[EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer

Tue Jan 3 15:47:59 PST 2017

What “level of proportionality” do you want?  Most PR systems (party list) that could deliver very high levels of proportionality (e.g. 1 in 325) have an artificial threshold to keep out the “smaller” parties.  At least with STV-PR that de facto threshold is defined by the trade-off decided between the proportionality of representation and the localness of representation.  The weight attached to these competing features differs markedly among political cultures.

In the UK the ballot papers for our STV-PR elections are neither very large nor unwieldy, but then we don’t have party groupings or insist that parties nominate certain minimum numbers of candidates to qualify for special positions on the ballot papers and certainly no “above the line” voting.

The law of diminishing returns applies to voter representation  -  see first graphic.  In our experience STV-PR delivers better representation than these theoretical returns  -  even from wards electing only 3 members or 4 members  -  see second attachment.

As to PR overall, few in the UK would have problems with the proportionality delivered in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections where all the electoral districts return 6 members  -  see third attachment.

James

From: Toby Pereira [mailto:tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk] 
Sent: 03 January 2017 16:53
To: jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk; 'Erik Moeller' <eloquence at gmail.com>
Cc: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer

The main problem with STV is that it limits the region size and therefore the level of proportionality you can achieve because ballot papers can get very large and unwieldy very quickly.

Another alternative is mixed member (MMP) but without lists. You would have individual constituencies as well as wider regions.

Something like what I described here -  <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/electionscience/aP7ybKMb1zs/giaYAh6wAwAJ> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/electionscience/aP7ybKMb1zs/giaYAh6wAwAJ - which would work with score or approval voting. I also did a video -  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjeBEBZjm9Y> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjeBEBZjm9Y - but that's a bit long. I should probably do a short one.

Toby

  _____  

From: James Gilmour < <mailto:jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk>
To: 'Erik Moeller' < <mailto:eloquence at gmail.com> eloquence at gmail.com> 
Cc:  <mailto:election-methods at lists.electorama.com> election-methods at lists.electorama.com
Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2017, 12:48
Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer

And if you are going to have effective ranking WITHIN each party list, why not just use STV-PR?

Regards
James

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erik Moeller [mailto: <mailto:eloquence at gmail.com> eloquence at gmail.com]
> Sent: 03 January 2017 04:59
> To:  <mailto:jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk
> Cc: ElectionMethods < <mailto:electionmethods at votefair.org> electionmethods at votefair.org>;  <mailto:election-methods at lists.electorama.com> election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer
> 
> On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 7:52 AM, James Gilmour < <mailto:jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > I have always understood that the British civil servants who
> > administered the British Occupied Zone after WWII had a large hand in
> > devising AMS, by combining the British FPTP system (with single-member
> > electoral districts) with the old Weimar system, in the
> > (mistaken) belief that this would introduce a significant element of
> > personal choice to what had been an impersonal closed-list party-list voting system.
> 
> It's not completely mistaken as the directly elected candidates sometimes do enjoy high local popularity that propels them to unusual
> levels of success beyond the support for their party. But I think the single-vote variant is interesting in this regard, because the
> combination of party/person and the use of popular support to derive party lists means that individuals benefit from campaigning
> locally (they're more likely to get a list seat if they score well).
> 
> Variants of this system that don't require full ranking but still increase intra-party competition are likely possible. For example, if voters
> could strike through the name of a person they absolutely don't want while still voting for the party, this would be a simple tool to
> further influence the list ranking.
> 
> > Originally electors had only one vote; the two-vote ballot paper was
> > introduced for the Federal Bundestag elections in 1953.
> >
> > The predominance of closed-list party-list voting systems in
> > continental Europe
> 
> Open lists are also widespread in continental Europe, as this map from Fairvote shows:
>  <http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/fairvote.geography-class/page.html#3/46.80/751.64> http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/fairvote.geography-class/page.html#3/46.80/751.64
> 
> Cheers,
> Erik

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20170103/176f34e0/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Representation in multi-member constituencies.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 13844 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20170103/176f34e0/attachment-0001.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Represented-&-Unrepresented-Voters-in-21-Wards-of-City-of-Glasgow-LGA-STV-PR-Elections-May-2007-Table-&-Charts.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 49819 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20170103/176f34e0/attachment-0002.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: NI Assembly 1998 & 2003.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 6007 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20170103/176f34e0/attachment-0003.pdf>