Mixed Member Proportional Representation.

[TheKwas]

This is your thread all about Proportional Representation electorial systems, and mainly Mixed Member proportional, since it was this system that inspired me to make the thread.

North Americans currently use an electorial system, singular first past the post voting/Single-Member District Plurality, that can literally give a party with 31% of the overall vote 100% of the power.
One of the best examples of such a phenomenon is the Canadain federal election within the province of Manitoba in 1926 where the overall results were:

Political party Percentage of votes Number of seats Percentage of Seats
Conservatives 42.2% 0 0%
Labour Progressives 19.5% 7 41%
Liberals 18.4% 4 24%
Progressives 11.2% 4 24%
Labour 8.7% 2 12%

I don't think I need to explain the absurdity of the example. To take the problem further, First past the post voting (FPTP) naturally cause two party systems (see Duverger's law), which are again, simply undemocratic.

The best way to address this problems of the current system would be to adopt a proportional representational electorial system such as MMP or Single transferable voting (which is very complex but puts no vote to waste).

Also, there are numerous other systems that could address these problems.

Instant-runoff voting (most likely the best to adopt for the american congress system, but I still think that America should adopt a parlament system).
Condorcet method
Range voting
Quota Borda system
Supplementry member system (a mixture between FPTP and Mixed Member.

Anyways, what is the best electorial system? And is Proportional representation a good thing?

[Aaron88]

I like proportional representation, because it would make every vote count, the way it should be.

[imb39]

In Britain we also use first past the post. I like it because it has a good track record of producing governments (not necessarily good governments, mind).

PR has, for me, one big weakness - it seems to amplify the power of the extreme (well, not mainstream) parties.

PR has caused havoc in Italy - how many governments have they had since the war? and has not helped Isreal, IMHO.

There is a debate (well it doesn't really happen much, now) regarding the House of Lords. If it becomes elected - it could well be done through a proportional repesentation system.

I have no doubt thiat it is successful in many parts of the world, I just remain to be convinced. I can see why people don't like it - it almost forces a two party system on the electorate and issues which aren't popular (but need looking at) can safely be ignored...

I suppose it's horses for courses, if you are happy with what you have - then fine...

The anomolies you've outlined above do not happen to that extreme, that often. Infact it is rare. In Britain, the *Conservatives (I think) polled fewer votes than Labour and got more seats (1974, or so). *Bush got in his first term with fewer votes. This is where the system falls down a bit, but I'll gladly trade that for strong government, considering they have a fixed term anyway and there's another chance to decide a few years later. Also you get a quick result and not a lot of haggling/power plays.

* These are the only two examples I can think of off hand.

[TheKwas]

PR has, for me, one big weakness - it seems to amplify the power of the extreme (well, not mainstream) parties.

It amplifies it in proportion to the support the "extreme" parties have from the mainstream public. And considering that most MMP nations like New Zealand or Germany have a threshold at 5% of the vote, I really don't see this as a problem. Also, another reason why it seems that PR systems have more "extremists" is that they purposely campaign extreme to show their true colours, but then know that they will have to be moderate and willing to compromise if they wish to join in a ruling coaliation.

If we look from an "extremists" view, FPTP unfairly ampifies the power of the "mainstream" parties to unproportional levels.

PR has caused havoc in Italy - how many governments have they had since the war? and has not helped Isreal, IMHO.

Italy is a special case, as it has always been chaotic dispite what electorial system used (Plus, their famous for their screw up with the decoy lists). I believe that during the 2001 elections, everyone expected the winner-take-all portion of the election (75%) to result in more stable government that the proportional portion (25%), yet, the winner-take-all portion resulted in more "small, extreme" parties than the PR portion did.

Everywhere else that has MMP or simply PR has a generally stable government.

I can see why people don't like it - it almost forces a two party system on the electorate and issues which aren't popular (but need looking at) can safely be ignored...

PR or FPTP?

The anomolies you've outlined above do not happen to that extreme, that often. Infact it is rare. In Britain, the *Conservatives (I think) polled fewer votes than Labour and got more seats (1974, or so). *Bush got in his first term with fewer votes. This is where the system falls down a bit, but I'll gladly trade that for strong government, considering they have a fixed term anyway and there's another chance to decide a few years later. Also you get a quick result and not a lot of haggling/power plays.

