[EM] Preferential voting system where a candidate may win multiple seats

[Juho Laatu]

On 4.7.2013, at 21.39, Vidar Wahlberg wrote:

> that we're using 1.4 as the first divisor in Sainte-Laguë
> is what's making it difficult for smaller parties to get a foothold

I can see the followig factors that influence the ability of the smallest parties to get seats:
- constituencies / counties with small number of seats (problematic to parties below 4% national support)
- thresholds are bad to the small parties
- Sainte-Laguë is very fair to the small parties
- 1.4 vs. 1 as the first divisor (divisor 1 for the leveling seats helps small parties above 4%)
- vote to a party can be lost if the vote can not be "inherited" by the second best party (hurts large parties as well, but may be psychologically more difficult to the small party voters)

>> I favour systems that are so simple that regular voters can easily understand how they work.
> 
> Even though I'm a fan of Ranked Pairs & Condorcet methods, I too share
> this sentiment.

One can see also ranked methods also as simple methods in the sense that voters can easily understand what ranking means. And if there is also no need to consider and plan strategies but to just rank some candidates sincerely, then we could say that voting is easy for the voters. We would thus not require them to be able to tell how the algorithm works internally, but just to have a good understanding on how to vote, and that the method seems to be a fair.

> Another argument could be that voters probably would be
> wary of drastically changing the existing voting system.
> In the Norwegian voting system, changing it by removing election
> threshold, increase seats in each county by 1 and remove leveling seats,
> and possibly reduce the first Sainte-Laguë divisor slightly, say 1.3,
> while making it possible for voters to rank parties, could greatly
> help prevent the fear of "wasting" ones vote. Using the counting method
> mentioned earlier (exclude party with fewest votes, rerun Sainte-Laguë
> until all remaining parties got at least 1 seat), it's arguably easier
> to explain than the current one with the leveling seat algorithm.

Just be careful that, when getting rid of the leveling seats, you don't end up in a situation where all the counties would elect their representatives independently of each others. Because of the small number of seats per county, that would effectively limit the chances of small parties to get seats in the small counties.

Juho