[EM] Re to Kristof M

[David L Wetzell]

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 3:20 PM, David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com> wrote:

> Here's a bunch of responses
>

dlw: SL may be more proportional than LR Hare, but since I'm advocating for
the use of a mix of single-winner and multi-winner election rules, I have
no problems with the former being biased towards bigger parties and the
latter being biased somewhat towards smaller parties.  For there's no need
to nail PR if PR itself does not nail what we really want PP,
proportionality in power.  This is also part of why I prefer small-numbered
PR rules (less proportional) that increase the no. of competitive elections
and maintain the legislator-constituent relationship.

>
>  KM:You might be able to get something more easily understood yet
> retaining some of the compensation part of the first version, by doing
> something like this: first elect the single winner/s. Then start STV with
> the single winner/s marked as elected (and thus with vote transfers already
> done).
>
>
 dlw:The rub here is the desirability of guaranteeing that the Condorcet
winner is elected.  In "more local" elections that attract less attention,
I put less emph on the usefulness of rankings and thereby the Condorcet
winner.

>
> KM:So the balancing point depends on how much you value single-winner
> balance against PR diversity. You could probably do some calculations to
> find out to what degree increasing the single-winner share lowers the
> probability of small-party kingmakers getting undue power, but ultimately,
> you'd have to make a value judgement.
>
>  dlw: I'm intrigued by the 3:1 ratio  approach for a number of reasons,
including its simplicity...  If a party is really popular, it'd
typically get 3 of the seats and a two seat edge over its closest rival.
This is half of what is the case if it's just a single-winner.  If no party
is really popular then the top party gets 2 seats and a one seat advantage,
only one-fourth of what would typically happen...The goal being: a meld
between the de facto current system in countries like the UK and a EU-style
PR system...

>
> dlw:   1. While all forms of PR fall short of proportionality in
> representation, the best predictor of proportionality is the number of
> contested seats.
>
>
>  KM:The Hix-Johnston-MacLean document states that these effects are weak.
> To quote:
> "Turnout is usually higher at elections in countries with PR than in
> countries without, It also tends to be even higher in PR systems with
> smaller multi-member constituencies, and also tends to be higher where
> citizens can express preferential votes between individual politicians from
> the same political party rather than simply choosing between pre-ordered
> party lists. In general, the more choice electors are offered, the greater
> the likelihood that they will turn out and exercise it. However these
> effects are not particularly strong, there is some evidence that highly
> complex electoral systems suppress turnout, and turnout levels may partly
> reflect influences other than the electoral system, for instance in some
> countries voting is compulsory."
> So I don't think you can necessarily draw that conclusion. The apparent
> competitiveness between seats may be lesser (because of what I mentioned
> above in that single-member districts are much more win-all/lose-all), but
> that doesn't mean the real change in voter opinion from term to term is any
> greater in SMD countries.
>

dlw: I interpret what they're saying is that other factors also come into
play that impact the competitiveness of elections.  So my conclusion could
still be"useful", even if it abstracts from a lot of real-world stuff that
also affects voter-turnout.  The election rules that best guarantee
proportionality tend to reduce voter interest in elections, thereby making
PR not the key criteria for choosing an election system.

>
> 2. Proportionality in representation does not entail proportionality in
> power and the latter is desired more than the former. As such, it seems
> that minority dissenters will need to use extra-political methods (not
> unlike #OWS) to move the center, regardless of whether PR or another mixed
> system is used.
>
> Proportionality in representation is correlated with proportionality in
> power. The correlation isn't perfect, as Banzhaf and Shapley-Shubik's
> measures make apparent, but to leap on that and conclude that
> proportionality isn't proportional... that's unwarranted.
>

dlw: But it waters down the desirability of nailing PR even further and
opens the door to a greater valuation of other conflicting criteria.


> KM:If anything, when proportional representation disagrees with
> proportionality in power, the power favors the minority parties. Minor
> party kingmakers can make themselves costly if they know there won't be any
> coalition without them. Hence the presence of thresholds in most PR
> systems: these keep too minor parties from becoming potential kingmakers.
> Over here, the threshold of 4% keeps most "swing parties" (as one may call
> them) out of power. Yet the threshold is soft - even parties below 4% of
> the total vote can get representatives, they just don't get MMP-esque
> compensation on the national level. (Our PR system is a bit unusual in this
> respect: parties get additional seats if their per-region seats reflect
> their national share of the vote too badly.) Perhaps you'd want a hard
> threshold for a less homogenous country, but my point is that the problem
> can be managed.
>

dlw: Since PR->PP, we deny PR.  My wider point is that American forms of PR
takes a different approach to the problem, one that presumes both PR and
single-seat elections are in use so that as long as the latter favors
bigger parties, PR may be biased somewhat in favor of smaller parties.

>
> dlwThese seem to imply that we need not strive for proportionality in
> representation as the gold standard for electoral reform.  If the two major
> parties, with a somewhat disproportionate amount of representation, are
> more dynamic then they'd tend to represent well the majority of the
> population and heed minorities that frame their issues respectfully.
>
> KM:Do note, though, that the same Lijphart as you referenced on your page,
> said:
> "If partisan conflict is multidimensional, a two-party system must be
> regarded as an electoral straitjacket that can hardly be regarded as
> democratically superior to a multiparty system reflecting all the major
> issue dimensions." ("Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus
> Government in Twenty-One Countries", 1984, page 114.)
>

dlw:What if there's a dialectic between multi-dimensionality and
single-dimensionality that gets worked out in an ongoing process?  If so
then a 2-party system isn't so bad if it need not be the same two parties
de jure and de facto and the two major parties together serve as
melding(not melting) pot with significant inputs from dissenters/third
parties who raise up new dimensions of conflict into our political systems
that lead to a repositioning of the de facto two major parties.

dlw
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