No, not to that extreme(I showed it purely as an example of what's possible and how flawed it is), but it's actually a fairly common thing for parties with less votes get more seats. For example, here in Canada, the NPD party tends to get around 18% of the overall vote and gets 20-some seats (out of 308), but the Bloc party (Quebec seperation party that doesn't run any members outside of Quebec) tends to get around 12% of the overall vote, but yet normally comes away with 50-some (I think they currently have 54) seats. Meanwhile, the Liberals (the governing party) tends to get around 30 percent of the overall vote, and yet the can often walk away with a majority government (although they are currently in control of a minority government, thank god), which can literally mean they have 100% of the power.

Such situations occur on every level of Canadain politics, even my representative seat was won by the conservatives despite having only 30% of the vote, the two left(ish) parties ended up spliting the vote and lost. My entire province went without a single seat being won by the NDP in the federal election, despite the fact that we're the birthplace of that party, and our provincial government is also ran by them.

[imb39]

Firstly, FPTP encourages, she we say, a two party system. PR encourages more parties.

Secondly, I agree that one weakness of fptp is that even if one party is narrowly in the lead it could translate into a large majority within the governing house. Another weakness is that if your vote is spread fairly evenly over the country, you will get less seats than if it was concentrated in certain areas...

I'm not disputing that fptp has flaws - I am fully aware of them - but as I said, I am prepared to accept those weaknesses for strong government (ie one made up of one party, essentially).

Another advantage of fptp (definitely for Britain's Parliamentary system) is that a candidate has repsonsibility for a specific area. The population of that area have someone specific that they can go to and then vote upon when the political term is over. Some systems have an element of this, but not all (and I really like that aspect). This also allows indpendent candidates to win when specific issues regarding that constituency become important - eg for the last two Parliaments, a local doctor has won a seat over his fighting of the closing of a local hospital. I forget the names involved, but it does happen. Quite rare, though.

[TheKwas]

I'm not disputing that fptp has flaws - I am fully aware of them - but as I said, I am prepared to accept those weaknesses for strong government (ie one made up of one party, essentially).

Why don't you skip the middle man and go straight to a dictatorship? They make strong governments.

^_^

Either way, PR has proven to averagely elect just as stable governments as non PR systems. And the passing of Bills, and other government duties are taken on with the same effectiveness as any other government (norway is a good example of this).

Another advantage of fptp (definitely for Britain's Parliamentary system) is that a candidate has repsonsibility for a specific area. The population of that area have someone specific that they can go to and then vote upon when the political term is over. Some systems have an element of this, but not all (and I really like that aspect).

As you somewhat mentioned, that is also a possible feature in PR. For example, in MMP you get two votes, one for your local canidate you want to represent you in government and one for the party you wish to vote for. In New Zealand, they fill up the extra seats not filled up with selected canidates with party lists of members which are selected by the party, which would result in people holding seats that don't represent a single area, but in other MMP countries like Germany, the party lists are actually voted for and selected by the public, meaning that every member of parlament is an directly-elected offical by the public.

This also allows indpendent candidates to win when specific issues regarding that constituency become important - eg for the last two Parliaments, a local doctor has won a seat over his fighting of the closing of a local hospital. I forget the names involved, but it does happen. Quite rare, though.

Again, quite possible under MMP. For example, in New Zealand, the Maori party is a single issue party that fights for Maori (an ethnic minority) rights and representation. They currently hold 2 seats (might have changed in the recent election, I can't remember) and can even hold the balance of power if certain other parties abstain from certain votes.

On PR, the problems can be seen simply with the Weimar Republic; it had a government and election far too often, and the longest government was about 4 years. That was an anomaly.

Again, on average PR has proven to provide governments that are just as stable as it's non-PR counterparts, and they generally last as long as the average government. The Weimar Republic obviously fell for numerous reasons outside of PR (they were in the middle of a terrible deppression). But as a complete sidenote, I would actually LIKE more elections than the current norm, back in the early 1900s people were fighting for annual elections because they thought democracy was worth the extra bucks. Not to mention with annual elections, the propaganda freakshow that plagues modern campaigns and elections could largely disappear as the issues would be more fresh in the voter's mind.

More democracy is always a good thing.

And PR systems create whar some people call a partycracy, a system where the parties hold sway over the running of the country through pressure and ilegality. italy was a good example of this...

In some ways, this is partly true. Straigh forward PR systems do tend to create strong party-whips, but that is often counter-balanced by the fact that there's alot more parties, so instead of having the democrats where you can have a right of centre canidate run for the same party as a far-left socialist and the moderate liberal, you have the centralist party, the far-left party and the moderate party. Not to mention that under MMP (and to a lesser extent, STV) the party-whip phenonem is mostly counteracted by directly electing canidates and knowning who's on who's party list. Example in case, New Zealand's Green party has a raspatarian representative who's pretty much an anarchist at heart, he opposes the bicycle helmet laws to such an extent that he now has offical exeption from the law. Considering that that green party is fairly mainstream in New Zealand with mostly moderate canidates and leaders, he's an example of of member not being a tool of the party.

