(10-14-2019, 09:10 AM)jgsz Wrote:

(10-13-2019, 09:49 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: All of them. That’s how it is supposed to work.
....

That's a rather fanciful and romanticised notion of what an independent representative can do.  I suspect those who favour independents are folks who are quite comfortable with the status quo.   I say that because a parliament full of independents (338 in the Canadian parliament) would, at best, accomplish absolutely nothing.  At worst, they would create chaos and anarchy.  

We have political parties to accomplish things.  Would it help if political parties were called "teams?"  We have political parties, or teams, if you prefer, because they are more effective than individuals.  That's why we have sports teams.  Can you imagine what would happen if the Kitchener Rangers were independents and not team players?  They would never win!  Same would be true in politics.  If independents is such a good idea why are there no democratic governments in the world made up of independents?  Because it's not a good idea.  That's why.

Regardless, I'd like to discuss the need for PR rather than political parties.

(10-13-2019, 07:06 PM)panamaniac Wrote: Not sure districts of 10 MPs would be feasible when we have a province with only 4 MPs, barring even more profound changes to the system.

(10-13-2019, 04:31 PM)tomh009 Wrote:

(10-12-2019, 11:25 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: There are a wide variety of PR systems, not all of which suffer from the “party list” problem. Some systems have some members elected from each district, with additional ones appointed to make up the proportional totals. It’s also possible to take “extra” votes from ridings which elect someone overwhelmingly and use them to elect members of the same party from other ridings.

What I don’t like about PR is that it entrenches the concept of parties. My hope with ranked ballots is that it would make it much more likely for independents to get elected. If a popular member were to quit their party, or if a well-known local person were to run separately from any party, they might find it easier to attract votes if their voters can put a “2” next to one of the major parties. Similarly smaller parties would find it easier. How many current Liberal votes are really “2” votes from people who really want to vote Green or NDP?

A popular independent could certainly get elected with PR, given a reasonable electoral district size -- maybe 10 or so seats per electoral district.

I would prefer PR, and I have no issue with coalition governments. But I would certainly accept ranked ballots, as pretty much anything is an improvement over FPTP. STV (multi-member ranked ballot) with, again, a reasonable electoral district size would not be terrible at all, I think.

Dan, when you say ranked ballots don't work, are you specifically referring to single-member constituency ranked ballots?

(10-15-2019, 11:48 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(10-13-2019, 04:31 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I would prefer PR, and I have no issue with coalition governments. But I would certainly accept ranked ballots, as pretty much anything is an improvement over FPTP. STV (multi-member ranked ballot) with, again, a reasonable electoral district size would not be terrible at all, I think.

Dan, when you say ranked ballots don't work, are you specifically referring to single-member constituency ranked ballots?

Yes, and when I say "don't work" I mean they do not result in a highly proportional government.

(10-15-2019, 03:37 PM)tomh009 Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 11:48 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Yes, and when I say "don't work" I mean they do not result in a highly proportional government.

Understood -- that's a deficiency of any voting system that uses a single-member constituency.

But STV (which is also a ranked ballot) would (could) result in a reasonably high degree of proportionality, as long as the electoral districts are not too small.

(10-15-2019, 03:37 PM)tomh009 Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 11:48 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Yes, and when I say "don't work" I mean they do not result in a highly proportional government.

Understood -- that's a deficiency of any voting system that uses a single-member constituency.

But STV (which is also a ranked ballot) would (could) result in a reasonably high degree of proportionality, as long as the electoral districts are not too small.

(10-15-2019, 04:44 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 03:37 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Understood -- that's a deficiency of any voting system that uses a single-member constituency.

But STV (which is also a ranked ballot) would (could) result in a reasonably high degree of proportionality, as long as the electoral districts are not too small.

I think advocates of PR often take as given what they are advocating. Why should the Commons have representatives proportionate to the party popular vote?

I agree it shouldn’t be wildly dis-proportionate, but to use proportionality itself as the yardstick against which appropriateness of representation is measured is circular reasoning.

