[EM] Electoral Pluralism

[Dave Ketchum]

Agreed I strayed beyond "consensus statement".  You gave me room to  
work on some details that need considering in the overall task.

On Nov 9, 2011, at 9:24 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>> DLW wrote: In light of the #OWS statement on electoral reform.
>> http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/11/people-before-parties-electoral-reforms.html
>>
>> My Thoughts about an alternative possible "consensus" statement for  
>> non-electoral analytical types.
>>
>> 1. Democracy is a never-ending experiment.  It also is like a  
>> garden that can go to seed.
>> We need to join the rest of the world in experimenting with better  
>> ways to tend our democracy.
>> This entails changes in election rules, not just changing who is in  
>> power.
>>
>> 2. The most important change is to use both single-winner and multi- 
>> winner (or Proportional Representation) election rules.
>> Single-winner elections give us leadership who can be held  
>> accountable.
>> Multi-winner elections  give us pluralism and protection for  
>> minority rights.
>> We need both of these values.  A common sense way to combine them  
>> is to use more multi-winner
>> elections for "more local" elections that otherwise are rarely  
>> competitive, while continuing to use mainly single-winner elections
>> for "less local" elections.
>
> [endquote]
>
> DK: Single-winner makes sense for single-person tasks such as mayor,  
> sheriff, or governor.  We should agree that this class of tasks  
> should be left to this type of electing.
>
> Proportional representation makes sense for multi-person tasks such  
> as councils or senates.  These tasks have often been elected via  
> single-winner mode - if so, change to multi-person should be done  
> only when/if value is seen in this by groups involved..
>
> [/endquote]
>
> dlw:I doubt those "elected" by single-winner to such posts will ever  
> see the value of switching to a multi-seat election.  But I would  
> not classify the Senator races in the US as rarely competitive.  The  
> US and state congressional and city council elections would be much  
> more natural options.  And we wouldn't need to make all of them  
> multi-seat winners either.  The statement only calls for more "more  
> local" elections to be decided with multi-seat elections.  So in a  
> parliamentary system like Great Britain, one could switch from FPTP  
> single-seat elections to super-districts with 4 seats each, which  
> would be allocated by a 3-seat form of PR and a single-seat  
> (possible alternative to FPTP) election.

We care not whether everyone sees the value - someone successful with  
FPTP could get told to see the light or lose even with FPTP.

My being in NY's 52nd Senate district made it easy to use that label -  
but, use something else please, since some states do not have senates.

I do have trouble with your "more local". The House of Representatives  
in DC normally includes members elected as multi-seat winners.  Both  
governors and village clerks are normally single-winner.
>>
>> 3. We need to realize that election rules are like screwdrivers.   
>> One election rule does not work well with all elections.
>> As such, we need to consider alternatives to our current election  
>> rule, First-Past-the-Post.
>> Most election rule alternatives like (.short list with links to  
>> brief descriptions.), but not the  "top two primary" used in (...)  
>> or the plurality "at large" voting used in (....), would improve  
>> things.
>
> [endquote]
>
> DK:Agreed FPTP is a loser from a simpler time.
>      Need to allow voters to vote for more-than-one, although some  
> voters, some of the time, will see no need for this.
> [endquote]
>
> The point here is to call for electoral pluralism, rather than to  
> attack FPTP.  This way when our opponents defend FPTP in some way  
> that obfuscates the matter, we can reply that we are calling for the  
> use of more than one election, since FPTP is not the right election  
> rule for all elections.  They'll have a harder time arguing against  
> that!

Perhaps trim this a bit, but this and the next need should be about  
universal, leaving FPTP at the bottom of the heap.
>
> DK:     Need to allow voters, when voting for more-than-one, to  
> indicate relative preference among these.     Primaries were an  
> invention to help with FPTP pain.  Methods that satisfy the above  
> needs see little, or no, value in primaries with their expense.
>      Runoffs were another aid for FPTP pain.  As with primaries,  
> possible value of runoffs decreases with methods that do better in  
> the main election.
>      Approval, while fixing the first above problem at little cost,  
> fails to help with the second.
> [endquote]
> dlw:  You're missing the point.  Yes, there's lots of things one can  
> do, but the key thing is to frame the need to experiment and to use  
> more than just FPTP.  Because I would argue that it's the near  
> exclusive use of FPTP which is the worst thing of all, we can  
> compensate for its continued use in some elections...
>
> Methods list:
>      Need to be understandable to, at least, most voters.
>      If to be usable over county and state districts, must NOT have  
> to retrieve local data as IRV does.
>      Should (must?) tolerate write-ins.
>      Must tolerate several candidates running in a race and report  
> their relative strength.  This means that a weak candidate will be  
> visible, with this helping progress to be visible, up or down.
>
> dlw: Yes, but we don't need to include all that in a statement for  
> the public. It's part of the process of experimentation, or learning  
> from experience and the ex post use of analysis to make clear what's  
> likely going on...

I was writing of goals, so perhaps more detail than your statement -  
but still valuable for planning.
>>
>>  dlw
>

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