[EM] PR for USA or UK

[Andy Jennings]

On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 7:45 AM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>wrote:

> And so I'd like to suggest that we should be looking for a PR system which
> satisfies the following criteria:
>
> 1. Truly proportional (of course). I would be willing to support a
> not-truly-proportional system, but I'm not everyone. Egregious compromises
> on this issue will simply reduce the activist base, to no benefit.
> 2. Includes a geographical aspect. People are attached to the "local
> representation" feature of FPTP, whether that's rational or not.
> 3. No "closed list". A party should not be able to completely shield any
> member from the voters. In general, voter power is preferable to party
> power, insofar as it's compatible with the next criterion.
> 4. Simple ballots. A reasonably-thorough voter should not have to mark more
> than, say, 5 candidates or options, and an average ballot should not list
> more than 20 candidates or options. Those are extreme limits; simpler is
> better, all the way down to around 7 options (of which only around half will
> be salient and/or viable).
> 5. Ideally, the smoothest transition possible. If existing single-winner
> districts can be used unchanged, all the better.
> 6. Insofar as it's compatible with the criteria above, greater freedom in
> voting is better. For instance, if ballots are printed with only in-district
> candidates, a system which allows out-of-district write-ins is better than
> one which doesn't, all other things being equal.
>

I'm interested both in systems which satisfy 2 and those that don't.  If we
could identify a good, truly proportional, at-large system, then a state
with a bicameral legislature (like Arizona) could leave one house as
geographical and change one to be at-large proportional.


My proposal for SODA-PR satisfies and surpasses all 5 criteria. Other
> systems which do reasonably well:
> -I've seen a proposal for single-member districts and open party lists.
> This is similar to my SODA-PR system, except that it requires that all
> candidates in a party approve the same party set. As such, it is strictly
> worse on criterion 3, without being notably better on any of the other
> criteria. It is more conventional, though.
> -Multimember districts, with some system inside each district.
> -Mixed member systems.
>

We should add Fair Majority Voting, by Balinski.  (
http://mathaware.org/mam/08/EliminateGerrymandering.pdf)  Here's the
summary:  Parties run one candidate in each district and voters vote for one
candidate in the race in their district.  The votes are totaled nationwide
by party and an apportionment method is used to decide how many seats each
party deserves.  Each party is assigned a "multiplier" and the winner in
each district is the one whose (vote total times party multiplier) is
highest.  The multipliers can be chosen so that the final total seats won by
each party matches the number of seats assigned by the apportionment method.

It definitely satisfies your criteria 1,2,4, and 5.  I'd say it mostly
satisfies 3.  Don't know how to evaluate 6.  The main thing I don't like
about it is that it conflates voting for a candidate with voting for his
party.  What if I like the candidate but not the party, or vice versa?  But
since so many things in the legislature happen on a party basis, I've
decided that this is not as bad as it first seems.



> Still, I would argue that SODA-PR sets a high water mark on all the
> criteria I mentioned, and is therefore the system to beat. I'm somewhat
> surprised that it hasn't gotten more comments.
>

I still have it starred in my inbox to look at more in depth.  Sorry.  I'm
drowning in things at the moment.


Andy
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