[lambertsimnel]

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.