tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post115249250797159313..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: Wish Week Day 2: Proportional RepresentationAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1152625271850043132006-07-11T07:41:00.000-06:002006-07-11T07:41:00.000-06:00Me again, the guy from above. (My name is Jason Po...Me again, the guy from above. (My name is Jason Powers, if you didn't require registration I'd post as me, as it is I posted most of the anonymous comments on this blog). <BR/><BR/>The representative system is always going to demand one-man-one-vote at the legislative level, assigning one guy more votes than another hasn't worked yet. I point you to Wikipedia (and more valuably, its collection of links) to pick up more on the tested variants of PR and IRV. <BR/><BR/>The chief executive is generally considered best chosen by the newly elected legislature, and best removed by an act of the legislature. It's generally agreed that he shouldn't have a veto, and that America is the only system with an independent executive which hasn't devolved into a dictatorship.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1152578663812762802006-07-10T18:44:00.000-06:002006-07-10T18:44:00.000-06:00ChrisYou are correct that votes for those who do n...<B>Chris</B><BR/><BR/>You are correct that votes for those who do not make the "top 100" (or however many legislators there are) are lost. However, I found no good way to avoid this.<BR/><BR/>We could not allow those who vote for losing candidates to vote again without knowing who people vote for -- which would be a bad idea.<BR/><BR/>If we allow losing candidates to donate their votes to the winner, we create a system where we run the risk of having thousands of individuals on the ballot. At least some inefficiency in terms of lost votes for those who cast votes for the 101st candidate would serve to prevent keep the number of candidates reasonable.<BR/><BR/>You are correct; there is still a need for a chief executive and this method will not work for its election. However, it would be interesting to discover the effect that such a system for electing legislators would have on partisan politics.Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1152575429141019802006-07-10T17:50:00.000-06:002006-07-10T17:50:00.000-06:00To the above commenter: You seem to be dismissing ...To the above commenter: You seem to be dismissing the central feature of Alonzo's proposed system (legislators with different numbers of votes to vote on bills) without really examining it. Isn't that a little unfair?<BR/><BR/><BR/>This looks like an interesting idea. I don't think that the election of a "dictator" (one representative with over 50% of the vote) is really that likely because of the third-party effect that would show up almost immediately. However, you could still allow certain acts of the legislature to require supermajorities; if one candidate gets over 2/3 of the total votes cast *even with the third-party effect*, it would probably be because of some overwhelming national emergency. As long as the constitution is such that the dictator can't prevent the next election from removing him or reducing his power if the people choose to do so, he would be more like the ancient Roman dictators than the present sense of the term.<BR/><BR/>It *is* possible that a majority of the votes would end up in the hands of a relatively small number, perhaps fewer than a dozen, of the most visible candidates; but they would be the most visible candidates on each different part of the political spectrum, and therefore would be unlikely to agree on much of anything. In practice, you would probably need a coalition of big legislators with small legislators to get anything done, since the big guys mostly disagree with the other big guys.<BR/><BR/>You make a good case for eliminating legislative districts, too. Regional factors are largely irrelevant to a society where lightspeed communications are ubiquitous, aside from a local government which will exclusively decide local issues such as zoning and road building.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Every vote still does not count though: all the votes for Candidate 11 in your example are wasted. Instant runoff voting might fix this problem; if anyone who voted for Candidate 11 also picked a second choice and their second choice candidate received their vote in the legislature, their vote would not be wasted even though they failed to elect Candidate 11. Alternatively, Candidate 11 herself could pick which of the winners to donate her votes to. This might allow her to solicit promises to pursue a certain agenda in exchange for her votes. (In both cases, I think it would be preferable to eliminate losers one at a time, starting from the bottom, until you reach the number of seats, because the ranks near the cutoff point may rearrange as votes from losers get reassigned.)<BR/><BR/><BR/>However, I'm not sure this system will work for presidential elections: there really are good reasons to have one head of the Executive Branch (although that branch should certainly be limited in its authority). Triumvirates and similar arrangements really don't work that well and are often subverted in practice. But if you have only one seat, then some of the original problems come back, and the idea of getting more votes doesn't apply. I don't see any way to avoid the 51% winner problem in a one-seat executive.<BR/><BR/>It's possible that this system could be applied to *electors*, but I see no good reason to retain the Electoral College at all, if we're talking about this kind of structural reform in the first place. Electors are no longer delegated the power to choose a president, but rather, committed to their choice in advance and chosen on that basis; this makes them essentially obsolete.<BR/><BR/>Therefore, I would favor a straight instant-runoff popular vote ballot for the presidency. This allows people to express support for third parties and dark horse candidates without hurting their political interests by doing so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1152552574261587092006-07-10T11:29:00.000-06:002006-07-10T11:29:00.000-06:00Sorry I just reread your 'candidate gets x number ...Sorry I just reread your 'candidate gets x number of votes' thing, and that doesn't work very well practically. Since I suggested party votes, the number of seats divided by the number of votes cast is what percent of the vote you need to get one person on your slate into the legislature. The IRV stuff is for when you're dividing those last few seats and there's inevitable ties.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-1152552330141797372006-07-10T11:25:00.000-06:002006-07-10T11:25:00.000-06:00PR is easier if each party puts forth an ordered s...PR is easier if each party puts forth an ordered slate of candidates and you vote for parties. <BR/><BR/>Also, you forgot to throw in IRV (Instant Runoff Voting), where you pick a second and maybe third party/candidate. That way when you get ties and such for those last few seats they're broken immediately by preference. <BR/><BR/>It's just us here in the U.S. for whom these are novel ideas, countries like Canada have been using them for years. <BR/><BR/>I don't know what it's like in Colorado, but I find that despite people's general perspective on my home state of Massachusetts as being pretty liberal, they're actually hopelessly stuck on doing things the traditional way. PR would also allow those of my friends who are Republicans to have their presidential votes counted for a change. <BR/><BR/>When I was growing up in Worcester, MA they used PR+IRV for City Council elections, but they laid the ballot out in a pretty weird way and people got confused so they stopped. <BR/><BR/>PR+IRV ballots, done right, have the same vertical list 2 or 3 times, and the top of each column says, respectively, "First Preference", "Second Preference" and "Third Preference". The last item on each list is a blank line for write-in candidates.<BR/><BR/>That way it's easier for me to put "Spider Jerusalem", "Bugs Bunny" and "The Undead Corpse of Ben Franklin" in there and be done with it for another 4 years.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com