What's the problem with proportional representation?

[AdrienIer]

But we're going to move towards a part-proportional system. With like 3/4 of seats being awarded the way it is now and 1/4 awarded proportionally. At least that's what our new president is proposing.

 

[timtofly]

Humans claim to be complex, and issue orriented. However most gravitate to either be for an issue or against. The problem is government is not supposed to control every aspect of life. The more complex the government gets, the more the polarity nature of issues are going to put off humans who think the government is the answer to all life's problems.

 

[Hygro]

Humans claim to be complex, and issue orriented. However most gravitate to either be for an issue or against. The problem is government is not supposed to control every aspect of life. The more complex the government gets, the more the polarity nature of issues are going to put off humans who think the government is the answer to all life's problems.

I don't know what you said but for some reason I feel like I agree.

 

[metalhead]

I disagree, humans aren't issue oriented at all. Voting is almost always based on some mix of emotion, culture, identity, and values. That's why it is so easy for our electorate to become polarized - it isn't actually about finding solutions to problems or tackling the issues, it's about people wanting their culture and their values to win out in the end.

It's easy to compromise on issues and policy, but it's nearly impossible to compromise on one's values.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Single Transferable Vote

I voted in favour of that, it was called Alternative Vote, in the May 2011 UK referendum.

However people here in the UK did not then consider that to be true proportional representation.

The term proportional representation was then used to refer to systems where the number of representatives to be appointed
for a party was directly in proportion with the total number accumulating for all constituencies of votes for that party.

 

[Hygro]

Humans claim to be complex, and issue orriented. However most

I disagree, humans aren't issue oriented at all. Voting is almost always based on some mix of emotion, culture, identity, and values. That's why it is so easy for our electorate to become polarized - it isn't actually about finding solutions to problems or tackling the issues, it's about people wanting their culture and their values to win out in the end.

It's easy to compromise on issues and policy, but it's nearly impossible to compromise on one's values.

Come on man.

 

[timtofly]

I disagree, humans aren't issue oriented at all. Voting is almost always based on some mix of emotion, culture, identity, and values. That's why it is so easy for our electorate to become polarized - it isn't actually about finding solutions to problems or tackling the issues, it's about people wanting their culture and their values to win out in the end.

It's easy to compromise on issues and policy, but it's nearly impossible to compromise on one's values.

If it is not about issues, then why have a complex government where every voice is heard?

The culture today is: totalitarian authoritative governments are morally wrong and every one should have their alleged issues be considered as some restrictive force, without being authoritatively restrictive. How is that supposed to work?

@ Hygro I even re-wrote my first post. LOL

 

[metalhead]

Come on man.

His post still posits that issues are a basis for voting, even if a simplistic a polarized one. I'd argue that issues are merely a proxy for culture and values. This becomes obvious whenever you talk to people, because most people neither toe an ideological line nor adhere to absolutist, extremist views on stuff like guns. But they vote as if they did. Because a politician or party stance on the issue itself isn't what matters to them.

 

[Arwon]

I voted in favour of that, it was called Alternative Vote, in the May 2011 UK referendum.

However people here in the UK did not then consider that to be true proportional representation.

The term proportional representation was then used to refer to systems where the number of representatives to be appointed
for a party was directly in proportion with the total number accumulating for all constituencies of votes for that party.

Single Transferable Vote is not what you called Alternative Vote and what we call preferential voting. AV/preferential retains single-member districts and thus still leads to non-proportional results.

The large improvement AV/preferences offers over your current system is instead an end to tactical voting and vote splitting dilemmas. Nothing to do with proportionality.

STV necessarily involves multi-member electorates, ie it is a form of voting which achieves proportional representation via ranked voting for individuals. This is as distinct from systems that achieve proportionality through party list systems or mixed-member proportional ones.

 

[timtofly]

His post still posits that issues are a basis for voting, even if a simplistic a polarized one. I'd argue that issues are merely a proxy for culture and values. This becomes obvious whenever you talk to people, because most people neither toe an ideological line nor adhere to absolutist, extremist views on stuff like guns. But they vote as if they did. Because a politician or party stance on the issue itself isn't what matters to them.

