[EM] PR for ethnically polarized electorates

[Toby Pereira]

At first glance it seems that 10, 15 and 75 for A, B, M respectively seems a little optimistic from a voting system. It's not just that party list PR would shut out M - I can't see any system calling itself PR could award the seats in those proportions. Something like reweighted range voting or the score PR system I detailed a couple of weeks ago would stop M being shut out with honest voting, but they would go nowhere near as far as you are suggesting.

Regarding voter honesty, it may be difficult to ensure it anyway with a normal score-based PR method, but I can't see how you could get it to work given that you would want the middle two factions' support for A and B to be effectively ignored. To be clear, 10, 15, 75 are the proportions you'd expect if the 75 people who gave a positive score to M completely lost all their support for A/B and raised M to from 80 to 100.

 From: Forest Simmons <fsimmons at pcc.edu>
>To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com> 
>Sent: Wednesday, 25 June 2014, 1:21
>Subject: [EM] PR for ethnically polarized electorates
>  
>
>
>In Rwanda it was the Hutu and the Tutsi tribal division.  In Iraq the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds.  In the former Yugoslavia it was the Serbs Croats and Bosnians.  There are similar divisions today in the Ukraine, Israel, Syria, Bolivia, etc.
>
>What do they have in common?  A need for electing a representative body that has as many moderates and as much consensus as possible so that minorities are not so desperate for separation, i.e. to prevent the scourge of Balkanization that seems to be spreading like a plague.
>
>Suppose that there are two extreme groups A and B supported by two individual ethnicities, as well as a more moderate group M with preferences like
>
>
>10 A(100)
>30 A(100)>M(80)
>
45 B(100)>M(80)
>
>15 B(100)
>
>
>
>(The numbers in parentheses represent voter expectations of relative benefits.)
>
>
>In ordinary party list PR methods the parliament would be formed by 40 representatives from A and 60 representatives from B.  The moderate party would be shut out entirely.
>
> 
>Here are my questions:
>
>
>
>1. What method(s) would take this information and elect a parliament with respective party strengths of  10, 15, and 75  for A, B, and M?
>
>
>2.  What election method could possibly get the two middle factions to honestly convey this information via their ballots?  In other words, how to keep the two middle factions from defecting from their common interest?
>
>
>Forest
>
>
>
>----
>Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/emfor list info
>
>
>    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20140625/5a969127/attachment-0002.htm>