The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer
On 01/01/2017 07:06 PM, ElectionMethods wrote:
Regarding introduction of PR in Europe, many years ago a German
housemate told me that PR for post-war West Germany was partly designed
by academics in the United States who wanted to overcome the
unfairnesses of U.S. elections (i.e. two-party dominance, and unfairness
of gerrymandering).
It's interesting that at least after Japan in WWII, then wherever the US
has had the chance to design the template for the democratic system,
they've chosen proportional representation. As far as I recall, even the
elections in Iraq uses PR.
(I presume closed-list PR is dominant in Europe because many members of
parliament would be unlikely to get re-elected under open-list PR.)
If the "old parties heading off the socialist challenge" theory is
correct, it would also explain why closed list PR is so common; the old
parties weren't in it for egalitarian purposes, but rather as a
necessary compromise. Open list would not have been required in such a
scenario, just interparty PR. The only situation that would force open
list would be if closed list would have led to too mediocre candidates
within the old parties and thus to voters flocking to the socialists anyway.
On 01 Jan 2017, at 21:16, Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
On 01/01/2017 07:06 PM, ElectionMethods wrote:
(I presume closed-list PR is dominant in Europe because many members of
parliament would be unlikely to get re-elected under open-list PR.)
If the "old parties heading off the socialist challenge" theory is correct, it would also explain why closed list PR is so common; the old parties weren't in it for egalitarian purposes, but rather as a necessary compromise. Open list would not have been required in such a scenario, just interparty PR. The only situation that would force open list would be if closed list would have led to too mediocre candidates within the old parties and thus to voters flocking to the socialists anyway.
I guess in many cases the rule is that those who have power want to stay in power. If there are two parties in power, they don't want to donate it to the third and fourth party. If there is some level of proportionality in the system, the incumbent parties don't want to distribute that power to parties that are smaller than themselves. If party officials can decide which candidates will be first on the party list, they don't like the idea of letting voters decide which candidates will be elected.
The main rule is that those who are in power want to concentrate more power to themselves. This applies also to civil servants and other interest groups. Democracy (the spirit of giving power to the people) takes steps forward occasionally. Small steps in the other direction are possible all the time. This means that if one wants to keep the status quo, there is a need to defend the system all the time in order to avoid those small steps in the opposite direction.
BR, Juho
On 1/1/2017 11:35 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
I guess in many cases the rule is that those who have power want to stay in power. ...
Here is an important pattern worth recognizing:
Politicians and political parties (under puppet-like control of the
biggest campaign contributors) tend to adopt changes that HIDE the
SYMPTOMS of the unfairness. Yet hiding symptoms does not solve the
underlying unfairness, which is the use of single-mark ballots (even in
open-list PR).
Here are examples of how unfairness symptoms are hidden:
-
Term limits are sometimes considered as a way to kick out unpopular
incumbents, without realizing that fair elections would be a better way
to kick out unpopular incumbents -- without also kicking out popular
incumbents. -
Primary elections in the U.S. hide vote splitting so that it occurs
where the winner is never from the "wrong" political party. (This is
where the biggest unfairness occurs, through the use of money-based
tactics such as funding "spoiler" candidates.) -
The U.S. two-party system (i.e. effectively blocking third-party
candidates from general elections) prevents the vote splitting that used
to occur in U.S. general elections. -
Using the "national popular vote" instead of the Electoral College (to
choose a U.S. president) is a way to hide the unfair parts of the
Electoral College -- but in a way that would fail the majority
requirement if there were more than two main candidates. -
Open primaries attempt to "solve" the problem of independent voters
not being allowed to vote in primary elections, but the math does not
work because the two candidates with the "most votes" are not
necessarily the most popular. Instead of voters abandoning the two
dominant political parties, it would make more sense to use fairer
voting methods so that voters can regain control of the two main parties
(which are now heavily controlled through money tactics used by the
biggest campaign contributors). -
Unbiased (but not necessarily fair!) ways of choosing district
boundaries are often recommended as "solutions" to gerrymandering, yet a
fully fair voting method would produce roughly the same election results
regardless of where the (equal-population) district boundaries are drawn. -
Public funding of election campaigns attempts to "solve" the problem
that money can be used to influence election results. The real solution
is to ban single-mark ballots, because better voting methods are not
easily vulnerable to funding influence. -
Very importantly, proportional representation (PR) is used to hide the
unfairness of using single-mark ballots and the unfairness of electing
just one winner per district. In other words, PR adjusts the number of
winners from each party to hide the symptom of some parties winning too
many seats and other parties winning too few seats.