[Tom Paine]

On PR, the problems can be seen simply with the Weimar Republic; it had a government and election far too often, and the longest government was about 4 years. That was an anomaly.

[imb39]

Well this echos Italy's problems. I don't think, however, this is necessarily true in other pr systems.

[MoROmeTe]

And PR systems create whar some people call a partycracy, a system where the parties hold sway over the running of the country through pressure and ilegality. italy was a good example of this...

[Kanaric]

No system is perfect. We just have to work with what we got.

IMO a more steady government is better and as people have mentioned, with Italy or the Weimer republic, there are problems with this type of system and getting things done in government.

[TheKwas]

No system is perfect. We just have to work with what we got.

IMO a more steady government is better and as people have mentioned, with Italy or the Weimer republic, there are problems with this type of system and getting things done in government.

Again, looking at the exceptions of PR is simply unfair, both Italy and the Weimer republic failed for reasons far beyond the mere electorial system. Using the same logic, I could easily blame the electorial problems of early 2000 Argentina on the lack of PR, but anyone who looks indepth knows that the economic problems were the real reason.

This is very true. At the end of the day, no one system produces better results - it is what you are used to. In this case, I'm very conservative and think that a system that has grown up with 500 years of development has worked as well as anything else that any other country has produced. If it ain't broke - don't fix it.

It may has passed bills just as effectively as PR has, but it hasn't passed bills in a way that represents the public. If the choice comes between stabily and unrepresentational bill-passing, and stability and representational bill-passing, I'll take the representational choice.

Hmmm.... Yes and no. Yes democracy is a good thing. However stability is also a good thing. Too many elections (especially where the people are severely divided) will probably cause a lot more problems than it solves. One BIG weakness that democracy has is that politicians nearly always opt for short term solutions - what will get them through the next election. This has been aq big problem in Britain. This applies to all forms of multi-party democracy.

One solution would be to increase democracy even further and skip the middleman. Direct democracy. No more career politicans to look out for their own hide over the good of the public.

It's also known as anarchism

But once again, this is just a sidenote.

The party whip in Parliament can be very strong here aswell. However, due to the ties to a constituency, MPs are fairly careful if their particular electorate (usually due to specific local issues) and this causes the whip to be broken.

At the end of the day the link to the constituency is the most valuable part of our democracy. Having members that don't have this link is not a good idea, imho.

Generally, I've observed that in modern democracy the actual ties to the constituency are fairly weak to begin with. At the most, I get a letter from my representative every 3 months saying he's fighting for his party's causes. But nonetheless I agree with you in theory. MMP still has this aspect, as does most favoured PR systems such as STV.

And what's the betting that they will have a disproportionate amount of power (not necessarily a bad thing in this case...) But look at Isreal - extremist parties seem to be able to dictate quite a lot. This is purely anecdotal, though.

I don't see how it's disproportional at all, it's meant to be exactly that, proportional.

[imb39]

One solution would be to increase democracy even further and skip the middleman. Direct democracy. No more career politicans to look out for their own hide over the good of the public.

NO, no, thrice no.
Firstly - who decides what is to be voted on.
Secondly - How could things be debated properly?
Thirdly - How much time would people have, generally, to actually take part? The people who would be invovled more are those who are far more likely to vote, not he mass?
Fourthly - Many laws deal with complicated circumstances (fraud etc) which the vast majority just won't understand - recipe for disaster.

This just simply won't work. Just like Italy

I don't see how it's disproportional at all, it's meant to be exactly that, proportional.

Smaller parties, who hold a balance of power, can extract some enormous concessions over 'fringe issues.' I'm not convinced...

[TheKwas]

NO, no, thrice no.
Firstly - who decides what is to be voted on.
Secondly - How could things be debated properly?
Thirdly - How much time would people have, generally, to actually take part? The people who would be invovled more are those who are far more likely to vote, not he mass?
Fourthly - Many laws deal with complicated circumstances (fraud etc) which the vast majority just won't understand - recipe for disaster.

This just simply won't work. Just like Italy

It's worked in the past.

Anyways, if you wanna discuss anarchism with me, start a new thread.

Smaller parties, who hold a balance of power, can extract some enormous concessions over 'fringe issues.' I'm not convinced...