Here is an alternative proposal (I don’t specifically support this over every other proposal, but I think it’s interesting), which I challenge any PR advocate to refute: give each party a number of MPs proportional to the square root of their popular vote. I understand that this tends to match power more closely to vote share. In particular, in the event that one party gets a majority of vote share, they get lots of power but not all the power.

I think it’s more important for new parties and even independents to be able to attract supporters than for the MP counts to exactly match the vote counts.

(10-15-2019, 07:03 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 04:44 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: I think advocates of PR often take as given what they are advocating. Why should the Commons have representatives proportionate to the party popular vote?

I agree it shouldn’t be wildly dis-proportionate, but to use proportionality itself as the yardstick against which appropriateness of representation is measured is circular reasoning.

Here is an alternative proposal (I don’t specifically support this over every other proposal, but I think it’s interesting), which I challenge any PR advocate to refute: give each party a number of MPs proportional to the square root of their popular vote. I understand that this tends to match power more closely to vote share. In particular, in the event that one party gets a majority of vote share, they get lots of power but not all the power.

I think it’s more important for new parties and even independents to be able to attract supporters than for the MP counts to exactly match the vote counts.

I really don't understand your comment here.  I am not saying there aren't other considerations, but proportionality is fundamentally the point of government...being less proportional is bad...yes, we may be able to tolerate some as a trade off for other considerations, but I don't understand how one must justify the idea that government should be of the people.

(10-15-2019, 10:28 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 07:03 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I really don't understand your comment here.  I am not saying there aren't other considerations, but proportionality is fundamentally the point of government...being less proportional is bad...yes, we may be able to tolerate some as a trade off for other considerations, but I don't understand how one must justify the idea that government should be of the people.

No, the point of democratic government is to represent the interests of the people. PR takes as a goal that the number of representatives from each party will be (near) proportional to the number of votes that party got in the election. Already, there are two assumptions:

1) there should be these things called “parties” for which one votes; and

2) the best way to represent the interests of the people is for the number of MPs from each party in the legislature should be proportional to the number of votes received by the corresponding party.

As I said, I agree that a situation where a party with 33% of the vote gets 55% of the MPs and therefore 100% of the power (well, not quite, MPs aren’t that well trained, but not far off), is clearly problematic, but I’m not aware of anybody actually arguing for the proposition that if a party gets 33% of the vote it should have 33% of the MPs +/- 1 MP. What’s wrong with 30% or 35%? I notice that you didn’t say anything about my  ”square root” idea (which is not mine but arises out of a consideration of the voting power of various parties or interest groups given various numbers of representatives in the assembly). At a minimum, an advocate for PR should be able to explain, without resorting to circular argumentation, why simple proportion is more appropriate than the square root.

Also, does it matter where the support is? I think there is a colorable argument to be made that thin support country wide is not worthy of representation in Parliament; but if a large fraction of people in a small part of the country have concerns, they probably need to be heard, because widespread dissatisfaction in a geographical area is bad for the union.

(10-15-2019, 10:28 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Also, does it matter where the support is? I think there is a colorable argument to be made that thin support country wide is not worthy of representation in Parliament; but if a large fraction of people in a small part of the country have concerns, they probably need to be heard, because widespread dissatisfaction in a geographical area is bad for the union.

(10-16-2019, 10:01 AM)MidTowner Wrote: He explained the relevance in his last sentence: "widespread dissatisfaction in a geographical area is bad for the union."

That's accurate. Dissatisfaction that is dispersed geographically is a lot less likely to manifest itself in ways that are threatening to cohesion than dissatisfaction that is concentrated among one regional population. Maybe that's less true in the modern era than in the past, but it's still true.

Edit: I say that because you said "of equal importance to the country." Of course the state needs to pay more attention to 8% of voters who comprise almost a third of voters in a specific region, than 8% of voters who are spread evenly. The former group could, if ignored, threaten to separate and threaten the state's very existence.