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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">False
distinction between single and multi-member systems</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">There
is no rational reason why single-member constituencies should be
treated
separately from multi-member constituencies, as the
Anglo-American political
system does.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">There
is the political reason that career politics prefers monopolies.
Among
academics, it is a question of whether the politics is put
before the science of
political science. A certain American body of that persuasion
chooses so-called
approval voting for its election system. As this is essentially
cumulative
voting by another name, it is just enough to assert a token
independence from the
time honored first past the post, electoral system, without
emerging from the
19<sup>th</sup> century with anything approaching electoral
originality.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">However,
the supposed distinction between single and multi member systems
rests on the
fact that only the latter are capable of proportional elections.
This is true
but it does not preclude the possibility of election system,
that consistently
applies to both single and multi-member systems.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">In
that case, singling-out single-member systems for special
treatment is just a
matter of personal preference or prejudice, for monopolistic
representation, that has neither
logical justification, nor the justification of democratic
competition.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">A
crude manifestation of this personal preference or prejudice for
monopoly is
the falsifying of the name of Thomas Hare and his system, by
associating it
with instant run-off voting (IRV).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">This
is excused by falsely assuming a continuity between IRV and STV.
But the latter
is a proportional election, and the former is an eliminative
count. IRV is hardly
an election at all, unless some candidate happens to have an
over-all majority.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">Users
of STV often say as much as that IRV is a second-best to STV for
single-member
systems. But they do not claim that conventional STV can be used
in
single-member systems.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">The
point is that it is possible to invent an STV system, that can
be consistently
used in single-member as well as multi-member systems. I know, I
have invented
it! It
is not misunderstood because it is difficult but because it is
different, lack
of familiarity rather than lack of intelligence, being the
problem.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">Regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">Richard
Lung.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold""><br>
</span></p>
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