<span>---------- Forwarded message ----------</span><br><span>From: Raph Frank <<a href="mailto:raphfrk@gmail.com" target="_blank">raphfrk@gmail.com</a>></span><br><span>To: <a href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com" target="_blank">election-methods@lists.electorama.com</a></span><br>
<span>Cc: </span><br><span>Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 17:58:56 +0000</span><br><span>Subject: Re: [EM] STV+AV (Raph Frank)</span><br><span>On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 2:55 PM, David L Wetzell <</span><a href="mailto:wetzelld@gmail.com" target="_blank">wetzelld@gmail.com</a><span>> wrote:</span><br>
<span>> Nope. I'm advocating the use of the Hare Quota, not the Droop Quota.</span><br><br><span>RF:Ahh ok.</span><br><br><span>So to be guaranteed 2/3 of the seats, you need 2/3 of the vote. But</span><br>
<span>if some voters vote for non-concentrated parties, then you can get</span><br><span>your 2nd seat for 1/3 more than you "need".</span><div><br></div><div>dlw: I believe you need to beat the biggest 3rd party by more than 1/3rd of the votes. </div>
<div>Egs: 50-35-10-5, but not 40-30-20. </div><div><br></div><div>And any 3rd party that can successfully persuade supporters of the bigger major party to vote for them instead in state reps elections has an even easier time winning away the 2nd seat from the top party. <br>
<br><span>>dlw: I think one can then get a "major party" in power by a plurality vote and</span><br><span>> give their a priori selected leadership enough procedural controls to get</span><br>
<span>> things done without a majority. What this does is give 3rd parties the</span><br><span>> right to decide which major party is in power so that neither can corner</span><br><span>> this branch and leverage their control of it to get an unfair edge in other</span><br>
<span>> elections, which in turn has a further multiplier effect of making more</span><br><span>> elections more competitive.</span><br><br><span>RF: The thing about PR is that the "King maker" role for 3rd parties is</span><br>
<span>over-stressed. It assumes that 2 and a half parties is the way things</span><br><span>go forever.</span></div><div><br></div><div>dlw:Well if single-winner election rules are used that encourage economies of scale then such might be relatively stable.<br>
Or there might be an indefinite number of minor parties who contest the duopoly, in part by being among the top two in some areas, like Burlington VT. <br><span><br></span></div><div><span>RF: However, if smaller parties have excess power, then the major parties</span><br>
<span>will fragment. A balance occurs where both types of parties have</span><br><span>roughly power corresponding to their numbers.</span></div><div><br></div><div>dlw: There are ways to increase intra-party discipline for major parties to prevent their fragmentation and </div>
<div>help them to coordinate the making of serious needed changes that perhaps were spotlighted by 3rd parties.<br><br><span>>dlw: Yeah, so I'm saying it might be advantageous to push for going back to the</span><br>
<span>> Constitutiona mandated 2-stage approach if we were to dramatically improve</span><br><span>> the 1st stage via the use of 3-seat LR Hare.</span><br><br><span>RF:Changing the constitution is very hard, you need people to be</span><br>
<span>reasonably sure that they want to change things.</span></div><div><br><span>That seems pretty hard, when many/most people would view losing their</span><br><span>right to elect the Senate as a decrease in democracy.</span></div>
<div><br></div><div>dlw: It's a marketing problem, IMO. If we tied it to making the senate elections biannual, maybe it'd be easier to market...</div><div>Or if we created a "American Idol" like popular reality tv program that used something similar and then turned the 2nd stage election </div>
<div>in the state assembly into a reality tv program then perhaps it'd be seen as an increase in democracy. <br><br><span>> You could set it up so that the State House of Reps chooses the Senator and</span><br>
<span>> then the state senate approves of the chosen senator by at least a 40%</span><br><span>> rate.</span><br><br><span>RF:Maybe, it depends on the Supreme Court's viewpoint.</span><br>
<br>dlw: I think it's a states' rights matter and people shd insist that most of it get decided in the more proportional state legislative branch.<br><br><span>---------- Forwarded message ----------</span><br><span>From: Raph Frank <<a href="mailto:raphfrk@gmail.com" target="_blank">raphfrk@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
<span>To: </span><br>
<span>Cc: EM <<a href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com" target="_blank">election-methods@lists.electorama.com</a>></span><br><span>Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 18:03:58 +0000</span><br><span>Subject: Re: [EM] Range Voting for State Representative election of US Senators.</span><br>
<span>The reason to elect 1/3 of the Senators for 6 years instead of all for</span><br><span>2 years was presumably to give stability, rather than to save money.</span><br><br>dlw: The use of single-winner elections for Senators, as opposed to congress-persons, by a body with 1/3rd+ from each major party for a state would keep the Senate in their control, which would give stability, </div>
<div>since that's the function of having two major parties. </div><div><br></div><div>If it can also save money and enable the election of non-rich senators and elevate the import of state representative elections then all the better!!!</div>
<div><br></div><div>dlw</div>