The pattern is that, alas, most voters would rather try (without
historic success) various "fixes" that deal with the SYMPTOMS, rather
than learn how vote counting should be done (and then ban the use of
single-mark ballots).
In other words, political forces are only willing to adopt changes that
HIDE the SYMPTOMS of unfairness, without abandoning the use of
single-mark ballots.
As time permits I hope to create some videos that explain the
above-listed concepts.
Please, if anyone else might be interested in creating such videos,
please do!! There is a need for more videos than I could ever create.
If video-creation software seems challenging, I suggest looking at the
iPad app named Explain Everything, which is very easy to use.
I now realize that most people "don't read." Instead most people learn
about elections through internet videos (especially on YouTube) and
graphics used in TV news broadcasts. As an author of books this is
discouraging, yet admittedly I, myself, sometimes prefer to learn from
well-scripted videos. Thank goodness you-all do read!
Reminder: Many Canadians are now learning about elections, but they are
searching for "first past the post," not "plurality" or "elections" as a
search term. I saw that a YouTube video with the words "first past the
post" had millions of views, whereas other videos on the same topic (but
without those words) had far fewer views.
May 2017 bring greater awareness of how voting should be done. Happy new
year!
Richard Fobes
On 1/1/2017 11:35 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
On 01 Jan 2017, at 21:16, Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
On 01/01/2017 07:06 PM, ElectionMethods wrote:
(I presume closed-list PR is dominant in Europe because many members of
parliament would be unlikely to get re-elected under open-list PR.)
If the "old parties heading off the socialist challenge" theory is correct, it would also explain why closed list PR is so common; the old parties weren't in it for egalitarian purposes, but rather as a necessary compromise. Open list would not have been required in such a scenario, just interparty PR. The only situation that would force open list would be if closed list would have led to too mediocre candidates within the old parties and thus to voters flocking to the socialists anyway.
I guess in many cases the rule is that those who have power want to stay in power. If there are two parties in power, they don't want to donate it to the third and fourth party. If there is some level of proportionality in the system, the incumbent parties don't want to distribute that power to parties that are smaller than themselves. If party officials can decide which candidates will be first on the party list, they don't like the idea of letting voters decide which candidates will be elected.
The main rule is that those who are in power want to concentrate more power to themselves. This applies also to civil servants and other interest groups. Democracy (the spirit of giving power to the people) takes steps forward occasionally. Small steps in the other direction are possible all the time. This means that if one wants to keep the status quo, there is a need to defend the system all the time in order to avoid those small steps in the opposite direction.
BR, Juho
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
On 02 Jan 2017, at 02:05, ElectionMethods electionmethods@votefair.org wrote:
On 1/1/2017 11:35 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
I guess in many cases the rule is that those who have power want to stay in power. ...
Here is an important pattern worth recognizing:
Politicians and political parties (under puppet-like control of the biggest campaign contributors) tend to adopt changes that HIDE the SYMPTOMS of the unfairness. Yet hiding symptoms does not solve the underlying unfairness, which is the use of single-mark ballots (even in open-list PR).
The political financing problem is closely related to the power hungriness problem. Also money gives power (not only the used election method etc.), and people want to maintain that power (and increase it if possible).
Those that are in power always tend to explain the situation in nicest possible terms. That could be called "hiding". That doesn't necessarily mean that they would intentionally lie or bend the truth. It is also typical that people believe in what they want to believe and what is useful and pleasant for them to believe.
Here are examples of how unfairness symptoms are hidden:
- Term limits are sometimes considered as a way to kick out unpopular incumbents, without realizing that fair elections would be a better way to kick out unpopular incumbents -- without also kicking out popular incumbents.
