[EM] PR solutions (was: Gerrymandering solutions).

[Jameson Quinn]

2012/6/7 Juho Laatu <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk>

> On 7.6.2012, at 5.21, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>
> Sainte-Lague isn't the only PR formula that is unbiased with respect to
> party-size, but it's the only unbiased formula that doesn't share the
> avoidable errors of STV and Largest Remainder.
>
>
> Largest Reminder has some paradoxes but I wouldn't call them errors.
> Usually those properties can also not be exploited as strategies. The
> possibly surprising seat allocations in the Alabama paradox can be said to
> be fair and not problematic.
>
> Also, I like emphasis on party platforms instead of personalities and
> hairdo, etc.
>
> But I recognize that many would like to vote for individuals, even in a PR
> election. Of course that can be done in open list systems, such as those in
> Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The best of both worlds: Optimal
> proportionality and opportunity to support individual candidates.
>
>
> Some people support the idea of reducing the role and power of the parties
> to the minimum. They may like STV since in it the party stucture is not
> binding but just possible background information. You refer to party
> platforms as an alternative to electing representatives based on
> personalities and hairdo. I symphatize also that since it is also good if
> the political system is stable, simple to the voters and also binding to
> the elected representatives. In the party / grouping based approach regular
> voters will in some sense know better than what they will get than in a
> system that is based only on the smiling faces and smooth talk of the
> candidates. I think in an ideal system we need a good balance between these
> needs and different directions of interest - ability to influence on which
> individuals will be elected, and having a clear political map and
> directions available to the voters.
>
> Open lists typically have the problem that within the party there are no
> guarantees that different wings of the party will bet the correct
> proportional number of seats. The methods may approximate this to some
> extent, but we could do better too. It is for example possible to combine
> open lists and STV by allowing voters to rank candidates within the party
> list. (Abiliy to mix and rank candidates of different parties is lost, but
> this may not be a big problem.) One step more party/candidate oriented (but
> more informative approach to the voters) is to use candidate given
> preference orders.
>

PAL representation blends this. Within a party, candidates start out with
their explicit number of votes, but as candidates are eliminated bottom-up,
votes are shared by that candidate's in-party approvals. Thus there is a
mechanism for candidates to ostracize other candidates from their own
party, for factional or other reasons, but mostly it's an open-list system.

Also the apportionment of PAL is interesting. It starts out with a Hare
quota, and fills as many seats as possible. When that runs out, it
retroactively changes that to a droop quota, and goes through appointing
the same seats in the same order. Thus, the final leftover droop quota
includes leftover [Hare minus Droop] slices from all the Hare quotas
originally present. This last seat is therefore likely to go to a centrist
party (small or large); that is, a party that comes high in many
candidate's preference orders outside their own parties.



> Yet another possibility is to use a tree structure to divide the party
> into smaller subgroups. Trees are very informative and already quite
> binding to the representatives. Some parties may find them even too
> explicit since they may emphasize fragmentation within the party and they
> may give the voters too much (from party leaders' point of view) power on
> what policy the representatives will drive during the next term (no chance
> to change opinion in line with what the party leaders say if one was e.g.
> the candidate of the pro-nuclear-power grouping).
>
> I'd
> thought that Finland had open list, but Juho says that they don't.
>
>
> Finland uses open lists. The seat number of each district is calculated
> before the election based on population and Largest Reminder. Within each
> district (of different size) the seats are allocated to the parties using
> D'Hondt. Within the parties candidates with highest number of votes will
> get the seats.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_parliamentary_election,_2011
>
> Juho
>
>
>
>
>
>
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