[EM] Proportional Representation In The USA

[VoteFair]

Jan, thank you for your Wikipedia edits!

I did not see the changes initially so I used the "history" tab to find 
them.

The opening paragraph of the "open list" article still contains the 
phrase "preference vote" in bold.  Yet it is not a link.

And the words "select individuals" in the prior sentence does not 
clarify that the ballot is sometimes approval-like (one mark per 
candidate), sometimes a voter-written number(?), yet never a ranking ballot.

I suggest adding a new section (within the "open list" article) titled 
"Preference vote" that explains the term from a ballot-marking 
perspective.  The remainder of the article is clear about how they are 
counted.

Then the "Preferential voting" article can link to that section instead 
of to the entire "open list" article.

Based on your clarifications I've updated my PDF document with these 
wordings for "Open party list":

Ballot simplicity:  "Somewhat, favorite party plus approval marks for 
limited number of candidates"

Counting simplicity:  "Yes, seats assigned proportionally, party list is 
counted in various simple ways"

Of course it would be more accurate to write "it's complicated" but for 
this document's purpose I think it's OK.  If not, please tell me.

Again, thank you Jan!

Richard Fobes


On 4/21/2021 3:03 AM, Jan Šimbera wrote:
> Hi all,
> as a Czech local, let me clarify this:
> What the Expats page explains is the panachage system used for Czech
> municipal elections, where voters can vote for individual candidates
> across parties, but the votes are then summed per party and evaluated as
> an open list election as described below. (Which is highly misleading
> for the voter, but there is no political will to fix that since it
> allows otherwise unattractive parties to "fish" for votes by placing
> well-known local personalities on the list.)
> In Czech parliamentary and European elections, the election is a
> classical open list PR example: the voter chooses a single party list
> and may express support for some candidates (4 or 2 respectively based
> on the election). The intra-party competition is then closest to the
> multiple non-transferable vote system combined with pre-imposed ordering.
> I tried to update the Preferential voting and Open list Wikipedia
> articles accordingly. Please let me know of any outstanding deficiencies.
> Also, votelib <https://github.com/simberaj/votelib> can evaluate open
> list elections through its votelib.evaluate.openlist
> <https://github.com/simberaj/votelib/blob/master/votelib/evaluate/openlist.py>
> evaluators - there is an example
> <https://votelib.readthedocs.io/en/stable/examples/nmnmet_cc_2018.html>
> of the last Czech municipal election demonstrated in its documentation.
> All the best,
> Jan
>
> On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 11:14 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm
> <km_elmet at t-online.de <mailto:km_elmet at t-online.de>> wrote:
>
>     On 21/04/2021 02.12, VoteFair wrote:
>
>     > When I search for "preference vote" Wikipedia sends me to this
>     article ...
>     >
>     > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting
>     >
>     > ... which lists multiple articles that relate to this term, none of
>     > which seem to clarify what it means in open-list PR.
>     >
>     > Can someone here can remedy this issue on Wikipedia and then point
>     me to
>     > the fixed article?
>
>     It seems like it's either Approval voting or cumulative voting. In list
>     PR jargon, "preferential" seems to be a term for any kind of ballot that
>     lets voters vote both for parties and candidates.
>
>     Quoting from
>     https://news.expats.cz/czech-culture/voting-czech-republic/:
>
>     > To vote for a political party and candidates from other parties:
>     > Place an „x“ at the head of the party ticket (as you would to vote
>     > only for a party) and then place an „x“ by the names of any other
>     > candidates inother parties for whom you want to vote (preferential
>     > votes).  Note: If you use this method of voting, the party you
>     > support receives the number of votes that remain after your
>     > preferential votes are counted.  For example, if there are 11 seats
>     > on the council, and you place an „x“ by Party A and by the names of
>     > 5 candidates from other parties, your preferential votes are counted
>     > first. The remainder of your votes then go to the first 6 candidates
>     > on Party A´s ticket.  If you mark more than one party (at the top of
>     > the party ticket) or more preferential votes than there are open
>     seats,
>     > your ballot will not be counted.
>     which makes it sound like cumulative (any candidate you vote for reduces
>     the number of votes you give to the designated party).
>
>     But Negri[1] states the folllowing:
>
>     > Preferential votes under open list PR (and, to some extent, under
>     > flexible list PR) are equivalent to approval voting within party
>     > lists: voters decide to approve (and notrank) some of the politicians
>     > appearing on the ballot. Only one approval vote can becast for each
>     > candidate (no cumulative voting). The total number of approval votes
>     > that can be expressed can vary a lot from country to country. For
>     > example, it is equal to one in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Brazil,
>     > it varies from one to five—depending onthe electoral district—in
>     > Greece and it coincides with the total number of candidates on the
>     > list in Belgium.
>
>     which sounds like a limited type of Approval voting (vote for up to k
>     candidates, then the candidates with the most votes win that party's
>     seats). The paper also mentions that a high level of k reduces minority
>     representation, which is in line with what you'd see under Approval,
>     since bloc Approval is not a proportional representation method.
>
>     I'm not sure which it is, though. If I find out, I'll change the
>     Wikipedia article.
>
>     [1]
>     https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutput/preferential-votes-and-minority-representation-in-open-list-proportional-representation-systems(f8102c17-f213-43bc-bd26-8cf9c9ae960d).html
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