Yes, fair elections would be the best approach. I can understand also use of limits in terms in selected places if that is justified e.g. by the need to get things moving, bring new ideas in and avoid stagnation.
- Primary elections in the U.S. hide vote splitting so that it occurs where the winner is never from the "wrong" political party. (This is where the biggest unfairness occurs, through the use of money-based tactics such as funding "spoiler" candidates.)
Yes, one problem is that all decisions seem to be majority decisions made by the voters (with wide support).
-
The U.S. two-party system (i.e. effectively blocking third-party candidates from general elections) prevents the vote splitting that used to occur in U.S. general elections.
-
Using the "national popular vote" instead of the Electoral College (to choose a U.S. president) is a way to hide the unfair parts of the Electoral College -- but in a way that would fail the majority requirement if there were more than two main candidates.
The Electoral College approach may fail to respect the will of the majority also with two candidates.
One problem in the USA is that it is a federation where different states have agreed to participate in the union with the agreed terms, which may include e.g. disproportional amount of decision making power etc. But I guess those considerations are not the biggest show stopper when planning electoral reforms.
- Open primaries attempt to "solve" the problem of independent voters not being allowed to vote in primary elections, but the math does not work because the two candidates with the "most votes" are not necessarily the most popular. Instead of voters abandoning the two dominant political parties, it would make more sense to use fairer voting methods so that voters can regain control of the two main parties (which are now heavily controlled through money tactics used by the biggest campaign contributors).
Open primaries have been used also elsewhere as a strategical trick, maybe to elect some specific candidate or to guarantee wide support also among voters of other parties.
- Unbiased (but not necessarily fair!) ways of choosing district boundaries are often recommended as "solutions" to gerrymandering, yet a fully fair voting method would produce roughly the same election results regardless of where the (equal-population) district boundaries are drawn.
In multiparty countries districts typically have multiple seats, which makes the gerrymandering problem much weaker (mostly below the horizon, but not totally).
- Public funding of election campaigns attempts to "solve" the problem that money can be used to influence election results. The real solution is to ban single-mark ballots, because better voting methods are not easily vulnerable to funding influence.
I support public funding and limitations in funding as the main rule for most societies. With internet (and voluntary media participation) the costs of distributing all relevant information to the voters are not high, and it would not harm the democratic process to set some limits e.g. to money spent in advertising in the media. The idea is after all "one man - one vote" and not "one dollar - one vote". But each society should pick its own style, maybe trying to avoid the trap of money being a too dominant factor.
- Very importantly, proportional representation (PR) is used to hide the unfairness of using single-mark ballots and the unfairness of electing just one winner per district. In other words, PR adjusts the number of winners from each party to hide the symptom of some parties winning too many seats and other parties winning too few seats.
The pattern is that, alas, most voters would rather try (without historic success) various "fixes" that deal with the SYMPTOMS, rather than learn how vote counting should be done (and then ban the use of single-mark ballots).
Note that many strong PR countries use single-mark ballots in some sense. For example so that you can vote only for one party (closed list) or only for one candidate (open list).
BR, Juho
In other words, political forces are only willing to adopt changes that HIDE the SYMPTOMS of unfairness, without abandoning the use of single-mark ballots.
As time permits I hope to create some videos that explain the above-listed concepts.
Please, if anyone else might be interested in creating such videos, please do!! There is a need for more videos than I could ever create. If video-creation software seems challenging, I suggest looking at the iPad app named Explain Everything, which is very easy to use.
I now realize that most people "don't read." Instead most people learn about elections through internet videos (especially on YouTube) and graphics used in TV news broadcasts. As an author of books this is discouraging, yet admittedly I, myself, sometimes prefer to learn from well-scripted videos. Thank goodness you-all do read!
Reminder: Many Canadians are now learning about elections, but they are searching for "first past the post," not "plurality" or "elections" as a search term. I saw that a YouTube video with the words "first past the post" had millions of views, whereas other videos on the same topic (but without those words) had far fewer views.
May 2017 bring greater awareness of how voting should be done. Happy new year!
Richard Fobes
On 1/1/2017 11:35 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
On 01 Jan 2017, at 21:16, Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
On 01/01/2017 07:06 PM, ElectionMethods wrote:
(I presume closed-list PR is dominant in Europe because many members of
parliament would be unlikely to get re-elected under open-list PR.)
