[EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[James Gilmour]

You can also have minority government (usually single-party), where the majorities are by consensus, issue by issue, transcending
the parties.

Incidentally, what is "pure proportional representation"?  It is a term I have come across quite frequently.

James


> -----Original Message-----
> From: election-methods-bounces at lists.electorama.com 
> [mailto:election-methods-bounces at lists.electorama.com] On 
> Behalf Of Juho Laatu
> Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 5:38 PM
> To: EM list
> Subject: Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?
> 
> 
> 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
> > 
> 
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