[EM] What's wrong with the party list system?

[Juho Laatu]

On 3.7.2011, at 18.49, Kathy Dopp wrote:

> Someone from Europe on this list recently said that they did not like
> the party list system.  Why not?  Party list seems like a fair, simple
> system of electing legislators who represent people in approximately
> the same proportion that they exist in the electorate.  I have not
> found a better-sounding proportional system yet. So, what's wrong with
> the party list system?

I think list based methods are quite ok.

Some reasons why people don't like them:

- They don't like parties in general, they prefer methods like STV where there are (in principle) only individual candidates. In STV you can rank all your favourite candidates in the order you like without considering where on party changes to another. In list based methods you can usually vote only for one candidate.

- A vote to a candidate of a party will support all the candidates of that party (although you might hate some of them).

- In closed list based methods parties will dictate quite strongly which candidates will be elected. Note however that in open list based methods parties have no say on which ones of the nominated candidates will be elected.

- List based methods typically do not support proportionality within the party. In open lists typically those candidates that get most personal votes will be elected.

- People may like candidates that are totally independent and not tied to the command hierarchy of some party.

- Some people have complained that in open lists parties easily nominate some public figures (like TV stars) to collect votes. And often those public figures will be also elected. (This problem is present also in the closed lists.)


Some arguments that support the use of list based methods:

- They can offer very accurate proportional representation (depends on various parameters like district size and number of elected candidates).

- If there are very many candidates, then the idea of STV to rank all the candidates or many enough of them does not work very well. It is a tedious job to rank more than one hundred candidates.

- Ballots can be very simple and they need not be printed for each election just in time. E.g. just a blank paper where one writes the number of the preferred candidate.

- Parties offer a clear structure to the political field. People know what the candidates of certain party will stand for. Candidates can not market themselves with different conflicting arguments to different voter groups.

- With party lists people don't need to study numerous candidates and understand their opinions in detail in order to cast a sophisticated vote. That makes voting easier to people that are not very interested in politics. Knowing your party is enough. Identifying the best candidate within that party is not very crucial if the vote goes anyway to the best party.

- Some people like closed lists since they tend to elect people that have been found to be good and efficient within the party. (On the other hand this is a feature that some people hate, i.e. giving too much power to the party and lading figures within the party, and keeping the power within those circles that already have the power.)


One could also enhance the list based methods by combining them and STV style systems (e.g. less ranking needed if one ranks only candidates of one's own party). One could also enhance the list structure to a tree structure to support also party internal proportionality, or to give a better and easy to understand structure to the political space.


All in all, I think list based methods are good methods for proportional elections. And they can be improved if needed. You need to choose whether you want closed or open lists. They may not be good methods for elections where there is no existing party structure and where one does not want to create one (e.g. in some associations that are purely individual based).

Juho




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> Kathy Dopp
> http://electionmathematics.org
> Town of Colonie, NY 12304
> "One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
> discussion with true facts."
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> Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections
> http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174
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