If the "old parties heading off the socialist challenge" theory is correct, it would also explain why closed list PR is so common; the old parties weren't in it for egalitarian purposes, but rather as a necessary compromise. Open list would not have been required in such a scenario, just interparty PR. The only situation that would force open list would be if closed list would have led to too mediocre candidates within the old parties and thus to voters flocking to the socialists anyway.
I guess in many cases the rule is that those who have power want to stay in power. If there are two parties in power, they don't want to donate it to the third and fourth party. If there is some level of proportionality in the system, the incumbent parties don't want to distribute that power to parties that are smaller than themselves. If party officials can decide which candidates will be first on the party list, they don't like the idea of letting voters decide which candidates will be elected.
The main rule is that those who are in power want to concentrate more power to themselves. This applies also to civil servants and other interest groups. Democracy (the spirit of giving power to the people) takes steps forward occasionally. Small steps in the other direction are possible all the time. This means that if one wants to keep the status quo, there is a need to defend the system all the time in order to avoid those small steps in the opposite direction.
BR, Juho
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
On 1/1/2017 4:55 PM, Juho Laatu wrote:
Those that are in power always tend to explain the situation in nicest
possible terms. That could be called "hiding". That doesn't
necessarily mean that they would intentionally lie or bend the truth.
It is also typical that people believe in what they want to believe
and what is useful and pleasant for them to believe.
Even political insiders -- members of parliament or U.S. Congress, and
political insiders -- fail to understand the mathematics behind voting.
If they, the elected politicians, were asked to consider adopting a
different vote-counting method, they might ask for the opinions of their
biggest campaign contributors, who, in turn, would ask for the opinions
of their election strategists, before it would be recognized what would
happen if a better method were adopted.
In other words, even the people who use money to control politics fail
to truly understand WHY their money buys influence.
They tend to think that their money buys advertising and the ads
influence voters. But the recent Republican primary election for U.S.
president reveals that media exposure can be gotten for free, and then
the money doesn't matter. Instead, what matters is that the more
candidates there are on a single-mark ballot, the easier it is for a
less-popular candidate to win with "the most votes."
Richard Fobes
On 1/1/2017 4:55 PM, Juho Laatu wrote:
On 02 Jan 2017, at 02:05, ElectionMethods electionmethods@votefair.org wrote:
On 1/1/2017 11:35 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
I guess in many cases the rule is that those who have power want to stay in power. ...
Here is an important pattern worth recognizing:
Politicians and political parties (under puppet-like control of the biggest campaign contributors) tend to adopt changes that HIDE the SYMPTOMS of the unfairness. Yet hiding symptoms does not solve the underlying unfairness, which is the use of single-mark ballots (even in open-list PR).
The political financing problem is closely related to the power hungriness problem. Also money gives power (not only the used election method etc.), and people want to maintain that power (and increase it if possible).
Those that are in power always tend to explain the situation in nicest possible terms. That could be called "hiding". That doesn't necessarily mean that they would intentionally lie or bend the truth. It is also typical that people believe in what they want to believe and what is useful and pleasant for them to believe.
I don't know where the US academics story came from, but the facts are that the Additional Member System (AMS, a.k.a. MMP) was
devised for the 1946 elections in the British Occupied Zone of Germany. The comparable elections in 1946 in the American Occupied
Zone and in the French Occupied Zone used the old Weimar voting system (closed-list party-list). AMS was adopted for the first
Federal Bundestag elections in 1949. ("Federal" = British Occupied Zone + American Occupied Zone + French Occupied Zone).
I have always understood that the British civil servants who administered the British Occupied Zone after WWII had a large hand in
devising AMS, by combining the British FPTP system (with single-member electoral districts) with the old Weimar system, in the
(mistaken) belief that this would introduce a significant element of personal choice to what had been an impersonal closed-list
party-list voting system. Originally electors had only one vote; the two-vote ballot paper was introduced for the Federal Bundestag
elections in 1953.
