[EM] hello from DLW of "A New Kind of Party":long timeelectoral reform enthusiast/iconoclast-wannabe...

[Juho Laatu]

On 1.11.2011, at 1.53, James Gilmour wrote:

>> On 31.10.2011, at 18.20, David L Wetzell wrote:
>>> This is not about getting third party candidates elected, it's about 
>>> making our polity tend towards a contested (and far more dynamic) 
>>> political duopoly, rather than a (somewhat contested) political 
>>> monopoly.
> 
> Juho Laatu  > Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 6:15 PM
>> I'm not sure what your targets for the national level are. 
>> This sentence however sounds like 1) representatives of minor 
>> third party should not be elected, 2) the strongest party 
>> should win in each single-winner district, 3) the target is a 
>> political duopoly (in each district), 4) the political 
>> duopoly should just be more dynamic than today, which could 
>> mean that new parties may replace the current major parties 
>> when the small parties grow stronger than the old parties. 
>> These requirements reflect what I tried to achieve a while 
>> ago. I'm just wondering if that is also what you want.
> 
> 
> If that is what you really want, Juho, it is one of the most depressing prescriptions I have read on this list.

That is not really what I want. Or actually my wishes vary depending on the location and local wishes. Although I generally lean towards proportional representation etc. I think that also the single-winner district model (and the resulting two-party or few-party model) is a valid approach to implementing democracy. In that case one just must take the approach that the alternating power balance (and typically single-party governments) implement the will of the people in the way that people want their will to be implemented. That approach has also some advantages over proportional representation, multi-party governments etc.,  although PR maybe has more such advantages. But I think it is ok if some people disagree, or want to keep the single-winner district system for traditional reasons. Tactical reasons are less acceptable, except if we are talking about practical realism and what kind of reform is possible and what not. It is hard to tell what the motivation of e.g. the FairVote camp is, but at least they do make some progress in some (good or less than good) direction.

> 
> Instead of this single-winner district approach, what is really needed is a voting system that will make the elected body properly
> representative of those who vote.

I sympathize proportional representation.

>  And you will not get that (other than by chance) with any voting system based only on
> single-member districts, no matter how dynamic the duopoly within each district.

In principle one could implement proportional representation also in single-member districts, but that would require country level balancing between the districts (and thereby not electing the most popular candidate in every district). But in practice what you say is about the truth.

>  For "representative democracy" to have any real
> meaning, the elected body must be representative  -  and by that we mean *properly* representative in relation to the votes.

I agree that the dynamics tend to work better that way. Two parties typically simplify discussion too much. Two parties do seek the median opinion of the voters (= the borderline between the two parties) but many viewpoints will not be represented at all. The alternating black and white policies may also be considered less good than the compromise seeking (although maybe less powerful/efficient??) multi-party governments of multi-party countries.

I also like the idea of making current multi-party countries fully proportional, allowing all opinion groups to have a representative if they have 1/N of the votes of a country with a N seat representative body. And proportional representation within the parties is also in my default wish list (maybe using STV and open lists that we discussed recently (or even trees that I also occasionally discuss)). But as said, if someone loves closed lists or two-party systems, that is quite acceptable too, although I'd encourage them to at least also consider also other approaches.

Those three methods that I advertised in my previous mail to this list are one attempt to make single-member district based systems work better than they do today - assuming that one wants to allow also third parties / other than two major candidates to run. That could be considered harmful if that would make two-party systems stay instead of being replaced with some more representative systems. Those methods can be said to even defend the IRV way of thinking, which may be considered a sin on this list :-). But on the other hand that discussion is mostly just theory and without practical implications. Or if with practical implications, maybe change will introduce change.

Juho



> 
> James Gilmour
> 
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info