Re: [EM] Proportional Representation In The USA
On 4/20/2021 11:55 AM, Jan Šimbera wrote:
Dear Richard,
this is a very accessible explanation of PR principles!
I only have a small point about open list PR methods that are common
here in Europe - they most frequently allow preferential voting for more
than one candidate (Czech elections use two or four), amplifying the
influence of the voters a good deal.
Wish you good luck in making U.S. elections more proportional :-)
All the best,
Jan
Jan, thank you!
Clearly I misunderstand how open list PR usually works.
Yet I'm still confused. Wikipedia doesn't seem to clarify what
"preference vote" means.
Specifically, this article ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_list
... refers to "preference vote" but does not have a link. It does link
to ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Czech_Republic
... and that article has a link named "preference vote" but the link
goes back to the "open list" article. (Sigh)
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?
I think this approach would be more efficient than writing an
explanation just for this election-methods list.
If not, a brief clarification here will be helpful.
Thanks!
Richard Fobes
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.
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@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
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
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@t-online.de mailto:km_elmet@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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