The predominance of closed-list party-list voting systems in continental Europe is a hangover from the defensive actions of the
threatened political elites as referenced by Kristofer Munsterhjelm (second below). Many of those countries had a different
political history and a had (and have) a different political culture. Political parties were legally registered entities in many
continental countries before the (defensive) introduction of PR, so "the party" was the obvious unit on which to base
proportionality. If the voting system "worked", the politicians elected by it would have little incentive to change it and
certainly the party machines would not want to change for closed-list. In contrast, in the UK, political parties have been legally
registered entities for electoral purposes only since 1998: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/48/pdfs/ukpga_19980048_en.pdf
The 1998 Act was superceded and repealed by later legislation, PPERA 2000: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/41/contents
(plus amendments in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011).
James Gilmour
Edinburgh, Scotland
-----Original Message-----
From: Election-Methods [mailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of ElectionMethods
Sent: 01 January 2017 18:06
To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer
Regarding introduction of PR in Europe, many years ago a German housemate told me that PR for post-war West Germany was partly
designed by academics in the United States who wanted to overcome the unfairnesses of U.S. elections (i.e. two-party dominance,
and unfairness of gerrymandering).
(I presume closed-list PR is dominant in Europe because many members of parliament would be unlikely to get re-elected under
open-list PR.)
Richard Fobes
On 12/31/2016 3:51 AM, Erik Moeller via Election-Methods wrote:
On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 3:50 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
<km_elmet@t-online.de mailto:km_elmet@t-online.de > wrote:
(I just stumbled across a possible explanation for European introduction
of PR - that it was a reaction to the increasing popularity of socialist
parties, where the old parties came to the conclusion that it's better
to be a smaller fish in a proportional pond than to be wiped out
entirely if the socialists were to gain enough support to become the
majority party. See e.g.
http://web.stanford.edu/~jrodden/wp/rodden_jan10_workshop_final.docx . I
don't know if this is the true reason, but if so, the US would be
different since there was no such great threat of socialist majority.)
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Below account from james Gilmour tallies with Enid lakeman: How
Democracies Vote. She was a contemporary and world authority on the subject.
As I also remember from that book, Lakeman observed that proportional
elections tended to be introduced with a transition to multiple parties.
Instead of a duopoly, there is instability and uncertainty in the FPTP
results. Since her time, the events in her country, the UK have
confirmed that trend, up to a point. And look likely to further do so.
In the UK, the Labour party has been the main engine of introducing
party-proportional elections. Their in-house preliminary Plant report
laid bare their motives: anything but STV and its "intra-party
competition" (that is effective primaries within the general election.)
They observed that AMS (akaMMP) would be lesss likely to affect their
incumbency. However, Labour have been shattered in Scotland both with
FPTP and AMS. About which (and much else), James Gilmour could inform
you much better than I.
from
Richard Lung.
On 02/01/2017 15:52, James Gilmour wrote:
I don't know where the US academics story came from, but the facts are that the Additional Member System (AMS, a.k.a. MMP) was
devised for the 1946 elections in the British Occupied Zone of Germany. The comparable elections in 1946 in the American Occupied
Zone and in the French Occupied Zone used the old Weimar voting system (closed-list party-list). AMS was adopted for the first
Federal Bundestag elections in 1949. ("Federal" = British Occupied Zone + American Occupied Zone + French Occupied Zone).
I have always understood that the British civil servants who administered the British Occupied Zone after WWII had a large hand in
devising AMS, by combining the British FPTP system (with single-member electoral districts) with the old Weimar system, in the
(mistaken) belief that this would introduce a significant element of personal choice to what had been an impersonal closed-list
party-list voting system. Originally electors had only one vote; the two-vote ballot paper was introduced for the Federal Bundestag
elections in 1953.
The predominance of closed-list party-list voting systems in continental Europe is a hangover from the defensive actions of the
threatened political elites as referenced by Kristofer Munsterhjelm (second below). Many of those countries had a different
political history and a had (and have) a different political culture. Political parties were legally registered entities in many
continental countries before the (defensive) introduction of PR, so "the party" was the obvious unit on which to base
proportionality. If the voting system "worked", the politicians elected by it would have little incentive to change it and
certainly the party machines would not want to change for closed-list. In contrast, in the UK, political parties have been legally
registered entities for electoral purposes only since 1998: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/48/pdfs/ukpga_19980048_en.pdf
The 1998 Act was superceded and repealed by later legislation, PPERA 2000: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/41/contents
(plus amendments in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011).
