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simple proportional

simple still proportional voting system
  (+2)
(+2)
  [vote for,
against]

In the UK three-quarters-want-more-proportional voting- system-new-poll-shows

Votes would not be wasted & individual MP accountability and geographical representativeness would still be kept & total dissatisfaction minimized if:

The voters vote in the same way they used to vote (1 "x" for 1 individual candidate, no order numbers, no party lists); then the constituencies are taken one by one: 1) the 1 MP candidate who has the highest % in his/her constituency (out of all the constituencies where an MP has not got the seat yet, i.e. in the beginning out of 650, then the remaining 649, etc. constituencies) gets the seat (e.g. the most popular candidate got 72%, the second got 70%, the third got 69.9%, etc.) 2) the votes for the non-winning candidates in this constituency (which are lost in the current system) are divided by the number of the remaining other candidates of the same party (e.g. in the beginning 649) and equally distributed to (i.e. transferred to, inherited by) the remaining other candidates of the same party and added to their own votes. 3) The %s in the remaining constituencies are recalculated. Go to 1,

This way - simple to vote, - every vote counts, - the geographically concentrated parties are not advantaged, the geographically scattered voters have a say too, - the voters are not encouraged to lie about, distort their preferences (e.g. voting against the most hated candidate/party: voting for a popular though not really favorite candidate instead of the real favorite; or giving a misleading high number to the popular rival), - this system favors the more popular candidates, so the parties cannot sell secure party list seats to the rich or lobbyists, who are not elected by voters - geographically representative system (since each constituency has exactly 1 MP) - this system is basically proportional, but discounts the transferred votes, as more and more total (own+inherited) votes are spent on getting a seat

jratkai, May 17 2015

3/4 want more proportional voting http://www.electora...stem-new-poll-shows
three-quarters-want-more-proportional-voting-system-new-poll-shows [jratkai, May 17 2015]

Alternative Vote referendum http://en.wikipedia...te_referendum,_2011
The public says no. [Loris, May 17 2015, last modified May 18 2015]

real-time forest voting real-time_20forest_20voting
Generalized representative democracy [Loris, May 18 2015]

Simply irresistibile https://www.youtube...watch?v=UrGw_cOgwa8
[normzone, May 26 2015]

[link]






       The public are fickle. It's just over four years since we had a referendum - and they overwhelmingly voted against. Well actually most people voted "meh".   

       I think the problem with your system as described is that you're propagating only part of the 'error', and non-locally. If you're living in a marginal seat you're likely to get the protest candidate elected from all the carried-over votes everywhere else - even if no-one in the constituency voted for them[1].   

       I've been mulling over this issue, and hadn't quite felt it worth a full idea post, but for what it's worth, I offer two proposals:   

       1) Error Diffused Voting. This combines the desirable properties of FPTP (simple voting and local representation) with mathematical proportionality. Effectively it's similar to the method described in the scheme, but all votes (less those which win the seat) are propagated to unelected neigbouring seats. (The candidate specifies the recipient for all neighbouring districts ahead of time; this is public information.)   

       2) Voronoi Voting. Everybody votes for a single candidate; districts are decided after the fact[2]. Effectively, all the candidates gerrymander their own constituencies[3].   

       [1] Perhaps because the candidate in question is the rabid fringe of the undesirable party.   

       [2] I haven't worked through the details.   

       [3] Also, the name isn't necessarily appropriate, depending on how the boundaries are generated.
Loris, May 17 2015
  

       It says simple right in the name, but I don't understand this.
tatterdemalion, May 17 2015
  

       I vote the idea gets saved to a category.
normzone, May 17 2015
  

       ^ seconded.
FlyingToaster, May 17 2015
  

       It's been proven that no voting system can be perfect, in the sense of perfectly reflecting the people's wishes.   

       However, there are two distinct problems with the current system:   

       (1) At a local level, a single vote doesn't reflect people's preferences. If you prefer candidate A, don't mind candidate B, but really hate C, then a single vote cannot reflect this. This means that a 'compromise candidate' (B) who everybody is fairly happy with, is unlikely to be elected.   

       (2) At a national level, a party could in theory get 49% of the vote, yet have no MPs.   

       The solution to (1) is a voting system that lets you rank the candidates, or at least specify first and second choices; a second choice counts as (say) a third of a vote.   

       (2) is harder, because in any one constituency, the MP with the most votes (under whatever system is used) ought indeed to be elected. If your constituency gave 51% of the vote to the labour candidate, but a UKIP candidate was elected to reflect the national voting pattern, that would be unfair. The only fair way around this is to have a subset of MPs who don't represent constituencies, and award these seats on the basis of national voting.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 18 2015
  

       //It's been proven that no voting system can be perfect, in the sense of perfectly reflecting the people's wishes.//   

       That doesn't really make sense. It's obvious that in an election selecting a single candidate, a population with a diverse preference cannot be perfectly reflected.   

