[EM] Proportional, Accountable, Local (PAL) representation: isn't this a big deal?

[James Gilmour]

Kristofer Munsterhjelm  > Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:14 AM
> STV is not mixed member proportional. As for the complexity issue, STV 
> seems to work where it has been implemented. I agree that complexity 
> will put a bound on how large each district can be, but as long as you 
> keep below that size, it should work.
> 
> If you have a district size of 5 members and 10 parties, that would give 
> a seemingly unmanagable number of 50 candidates.

I think that is most unlikely.  The only party that would likely nominate five candidates would be one that had reason to believe it
could win at least four of the five seats in the multi-member district.  Parties that might have an expectation of winning two seats
would likely nominate only three candidates.  Parties that expected to win only one seat would nominate at most two candidates, and
based on our experience here in Scotland, many would nominate only one.

So the total number of candidates in a 5-member district would almost certainly be far short of 50    I think a total of 20 would be
much more likely.

> However, voters can 
> "chunk" by considering these candidates in party order. First they can 
> consider "do I like party A more than party B", then "which of A's 
> members do I prefer?". They do not have to rank all 50 members either, 
> and few would.
> 
> To the extent that the voters chunk in this manner, it seems to be 
> personalized enough that the system doesn't degrade into party list 
> (except in places where full ranking is enforced), yet it makes the 
> burden easier to the point that ranked multimember voting does work.

Most voters would have little difficulty in choosing among the main parties  -  they don't need to express preferences for them all,
thought it is very much in their interests to make choices so far as they can.  And within the main parties it should not be too
difficult to choose among the candidates - "left wing" or "right wing", experienced or young, woman or man, lives near me or lives
at the other end of the district, etc, etc.

The biggest problem we have in STV elections is getting voters to indicate all the choices they could make.  If their preferred
party nominates, say, three candidates most supporters of that party express only three preferences.  They do not understand that it
is in their personal best interest to go on and mark preferences among the candidates of the other parties  -  that could have a
very big effect on the outcome and on the politics that follow in the elected assembly.  In some cases we know the political parties
discourage their supporters from marking any preferences for candidates of other parties  -  that may be consequence of not fully
understanding how STV counting works or from a FPTP mentality.

James Gilmour