The question, if I am getting it right is why are governments not more diverse in the political spectrum? What does that even entail if not for the fact that the more "issues" you introduce into goverment, the more the "issues" themselves are going to conflict with one another. I would also argue the point where a person does not vote on the issues that effect them. Of course they are going to choose the party that best represents their views and belief system. The point about "winning" is also going with a party that has the best track record, if I can be so crude.

So yes, humans vote with their emotions, and with a multiple choice "test" choose the answer they feel is the closest to what they desire. All the time unconsciously wanting to get their representative to win, even if that individual does not represent their views. It is the social desire to be part of a larger group, and even one that is dominant to the point where all other competition is done away with.

You have to temper the desire to have total control with the realization that society as a whole has problems that constantly need to be addressed.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Single Transferable Vote is not what you called Alternative Vote and what we call preferential voting. AV/preferential retains single-member districts and thus still leads to non-proportional results.

The large improvement AV/preferences offers over your current system is instead an end to tactical voting and vote splitting dilemmas. Nothing to do with proportionality.

STV necessarily involves multi-member electorates, ie it is a form of voting which achieves proportional representation via ranked voting for individuals. This is as distinct from systems that achieve proportionality through party list systems or mixed-member proportional ones.

I think I understand now.

We were not offered this in 2011, so I did not research it then.

Seems best form of proportional representation, although still reducing localness due
to having to have larger constituencies to support multiple elected per constituency..

 

[Sommerswerd]

His post still posits that issues are a basis for voting, even if a simplistic a polarized one. I'd argue that issues are merely a proxy for culture and values. This becomes obvious whenever you talk to people, because most people neither toe an ideological line nor adhere to absolutist, extremist views on stuff like guns. But they vote as if they did. Because a politician or party stance on the issue itself isn't what matters to them.

I agree with some of what you are saying, but you don't think that a substantial percentage of voters also pick a pet-issue or group of issues and pick "sides" based on the party line on that one (or handful) of issues? Gun control is one that springs to mind. I am skeptical that an avid gun/2nd amendment enthusiast is using the gun control issue as a pretense for being Republican.

 

[Bootstoots]

Not here
(Depending on where you put the boundary for short-lived governments)

Yeah, the Netherlands stands out as an exception that has ultra-proportional representation, without even a cutoff at 3-5% the way most places do, and still seems to get stable coalitions of like three or four out of zillions of parties. I have no idea why this arrangement works well for you guys but worse elsewhere.

One of the ideas behind FPTP voting is that a party has to be "responsible" and govern effectively and this prevents the sort of political fragmentation you see sometimes in parliamentary systems where you have a bunch of parties that would rather sit in opposition complaining than govern.

We can all see how well this is working out right now in the USA.

To play devil's advocate, it should probably also be mentioned that FPTP voting with single-member constituencies is the reason the UK ended up with only 1 UKIP MP in 2015, instead of about 80-85 as they would have gotten under PR. Of course UKIP actually accomplished its mission without being electorally successful by getting the Tories to call the Brexit referendum in order to keep them from doing better and appease some of their own backbenchers, but the far right would have had much more presence regardless.

Further, FPTP voting doesn't seem to result in many more non-two-party wins than any other form of single-member-constituency election. I still greatly favor instant runoff voting (aka the alternative vote) so that the "spoiler" effect is eliminated and people can vote their conscience without it hurting the major party they prefer, but it's the single-member constituencies that matter more than the voting system used to elect those members (FPTP, 2-round as in France, IRV as in Australia's House, etc).

But we're going to move towards a part-proportional system. With like 3/4 of seats being awarded the way it is now and 1/4 awarded proportionally. At least that's what our new president is proposing.

The German-style mixed-member proportional system is a good way to do this. The single-member constituencies are elected as before along with a separate choice for whose party list you prefer, and the party-list members are added on top to create proportionality for parties that were underrepresented in the single-member elections compared to their party-list share. You can get ~3/4 of the people in parliament to still represent a district and be answerable to the voters of their district, but maintain proportionality at the same time.

 

[Mise]

Arwon (and the Jenkins report) convinced me that PR via STV was the right choice for the UK.

 

[Flying Pig]

To play devil's advocate, it should probably also be mentioned that FPTP voting with single-member constituencies is the reason the UK ended up with only 1 UKIP MP in 2015, instead of about 80-85 as they would have gotten under PR. Of course UKIP actually accomplished its mission without being electorally successful by getting the Tories to call the Brexit referendum in order to keep them from doing better and appease some of their own backbenchers, but the far right would have had much more presence regardless.