       Presumably you're referring to Arrow’s impossibility theorem, Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem or similar. These cover ranking systems, and show that they are susceptable to tactical voting.   

       But this doesn't mean the system can't be changed (rather more significantly) to give a better result. For example, we could just elect *all* the candidates, and allow them weighted votes in the house of commons - proportional to their electoral mandate. I think that would kill tactical voting stone dead. In the house of commons the votes are all yes/no, so tactical voting isn't a problem there.   

       Then there's jutta's real-time forest voting idea, which is much more exciting.
Loris, May 18 2015
  

       A simpler description:   

       Votes wasted in the first-past-the-post system would be reused in the Votes reuse system:   

       The voters vote as they used to vote, in the simplest way (i.e. 1 "x" for 1 individual candidate, no order numbers, no party lists); then the constituencies are taken one by one (e.g. the candidate with the highest % got 72%, the second got 70%, the third got 69.9%, etc.):   

       1) 1 candidate who has the highest % gets the seat (in our example in the first step the candidate with 72%)   

       2) the votes for the non-winning candidates in this constituency would not be lost but inherited by the remaining other candidates of the same party (equally) and added to their own votes.   

       3) The %s in the remaining constituencies are recalculated. Go to 1)   

       + Simple to vote (avoiding a serious disadvantage of the ordering preferential systems e.g. AV alternative vote, STV single transferable vote) + geographically representative system (since each constituency has exactly 1 representative) + tactical voting is not the interest of voters, as every vote counts, if not in this constituency, then in another + the geographically scattered voters can have a representative too - in some constituencies with smaller differences between the candidates the original winner might not get the seat, though the votes on her/him are also reused; in a sense it is a single-member district, though in a sense all members belong to 1 district + there can be a threshold (e.g. 50-55%): if a candidate's original % is above the threshold, gets the seat + the more popular candidates of a party make use of the inherited votes, so the parties cannot sell secure party list seats to those who are not elected by voters + the equal inheritance can be equal % point increase or equal number of votes + the votes reuse system provides approximate proportional representation, though discounts the transferred votes, as more and more total (own+inherited) votes are spent on getting a seat.
jratkai, May 26 2015
  

       Off topic: an overall problem with vote-at-the-polling-station democracy is basic statistics. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if 60% of voters vote and 60% say yes, that's only 36% overall making a country-wide decision.   

       Achieving a simple majority would be unworkable. Direct democracy alternatives are infinitely feasible and needed.
4and20, May 26 2015
  

       [jratkai], if you go to your home page and open this idea, it will give you a drop down menu where you can save it under any number of categories other than other:general.
normzone, May 26 2015
  

       You can always adopt the Israeli system, where total dissatisfaction is promised.
pashute, May 26 2015
  

       //Off topic: an overall problem with vote-at-the-polling-station democracy is basic statistics. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if 60% of voters vote and 60% say yes, that's only 36% overall making a country-wide decision.//   

       In my opinion the people who are theoretically entitled to vote but don't - don't count.
  

       So in your example, 100% of the people who gave a damn had a say, and the majority of those carried it.
Loris, May 27 2015
  

       It seems to me that the glaringly obvious solution is to maintain two houses. Senate and Representatives or Commons and Lords - currently those two houses are temporally partitioned (i.e. one's membership is redefined every 4 years, while the other's has a longer term) Instead, we might redefine one as being organised by 1st pass the post constituency winners , whilst the other is populated based on party lists the number of candidates of which are determined by proportional representation. You get the long- term grandee element since it would make sense for a party to populate its "upper" house with respected career politicians who have the experience (and hopefully the wisdom) to take a longer-term view. It seems so obvious, it must have been proposed (and possibly implemented) before somewhere.
zen_tom, May 27 2015
  

       Having known quite a few nonvoters, many of whom felt incapable, most of whom like me increasingly felt it is a waste of time, I take and don't take the people-don't-matter argument. The rest are inscrutable bartlebys.   

       You can find annual voter participation rates by country. Places like Bulgaria came out steaming for democracy and gradually dropped like flies. Australia still gets 93% voter participation, because voting's mandatory, which is the other, far less pleasant alternative to just making democracy a mobile phone tap. [On Topic]
4and20, May 27 2015
  

       /inscrutable bartlebys/ nice!
bungston, May 27 2015
  
      
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