Not really, in order for a small party to hold a balance of power, it means that there has to be bigger parties holding the small opinion in the first place, so it's really just majority rules, which is the norm.

[Muizer]

Italy has had a large communist party since the war. The other parties could rely on eachother not to form a coalition with them though. It's not surprising really that the government fell so often as it did, if you consider you're condemned to govern with an unnatural ally while you know at the same time that no matter what you'll be back in government. IMHO it's the combination of the de facto political landscape in combination with the electoral system that determines whether people feel represented in a democracy or not.

If you want to know whether a democracy is in trouble look for the telltale signs of a negative spiral: a dwindling turnout of voters who are motivated by dislike for the current administration more than belief in the alternative.
We have a saying here, that's quite commonly used by politicians: "the voter is always right". Of course, the voter is not. If the voter were always right, then the government would always be popular. The parties that support the current administration now only have 59 seats in the polls when 76 are needed for a majority. That means, that there are something like a million voters here who ought to acknowledge that they made the wrong decision. Gosh I wish the VOTERS would start taking responsibility more, instead of :wub: about the government. But alas, it's the politicians grovelling (the voter is always right after all), afraid as they are of losing votes, that makes it easier for people to walk away from their own responsibility and pin the blame on politics.

Muizer

[imb39]

"Why don't you skip the middle man and go straight to a dictatorship? They make strong governments."

Well, that might be the logical extension of my argument, but I do like the ability to get rid of a poor government.

------

"Either way, PR has proven to averagely elect just as stable governments as non PR systems. And the passing of Bills, and other government duties are taken on with the same effectiveness as any other government (norway is a good example of this)."

This is very true. At the end of the day, no one system produces better results - it is what you are used to. In this case, I'm very conservative and think that a system that has grown up with 500 years of development has worked as well as anything else that any other country has produced. If it ain't broke - don't fix it.

----

"But as a complete sidenote, I would actually LIKE more elections than the current norm, back in the early 1900s people were fighting for annual elections because they thought democracy was worth the extra bucks. Not to mention with annual elections, the propaganda freakshow that plagues modern campaigns and elections could largely disappear as the issues would be more fresh in the voter's mind.

More democracy is always a good thing."

Hmmm.... Yes and no. Yes democracy is a good thing. However stability is also a good thing. Too many elections (especially where the people are severely divided) will probably cause a lot more problems than it solves. One BIG weakness that democracy has is that politicians nearly always opt for short term solutions - what will get them through the next election. This has been aq big problem in Britain. This applies to all forms of multi-party democracy.

----

"In some ways, this is partly true. Straigh forward PR systems do tend to create strong party-whips, but that is often counter-balanced by the fact that there's alot more parties, so instead of having the democrats where you can have a right of centre canidate run for the same party as a far-left socialist and the moderate liberal, you have the centralist party, the far-left party and the moderate party. Not to mention that under MMP (and to a lesser extent, STV) the party-whip phenonem is mostly counteracted by directly electing canidates and knowning who's on who's party list. Example in case, New Zealand's Green party has a raspatarian representative who's pretty much an anarchist at heart, he opposes the bicycle helmet laws to such an extent that he now has offical exeption from the law. Considering that that green party is fairly mainstream in New Zealand with mostly moderate canidates and leaders, he's an example of of member not being a tool of the party."

The party whip in Parliament can be very strong here aswell. However, due to the ties to a constituency, MPs are fairly careful if their particular electorate (usually due to specific local issues) and this causes the whip to be broken.

At the end of the day the link to the constituency is the most valuable part of our democracy. Having members that don't have this link is not a good idea, imho.

----

"Again, quite possible under MMP. For example, in New Zealand, the Maori party is a single issue party that fights for Maori (an ethnic minority) rights and representation. They currently hold 2 seats (might have changed in the recent election, I can't remember) and can even hold the balance of power if certain other parties abstain from certain votes."

And what's the betting that they will have a disproportionate amount of power (not necessarily a bad thing in this case...) But look at Isreal - extremist parties seem to be able to dictate quite a lot. This is purely anecdotal, though.

This may well be perfectly true. As I have said previously, its horses for courses. PR (in what ever guise) works well in many areas, it also has a very poor record in other areas. I'm sure that the same can be applied to fptp. Just look at Britain in the 70's...

[imb39]

Voter turn out in Britain is a big concern. The parties don't seem to be doing much about it. There are some initiatives which take place during the lection, but that is it.

