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

[Kathy Dopp]

On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 7:19 PM, James Gilmour <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> wrote:

>
> Kathy, your comments illustrate the fundamental problems with all party list voting systems: 1. you must have registered political
> parties;

As someone else noted in this thread already, registered political
parties are unnecessary to use the party list system.  Candidates can
simply put together their own lists.

 2. each party must produce a list of candidates ordered in some way;

Each *list* is normally ordered - Yes.  But the list method does not
have to be done that way if it is an open list system where voters can
vote for candidates, and thus voters determine the list order.  Most
voters would disagree with you and think it is a benefit to have the
political party or leading candidate put together the list order for
them so as to save the voters the time and effort it would take to
research all the candidates.  However, a less popular system, would
simply require voters to pick a candidate from the list.  I suppose
it's possible, as some have also commented here, to allow voters to
rank order a list, but that would be administratively burdensome and
probably not practical for large national elections, as has been
mentioned.

3. voters are restricted (to a greater or lesser
> degree) in how they can respond to the choices of representative offered to them.

Relative to some electoral methods that are less desirable in other
ways, perhaps.  However, the list system has many benefits those other
systems don't have, which is why it is so popular in many countries -
for nationwide legislative bodies where other systems may not be
practical or desirable.

> All of these impose unnecessary limitations on
> the PR of the voters that could be obtained by a less constrained voting system.

You might want to read up on the many studies of voting behavior - say
American Voter Revisited or Controversies in Voting Behavior. Most
voters do not want to have to investigate and individually rank
hundreds of candidates, so an open party list system where they are
familiar with the top ranked candidates on each list and have the
chance to vote for someone they prefer most to move them up the list.

When the number of candidates gets too big, the systems you are
proposing, are untenable.  However, in smaller local election
contests, voters may know more about more of the candidates. However,
that is also contrary to research that shows that most voters pay more
attention to national, then downstream contests.

Political parties can be a good thing because people normally take
shortcuts when deciding whom to vote for - by selecting the political
party that agrees with their own ideology. Especially under the party
list system, parties can be beneficial because smaller political
parties that challenge the major parties have a far greater chance of
winning seats in a large legislature, so that voters can vote for
minor parties without wasting their votes or causing a spoiler effect,
unlike with IRV/STV methods.


> I would also say that these restrictions are
> undesirable, but that view reflects my political culture.  I do, however, recognise that these restrictions are accepted by many in
> continental Europe who happily use party-list PR voting systems without any clamour for change.

So you think the open list method is worse than the nonproportional US
system then of two-major political parties and single member districts
or entire states?

I definitely believe strongly that the IRV/STV methods are far far
worse than the current US plurality system.

The party list system does not have any downsides like
nonmonotonicity, and fundamental unfairness of the counting method (as
well as not solving any of the problems of plurality) like STV and IRV
have.

>
> Your comments also confuse what are essentially private matters with public matters.  The candidates who can stand in the name of a
> registered political party must be decided by that party.  Some parties may decide that by centralised control; other may do it by
> very democratic (PR) elections ("primaries") of all party members.  All parties are coalitions, some broad, some narrow.  It is in a
> party's interest to ensure that its list of candidates will appeal to the widest range of its potential supporters among the
> electorate.  Thus all significant factions within a party are likely to be represented on its list.  If some faction within a party
> finds it candidates consistently excluded, that faction will almost certainly go off and form a new party.

Yes. And that new minor party has a good chance of obtaining seats
once its strength reaches the Droop quota - unlike with IRV/STV
methods where people quickly learn that the spoiler effect means they
still need to rank one of the two major parties 1st and their 1st
place candidate hurts the chances of their 2nd place candidate to win
because not all voters 2nd and later choices are treated equally and a
voters' 2nd choice is eliminated often prior to the 2nd choice, ...


> If some faction within a
> party finds its candidates on the list, but always at the bottom (and so with little chance of election), that faction may well
> split off and form a separate party, when its candidates will automatically be at the top of its list.  That does happen, especially
> with closed-list party-list systems.  It is open for any group that can meet the requirements to be a registered political party to
> present a list.  In some jurisdictions, that can include individuals standing as "independent candidate".  But these are all
> "private" matters (within-party), determined by the respective parties before the public election.

I agree that open list systems are better than closed, of course since
voters can change the list order.

>
> At the public election a voter can choose one party from among the various parties, and in open-list systems make one choice (or a
> restricted choice) from among the candidates of that one party. The counting rules provide good proportionality among the parties
> (subject to various arbitrary thresholds).  But with the commonly used open-list systems, the counting rules do not provide PR
> within the parties.  Significant groups of voters who support a particular party can be seriously under-represented in terms of the
> within-party balance, either through piling up massive votes for some particularly popular candidates or through spreading their
> votes across too many candidates.  To overcome this defect, the votes must be transferable in some way.  And to ensure PR of the
> voters, those transfers must be determined by the voters, not by some party-list rule in the legislation.

The excess votes are transferrable in many countries in that any
unfilled seats are often filled by coalitions of minor parties or
minor and major parties who get together and decide on the last
remaining winners - again giving smaller parties more power than under
the current prevalent US system.

The party list system would be great for filling one of two
legislative bodies in each state. One body could be filled by local
single member districts and the other body via an open party list
system - making representation at the US state level proportional and
giving immediate greater representation to the many minor political
party interests.

>
> What you then end up with is a series of STV-PR elections within each party list (or with something comparable for those who don't
> like STV).  The most complex open-list party-list systems go some way towards this.  But I have to say again, if you are going to go
> to all that bother, why not  go the whole way and fully open up the voters' choice by removing all the restrictions of 'voting for a
> party' and of 'voting within one party list'?

Huh!?  That would be terrible if it were true IMO - eviscerating
election transparency, verifiability, and fairness.


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