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

[Kathy Dopp]

> From: Juho Laatu <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk>
> To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system?
>
> On 4.7.2011, at 4.08, Kathy Dopp wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the responses.  In response to the party leaders having too
>> much control, I believe it is possible to make "party-lists" on the
>> fly from voters' own rank choice ballots in a way that the most voters
>> would naturally support -- which would put the control into voters'
>> hands and treat all voters fairly and the same (unlike IRV and STV).
>> As soon as I have time, I'll write it up.
>
> Yes. One could use primaries to determine the order of candidates in the closed lists. One could enhance open lists by using STV (or e.g. some Condorcet based proportional method) to build a hybrid method that provides proportionality also within parties. One could also use tree like "lists" to implement more accurate proportionality within parties. There are many tricks to reduce the possible problems of fixed order in the closed lists and to improve party INTERNAL proportionality in both open and closed lists.
>

I was *not* referring to using primaries or STV.  I am proposing using
a combination of Condorcet and "voters' own rank choice ballots", i.e.
all the unique permutations of rank choice ballots cast by voters to
determine an "on-the-fly" list ordering of candidates to elect
winners.   However, although it is precinct-summable, it would require
(n-1)! sums per precinct to count, and be at least tediously
time-consuming to manually calculate. I haven't given thought yet to
how to manually audit the results. That seems complex too.  So, even
though this method is simpler than IRV/STV methods to manually count,
and at least does not require centralized counting only after all
ballots are cast, and treats all voters votes equally, it may be too
complex - regardless of how fair and individualized.  I will write it
up when I have time. Perhaps it is an all-new PR electoral method
proposal, or perhaps not, or will be equivalent to some other.

>>
>> I appreciate the comments and agree with the problem of too much
>> control given to party leaders -- but think that it is solvable, and
>> that the Condorcet method can be used to resolve any ties with this
>> method.   It seems a little more complex than I like, but perhaps it
>> can be simply described and counted? Not sure yet.
>
> One reason why Condorcet based proportional methods have not gained popularity is that they are even computationally complex (in addition to being quite difficult to understand to regular politicians) (when compared to basic single winner Condorcet methods that are simpler but do not provide proportionality).

This method I am thinking of is, I believe, fairly easy for computers
to count (once I go through all the cases that may crop up to see what
rule(s) fits best), and probably fairly easy, but tedious and
time-consuming, for people to count manually. Condorcet comes in as
the secondary condition, not the first, in this method.  Even after I
work through it,  folks on this list may think of other special cases
that may crop up and need some resolution.  It may not be the best
choice in terms of complexity of counting.

I like the open party list system, and agree that as long as anyone
could form an "on-the-fly" party by running and putting his/her own
list together, it does not necessarily give parties any more of an
upper hand than already exists today.  I suppose the name could be
abbreviated to be simply the "list method".  However, I do like the
idea of allowing voters to simply rank any of the candidates from any
"list" and put together the lists on-the-fly from their rank choices -
but may not be worth the extra effort in counting difficulty, since
the lion's share of voters would not have time or ability to
investigate the individual positions of a large number of candidates.
Most voters use political party as an identifier for quick
decision-making.


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."

Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections
http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174

View some of my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=1451051