[EM] PROPORTIONAL REPERSENTATION (PR) OHIO

Richard Lung voting at ukscientists.com
Tue May 28 07:15:00 PDT 2019


Recommend the Cambridge PR local elections method. I believe it is 
possible to download their computer count. Last I heard, it relied on 
statistical probability for valid surplus transfer of votes in order of 
preference. A best Gregory method transfer, or the Meek method STV would 
be better still (tho not perfect).
But all of them are voter-centered preferential PR methods, which is 
democratically far preferable to party-centered PR, where only party 
members would get to rank the party lists, with no cross-party 
preferences allowed.
No official party list system, in the world, that I know of, allows the 
voters a preference vote at all, in which respect these proposals, as I 
understand (or misunderstand) them, would only so allow party members 
(by definition imprisoned within their party for preference).

from
Richard Lung.


On 28/05/2019 02:29, Don Hoffard wrote:
>
> PROPORTIONAL REPERSENTATION (PR) OHIO: Ohio has 16 Representatives to 
> Congress. In the last election (2018) they elected 12 Republicans and 
> 4 Democrats.  The state has been accrued of Gerrymandering and the 
> issue is now before the US Supreme Court. I added all of the votes of 
> all 16 congressional districts and found that the Republican got 52% 
> and Democrats got 48% (just between the two main parties). A fair 
> representation of the voters of Ohio would be 8 Republicans and 8 
> Democrats (52%/48% *16 = rounded to 8/8) based on the votes cast in 
> the last election.  Was the cause Gerrymandering? Let us do a fair 
> redistricting of the state so that each district reflects the state as 
> a whole (52%R/48%D) (Not really possible, however) and had a new 
> election. The result would 16 Republicans and 0 Democrats, where the 
> Republicans would win every districts (52%/48%) with no 
> Gerrymandering. The real problem in Ohio (and in most states) is the 
> “Winner take all” single district system.
>
> PROPORTIONAL REPERSENTATION (PR): To do PR you need a ranked list of 
> candidates by party (top to bottom) and a percent voting for each 
> party at the state level (say 52%R/48%D). For Ohio we would pick the 
> top 8 on the Democrats list and the top 8 on the Republicans list and 
> they would be Ohio’s representatives to Congress. Traditionally there 
> would be no districts and the party rankings are done at the state 
> level (all state party members vote on the rankings). A party member 
> would vote for 1 (or alternatively vote for 16). Ok, this is where I 
> have a problem with this method.  It would be hard for any Republican 
> (or Democrat) voter to know, or even how to rank 16 state wide 
> candidates. Secondly, more of the higher ranked candidates could come 
> from the cities and would not truly represent some the rural areas of 
> the state. Lastly, a person in Ohio could not tell who is representing 
> them in Congress.
>
> ALTERNATIVE (PR):  Let us keep the congressional districts (16).  We 
> will then have each district vote by party preference (‘which party do 
> you prefer”). Some district may have 67% to 33% republican preference 
> votes, while others districts may have 80% to 28% democratic 
> preference votes. We add the party preference votes of each district 
> to get a state level preference vote total.  Let us assume that it is 
> about (52%R/48%D).  We would use this to determine the states 
> “preferred” proportion of representatives to Congress (8R/8D). Now in 
> the primary each party would vote for their candidate to represent 
> them in each of the 16 districts (the same as current). The Republican 
> candidates in each district with their top 8 percent’s (%) preference 
> votes would be elected to Congress. The Democratic candidate in each 
> district with their top 8 percent’s (%) preference votes would also be 
> elected to Congress.
>
> Don Hoffard
>
> Aloha, Oregon
>
>
> ----
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