[EM] Census re-districting instead of PR for allocating seats to districts.

[Michael Ossipoff]

Juho:

I didn't understand yet fully how the voter can vote. Is it possible to
vote A>B>C and (separately) give the national party vote to party P? (where
A is the "independent" of party P)

[endquote]

In a topplng-up system, you can participate in two separate elections:

1. You can vote for who will win in your district. That can be any one of
several kinds of local district election:
.....a) A single-winner election, such as in Germany
.....b) A multi-winner district PR election,as in a number of topping-up
countries

(1b is usually list PR, but there is no reason why it couldn't be STV.
Candidates could be designated as party candidates, or not. People could
have the option of voting "above the line", as in Australia, meaning that
they simply mark a party's published ranking.)


2. You can vote for a party (or an independent running like a party) in a
national party list PR election.

Then, the number of seats won by a party, nationwide, in the local district
elections is augmented to bring it up to the amount allocated to it
in the national list PR election.

But the answer to your question is "No". You speak of "...an independent of
Party P" . That is a contradiction in term. There is no such thing as an
independent of a party.

The following two paragraphs answer your concern:

But your concern probably is that a party could deviously ask a candidate
that they like, and who is, for all intents and purposes, a party candidate
of theirs, to run as an independent, with no official party designation,
and no mention of a party connection, by hir or the party.

That's ok. If s/he gets votes, nationally, they're from people who _didn't_
vote for the party nationally. And if s/he gets votes from people who don't
care for the party, so that hir votes + the party's votes add up to more
than the party would otherwise get, that's ok too, because whatever s/he
gets from non-party preferrers means that s/he has appealed to people
outside the party, and is liked more generally. There's nothing unfair
about such a candidate.

.
You continued:

If this is possible

[endquote]

It isn't. But what I said in the previous paragraph is possible, and is
completely fair to all.


You continued:

, and party P supporters vote this way, and many "independents" of party P

[endquote]

There is no such thing as an independent of party P.

You continued:

 will be elected, then party P is likely to get many representatives that
are "independent", and the number of its "non-independent" representatives
is smaller that its proportional share (that is derived from the national
party votes), and therefore party P will get some extra seats in the top-up
process. Party P will thus get its proportional share of the seats +
several "independents" (that the method does not consider to be party P
representatives, although in practice they are). That would mean that the
method is vulnerable to running some candidates (likely winners) as
"independents" to get more seats.

[endquote]

That's what you said before. Re-read the two paragraphs above that are
immediately below the words, "The following two paragraphs answer your
concerns."


End of reply. What follows below is just a quote of some previous
discussion, including your post.

Mike Ossipoff







On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Juho Laatu <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On 4.7.2012, at 23.10, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>
> But if your independent that you vote for locally doesn't win a district
>> seat, s/he might still win an at-large seat in the national list PR
>> allocation, because, as I said, there's no reason why an independent
>> shouldn't be able to run as a 1-candidate "party". So, if you really want
>> to elect hir, then vote for hir in your district STV election, and also in
>> the national PR allocation election. We're assuming that s/he's a candidate
>> in your district, which is why you can vote for hir in your district STV
>> election.
>>
>>
>> Here you refer to a separate "national PR allocation election". Is your
>> plan maybe that the voter casts one ranked vote in the district STV
>> election and one party vote in the national party election?
>>
>>
> [endquote]
>
> Yes. It would just be the usual topping-up enhancement, but for STV in the
> districts.
>
>
>
>>
>> You wrote:
>>
>
>
>> Note that this kind of methods may easily allow such free riding where
>> parties list some of their strong candidates (that will be certainly
>> elected) as independent candidates in the districts. This makes the total
>> number of seats of that party appear smaller that it in reality is. And
>> that may lead to more top-up seats to this party.
>>
>>
> [endquote]
>
> Nothing wrong with that. Every party supporter who votes for
> the "independent" is one who doesn't vote for the party nationwide. So the
> party's national count will be less.
>
> But what if the "independent" is someone who is popular with people other
> than the party's supporters too? Fine. Again, nothing wrong with that. It's
> fair and right that s/he gets that other support. The party isn't being
> unfairly helped. Hir extra nonparty support counts for hir as an
> independent, and not for that party, because s/he appeals to people other
> than party supporters.
>
> Mike Ossipoff
>
>
> I didn't understand yet fully how the voter can vote. Is it possible to
> vote A>B>C and (separately) give the national party vote to party P? (where
> A is the "independent" of party P) If this is possible, and party P
> supporters vote this way, and many "independents" of party P will be
> elected, then party P is likely to get many representatives that are
> "independent", and the number of its "non-independent" representatives is
> smaller that its proportional share (that is derived from the national
> party votes), and therefore party P will get some extra seats in the top-up
> process. Party P will thus get its proportional share of the seats +
> several "independents" (that the method does not conseder to be party P
> representatives, although in practice they are). That would mean that the
> method is vulnerable to running some candidates (likely winners) as
> "independents" to get more seats.
>
> Juho
>
>
>
>
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>
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