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

[Jameson Quinn]

In response to Bruce's and Warren's complaint that PAL is too complex,
here's my  version of the simplest system I can design which would satisfy
the basic goals. Afterwards, I'll say a bit about why I made PAL the way I
did. Still, the simplicity may be worth it. So, here's SPAL (simplified
PAL):

Each candidate pre-announces an STV ballot with themselves at the top.
Voters get a ballot with the candidates from their district. They may vote
one of these local candidates or write-in any [statewide] candidate.
Election proceeds by STV. One candidate per party is assigned to each
district according to the following two constraints:
1. Reassigning one district could not make the number of party votes per
representative more even.
2. Total votes for candidates from their assigned districts is maximized,
insofar as consistent with condition 1.


(This seems like a manageable maximization problem for realistic numbers of
districts and party delegation sizes)


....

In effect, I suspect SPAL would quickly evolve into a closed-list system,
while PAL would remain truly open-list. So perhaps SPAL should be called SPL
because it's not fully accountable. Other than that, SPAL has the basic
advantages of PAL: proportional, local, and unlike FMV there are no
unfair-seeming multipliers.

JQ

2011/10/29 James Gilmour <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk>

> 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
>
>
>
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