James Gilmour
Edinburgh, Scotland
-----Original Message-----
From: Election-Methods [mailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of ElectionMethods
Sent: 01 January 2017 18:06
To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer
Regarding introduction of PR in Europe, many years ago a German housemate told me that PR for post-war West Germany was partly
designed by academics in the United States who wanted to overcome the unfairnesses of U.S. elections (i.e. two-party dominance,
and unfairness of gerrymandering).
(I presume closed-list PR is dominant in Europe because many members of parliament would be unlikely to get re-elected under
open-list PR.)
Richard Fobes
On 12/31/2016 3:51 AM, Erik Moeller via Election-Methods wrote:
On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 3:50 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
<km_elmet@t-online.demailto:km_elmet@t-online.de > wrote:
(I just stumbled across a possible explanation for European introduction
of PR - that it was a reaction to the increasing popularity of socialist
parties, where the old parties came to the conclusion that it's better
to be a smaller fish in a proportional pond than to be wiped out
entirely if the socialists were to gain enough support to become the
majority party. See e.g.
http://web.stanford.edu/~jrodden/wp/rodden_jan10_workshop_final.docx . I
don't know if this is the true reason, but if so, the US would be
different since there was no such great threat of socialist majority.)
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
--
Richard Lung.
http://www.voting.ukscientists.com
Democracy Science series 3 free e-books in pdf:
https://plus.google.com/106191200795605365085
E-books in epub format:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/democracyscience
On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 7:52 AM, James Gilmour jgilmour@globalnet.co.uk wrote:
I have always understood that the British civil servants who administered the British Occupied Zone after WWII had a large hand in
devising AMS, by combining the British FPTP system (with single-member electoral districts) with the old Weimar system, in the
(mistaken) belief that this would introduce a significant element of personal choice to what had been an impersonal closed-list
party-list voting system.
It's not completely mistaken as the directly elected candidates
sometimes do enjoy high local popularity that propels them to unusual
levels of success beyond the support for their party. But I think the
single-vote variant is interesting in this regard, because the
combination of party/person and the use of popular support to derive
party lists means that individuals benefit from campaigning locally
(they're more likely to get a list seat if they score well).
Variants of this system that don't require full ranking but still
increase intra-pary competition are likely possible. For example, if
voters could strike through the name of a person they absolutely don't
want while still voting for the party, this would be a simple tool to
further influence the list ranking.
Originally electors had only one vote; the two-vote ballot paper was introduced for the Federal Bundestag
elections in 1953.
The predominance of closed-list party-list voting systems in continental Europe
Open lists are also widespread in continental Europe, as this map from
Fairvote shows:
http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/fairvote.geography-class/page.html#3/46.80/751.64
Cheers,
Erik
My assessment that the British civil servants' belief was "mistaken" is based on the German Federal version of AMS with closed lists and the British expectations of FPTP in single-member districts. Over the years there have been a few examples of significant effects of 'personal' votes, but the idea that this provides real "personal choice" is just an illusion. In each single-member district the voters are presented with a set of party lists each comprising one candidate only. Sadly, this delusion of "choice" with FPTP in single-member districts persists in the UK to this day.
The single vote version of AMS (MMP) is not to be recommended because the measure of overall support for the various parties can be seriously distorted by tactical voting in the single-member districts, usually in an attempt to unseat the incumbent, but sometimes to keep out an "even worse" challenger.
There are indeed more open-list versions of party-list PR than closed-list versions in use in continental Europe - with a bewildering range of rules about how much choice is allowed within the open lists and how those choices are taken into account in allocating seats to parties and to candidates. In some versions the openness of the list makes very little difference to the actual ordering of the allocation of seats, especially where the voters have the option to vote "for the party" and not exercise any choice within the list. It also depends on the weighting given to the party's ordering against the expressed choices.
