Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by squiggleblaz 3107 days ago
I think the concern is that you could still, in principle, draw districts that gave you lots of seats, because they're relatively small. STV isn't proportional by design. You want as many of their votes as possible to wind up in the fourth of three quotas, and as many of yours as possible to end up in the three quotas that win seats. For instance, it may be that Us in some state just suddenly start winning two out of three seats in most districts. Make sure the two seat districts go in areas where They have a bit more than fifty percent but not a full two quotas so they split one apiece. The goal is still to waste as many of Their votes as possible to get fifty percent plus one seats.

PR is no panacea. To avoid gerrymandering, you need an adequately high district magnitude. After all, majority-preferential is just quota-preferential with a magnitude of 1. And FPTP is just List PR with a magnitude of 1.
1 comments
lambertsimnel 3107 days ago
You make many important points, but I don't agree that "STV isn't proportional by design". STV-PR provides voters with representatives elected by equal numbers of votes, and that's pretty close to the definition of proportionality. Given enough seats per constituency, STV-PR provides proportionality not only by party, but by any factors voters choose.

Anyway, I was responding to this:

>>> I don't think STV presents any function that would really prevent gerrymandering.

I still believe that STV-PR resists gerrymandering as much as List PR does.

> PR is no panacea. To avoid gerrymandering, you need an adequately high district magnitude.

I agree, but I expect any form of PR would deal a substantial blow to gerrymandering, even if it isn't a panacea. Perhaps the only way to eliminate gerrymandering is to elect all representatives from a single multi-member constituency. (I expect any other system with enough compensatory List PR seats would be practically as resistant to gerrymandering.) Of course, the sticking point for STV-PR is that a ballot paper for STV435 wouldn't be very user friendly :) .

What do you think of STV+ as a compromise? Under STV+ most representatives are elected under STV-PR and a minority are elected through compensatory List PR to increase the precision of party proportionality.

link