the
> single-winner election.   As you go on to say in your next comment.
> 
>> This problem of single-winner methods is quite 
>> impossible to fix (most single-winner methods respect the 
>> will of the majority).
> 
> The extreme problem (51% to 49%) is impossible to fix and so it is the greatest challenge in electoral science to obtain the "most
> representative" outcome.  In the two-candidate election, the best we can do is to guarantee representation to the majority.
> 
> 
>> The 51% vs. 49% problem is present also in accurately 
>> proportional representative bodies since also those bodies 
>> may make majority decisions. One way to alleviate this kind 
>> of narrow majority related problems is to seek compromise 
>> decisions.
> 
> I have to part company with you here.  It should NOT, in my view, be part of the function of the voting system to manipulate the
> votes to obtain any outcome other than "representation of the voters".  It is not part of the function of a voting system to "seek
> consensus".
> 
> If the voters want to vote for candidates who will seek consensus, that's fine  -  but that is very different for making "seek
> consensus" an objective of the voting system.
> 
> The function of the voting system should simply be to return the "most representative" result in terms of representing the voters,
> as expressed by the voters' responses to the candidates who have offered themselves for election.
> 
> "Seeking consensus" and "not seeking consensus" are aspects of how the elected members will behave within the elected assembly.  And
> of course, the voters may rightly take such views into account in their assessments of the candidates before they cast their votes.
> But that is just part of candidate appraisal.  Given a sensitive voting system, the outcome (seats won) will reflect the views of
> the voters, which may include views on "seeking consensus".
> 
> James
> 
> 
>> That is what in principle happens e.g. in 
>> coalition governments. Coalition governments may represent 
>> well over 50% of the voters. Let's assume that this is the 
>> case. The program of the government may contain multiple 
>> topics that would be 51% vs. 49% questions in the 
>> representative body or among the voters, but probably all 
>> coalition members will get more than they lose. Let's assume 
>> that the coalition is heterogeneous so that it does not agree 
>> on all the 51% vs. 49% decisions that is has to make. Maybe 
>> there are two 51% vs. 49% topics that go the right way 
>> against every one such topic that goes wrong. In that way we 
>> don't have a narrow majority that always makes 51% decisions 
>> but a supermajority that has considerably higher support behind
>>  everything it does (although all parties of the coalition 
>> do not like all the decisions).
>> 
>> In two-party systems the balance is based more on two 
>> alternating policies. Often both parties have quite centrist 
>> policies since both try to meet the needs of the median 
>> voters. In some topics they may however have also clearly 
>> opposite positions. I guess the overall policy and results of 
>> two-party system governments are typically more 51% majority 
>> driven than in multi-party governments. (Coalition 
>> governments may however also have only narrow majority and 
>> the coalitions may be quite fixed, e.g. left vs. right, and 
>> as a result their decisions may follow the 51% majority style.)
>> 
>> My point is just that in addition to multi-winner methods and 
>> proper PR one may need "the art of compromise decisions" to 
>> get rid of the strongest 51% vs. 49% . This discussion went 
>> already quite far from the technical properties of the 
>> single-winner methods, but maybe this kind of compromise 
>> making related problems can be considered to be one key 
>> problem that the different methods and their use in societies 
>> should try to address (if the case that one wants to replace 
>> "the dictatorship of narrow majority" with "horse trading 
>> deals of larger majorities").
>> 
>> Juho
>