Ranking of the choices (with transferable votes) within a party list is essential if you want proportional representation WITHIN the party as well as PR among the parties. Most open-list party-list PR systems do not provide this, so there is no proper assessment of PR WITHIN each party. And PR WITHIN a party can be every bit as important as PR among the parties - just look in the UK today at the Conservative Party (split three ways on relations with the EU) and the Labour Party (split two or perhaps three ways on socialism).
And if you are going to have effective ranking WITHIN each party list, why not just use STV-PR?
Regards
James
-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Moeller [mailto:eloquence@gmail.com]
Sent: 03 January 2017 04:59
To: jgilmour@globalnet.co.uk
Cc: ElectionMethods electionmethods@votefair.org; election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer
On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 7:52 AM, James Gilmour jgilmour@globalnet.co.uk wrote:
I have always understood that the British civil servants who
administered the British Occupied Zone after WWII had a large hand in
devising AMS, by combining the British FPTP system (with single-member
electoral districts) with the old Weimar system, in the
(mistaken) belief that this would introduce a significant element of
personal choice to what had been an impersonal closed-list party-list voting system.
It's not completely mistaken as the directly elected candidates sometimes do enjoy high local popularity that propels them to unusual
levels of success beyond the support for their party. But I think the single-vote variant is interesting in this regard, because the
combination of party/person and the use of popular support to derive party lists means that individuals benefit from campaigning
locally (they're more likely to get a list seat if they score well).
Variants of this system that don't require full ranking but still increase intra-party competition are likely possible. For example, if voters
could strike through the name of a person they absolutely don't want while still voting for the party, this would be a simple tool to
further influence the list ranking.
Originally electors had only one vote; the two-vote ballot paper was
introduced for the Federal Bundestag elections in 1953.
The predominance of closed-list party-list voting systems in
continental Europe
Open lists are also widespread in continental Europe, as this map from Fairvote shows:
http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/fairvote.geography-class/page.html#3/46.80/751.64
Cheers,
Erik
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The main problem with STV is that it limits the region size and therefore the level of proportionality you can achieve because ballot papers can get very large and unwieldy very quickly.
Another alternative is mixed member (MMP) but without lists. You would have individual constituencies as well as wider regions.
Something like what I described here - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/electionscience/aP7ybKMb1zs/giaYAh6wAwAJ - which would work with score or approval voting. I also did a video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjeBEBZjm9Y - but that's a bit long. I should probably do a short one.
Toby
From: James Gilmour <jgilmour@globalnet.co.uk>
To: 'Erik Moeller' eloquence@gmail.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2017, 12:48
Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer
And if you are going to have effective ranking WITHIN each party list, why not just use STV-PR?
Regards
James
-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Moeller [mailto:eloquence@gmail.com]
Sent: 03 January 2017 04:59
To: jgilmour@globalnet.co.uk
Cc: ElectionMethods electionmethods@votefair.org; election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer
On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 7:52 AM, James Gilmour jgilmour@globalnet.co.uk wrote:
I have always understood that the British civil servants who
administered the British Occupied Zone after WWII had a large hand in
devising AMS, by combining the British FPTP system (with single-member
electoral districts) with the old Weimar system, in the
(mistaken) belief that this would introduce a significant element of
personal choice to what had been an impersonal closed-list party-list voting system.
It's not completely mistaken as the directly elected candidates sometimes do enjoy high local popularity that propels them to unusual
levels of success beyond the support for their party. But I think the single-vote variant is interesting in this regard, because the
combination of party/person and the use of popular support to derive party lists means that individuals benefit from campaigning
locally (they're more likely to get a list seat if they score well).
Variants of this system that don't require full ranking but still increase intra-party competition are likely possible. For example, if voters
could strike through the name of a person they absolutely don't want while still voting for the party, this would be a simple tool to
further influence the list ranking.
Originally electors had only one vote; the two-vote ballot paper was
introduced for the Federal Bundestag elections in 1953.
The predominance of closed-list party-list voting systems in
continental Europe
Open lists are also widespread in continental Europe, as this map from Fairvote shows:
http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/fairvote.geography-class/page.html#3/46.80/751.64
Cheers,
Erik
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https://www.avast.com/antivirus
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