This is really what killed the argument - before about 2010, bringing in PR would have meant more seats for the Lib Dems, who were basically inoffensive sandal-wearing types. Fast forward a couple of years, and the Lib Dems are the lying toads who raised tuition fees, and the biggest potential beneficiary of PR are the basically offensive jackboot-wearing types. Of course, it isn't much of an argument to say that a popular far-right party with supporters in lots of different places should be kept out of parliament, while one with lots of supporters in a few places should be allowed in. If we're going to do that, we need some kind of mechanism. The Germans, as I remember, require a party to get 5% of the vote to have any seats at all, which keeps the fringe lunatics out - and they just have to accept the mainstream lunatics. That's democracy, unfortunately.

 

[Hrothbern]

The German-style mixed-member proportional system is a good way to do this. The single-member constituencies are elected as before along with a separate choice for whose party list you prefer, and the party-list members are added on top to create proportionality for parties that were underrepresented in the single-member elections compared to their party-list share. You can get ~3/4 of the people in parliament to still represent a district and be answerable to the voters of their district, but maintain proportionality at the same time.

The Netherlands is also mixed:

In the Netherlands, on the voting document, you do NOT vote on a party, but always on a person.
It is custom that if you do not care for the person to represent you, but mainly the party, you vote on the Nr 1 name of that party.
If for example a party has listed 20 names and gets 12 seats, it is not necessarily the listed Nr1-Nr12 who get a seat, while people who got enough preferential votes will get a seat.

To the general topic:
What would you prefer ?
Two parties with both a left, centre and right wing ?
Or six parties ?

With two parties, it is an internal party establishment process, that determines whether your wing will actually be reflected in the party's actions.
With 6 parties you know at least where your vote is going to ! Much more transparent.

 

[Traitorfish]

Proportional representation tends to favour smaller parties and does not often produce a majority government. Two disadvantages there.

I see one advantage, and one that could go either way. Coalition-building is intrinsic to parliamentary politics, all PR does is force it out into the open.

One of the ideas behind FPTP voting is that a party has to be "responsible" and govern effectively and this prevents the sort of political fragmentation you see sometimes in parliamentary systems where you have a bunch of parties that would rather sit in opposition complaining than govern.

If the electorate prefers its representatives to complaint rather than govern, that is surely up to the electorate.

I voted in favour of that, it was called Alternative Vote, in the May 2011 UK referendum.

However people here in the UK did not then consider that to be true proportional representation.

The term proportional representation was then used to refer to systems where the number of representatives to be appointed
for a party was directly in proportion with the total number accumulating for all constituencies of votes for that party.

Part of the problem was that the Alternative Vote system retained single-member constituencies, so for all the high rhetoric, it wasn't really going to help anyone other than the Liberal Democrats. If you're going to get people in favour of reform, you have to convince them that the new system is genuinely more representative. What we'd really need to look at is multi-member constituencies, as in Ireland, which would allow voters to feel like they were electing a candidate they actually wanted, rather than merely accepting one they could tolerate.

 

[warpus]

I also prefer coalitions over two parties dominating every election too, but there's downsides there as well. IMO the upsides outweigh the downsides, but not always, it depends on which exact democracy you are looking at.

 

[Bootstoots]

Here is an interesting idea proposed by a Canadian to make its system proportional while still retaining votes for individuals. All districts are changed to two-member districts, with the first member chosen by FPTP and the second (usually) by PR.

I think I still prefer MMP to this, but the thing that jumped out at me is that it fits in perfectly with a quandry I had about my fantasies regarding amending the US Constitution. Namely, the one entrenched clause in the US constitution is that states must be equally represented in the Senate. If we switched all Senate terms to four-year ones, we could implement a variant of this and elect 50 senators FPTP, then choose the other 50 by national PR in such a way that each state still has 2 senators.

Not that amending the US constitution to make our system work in a more democratic fashion is actually possible, but I like to have my fantasies.

 

[innonimatu]

I really don't think you could get that through, the logic to federalism is that each state can choose its own political process for appointing representatives. A single national district would do away with that.

But bicameral systems should be able to easily solve the problem of having it both ways by electing one assembly with PR and the other with FPTP or whatever. That would also do away with political manipulation through gerrymandering.