TheKwas, this will sound very irrational, I know, but I just like our system. It has worked very well over time. It isn't perfect, no system is perfect. Indeed, sometimes, fptp produces a hung parliament - the LibLab pact in the 70's was the result. As I said, I'm very conservative (with a small 'c') when it comes to reform - I would have been quite happy if the House of Lords wasn't reformed - now that is hardly democratic!

In response to the direct democracy idea - how big/small should the population be before it gets ineffective? How educated should they be? I don't regard myself as particularly stupid - but I just don't understand many of the laws, and often dail to see the implications of much of the legislation put forth. In Britain, you'll get a situation where mob mentality takes over. I genuinely think that in today's world, life is just too complicated/busy for people to take a level of interest that would be required to make it viable. You'll get a lot of vindictive, stupid laws - well more than you would normally get...

[TheKwas]

In regards to direct democracy being ineffective with large populations, it should be noted that the Zapatista's of Chiapas, Mexico number over 500,000, and the population of anarchist Spain during the Civil war dwarfs that number (I can't remember the exact number, but just about all of Catalonia and a few other areas in the East could be considered directly-democratic and anarchist). The thing about anarchist is that it's decentralized to the point where society is flexible enough to address issues at whatever level the issue contains to. So population (once hitting 100,000+ people) really has little affect on the overall progress of the society.

Also, having a court system is still possible with anarchism, so it isn't like each time fraud is committed, everyone needs to understand the offense and decide what to do with the offender. The court system would merely act out it's function and study individual cases to make sure that the Anarchist maxim of "Affect only when affected" (basicly, you get to vote on an issue only when the issue has the potential to negatively affect you, otherwise you have no say) is upheld and the maximum amount of freedom is granted to each individual. You won't see stupid, vindictive laws because chances are they wouldn't be able to make the case that they "affect when affected".

And really, people are interested in thier own affairs, there's no real doubt about that, so if localized democracy becomes a bigger part of their affairs, their interest in it will also increase. Even in bigger issues, if someone isn't interested, they just don't vote.

[Erik]

I'm all for PR becauws it's the only democratic system.
In FPTP you get to vote for one of two parties but they are essentially the same because they both go after the average citizen.
I seriously don't see much difference between the republicans and the democrats, or the conservatives and new labour.
So you have no real choice.

I also don't like how parties are punished (or rather never punished) for their screw-ups in the FPTP system.
Notice how most Brits voted labour because "the conservatives aren't any better" or how Bush got re-elected because "Kerry wasn't a better alternative".
But I guess this is what you call a "strong government": one that won't be hold accountable for their mistakes.

In a PR system you don't have this problem.
Individual parties can (and usually wil) get a blow if they screwed up, there are enough possible combiniations for the next coalition.
It's easy for people to, for example, switch from a left-winged to a center-left party.

But the biggest difference between the British/American system and the "European" PR system is that we Europeans have a democracy while the Brits and Americans have a republic.
In a PR system the parliament (read: the people) is the highest authority, while in a FPTP system it's the president or prime-minister (read: the King for x number of years).
And everybody who has seen our prime-minister wil understand why I'm so happy he isn't the highest authority in my country.


Jan Peter Balkenende, prime-minster of the Netherlands.

[imb39]

I'm all for PR becauws it's the only democratic system.
In FPTP you get to vote for one of two parties but they are essentially the same because they both go after the average citizen.
I seriously don't see much difference between the republicans and the democrats, or the conservatives and new labour.
So you have no real choice.

Granted its the case at the moment but just look at the system as a whole Up until 1992 there was always a division in politics. Tories vs Whigs, Conservatives vs Liberals, Conservatives vs Labour.

I'll concede that it encourages a 2 party system but the converging of the political parties is a very recent thing. Very recent...

[Muizer]

I'm all for PR becauws it's the only democratic system.

I'm quite happy with PR because above all it allows the political landscape to evolve. Parties can start small, make themselves heard in parliament and then grow and/or be obliterated again depending on their performance. In countries with FPTP that will rarely happen. Certainly FPTP creates a lot of stability, but stability in a democracy also means unaccountability and a negativity popularity spiral: in the absence of viable third parties all you have to do is make the other party look worse than your own.

Then again, PR has its own issues. If you vote for a party, you have no say over who they will form a coalition with. Furthermore, the party decides who its candidates are. That puts a lot of pressure on MPs to follow the party line and helps create party establishments that are difficult to dislodge. No "decapitation" in the Dutch elections (that's British jargon apparently, probably not a wise phrase to use in Dutch politics ).

Muizer