lpetrich
Contributor
I wish to ask what voting systems you people like. Here, I will ask what you might like for a multiseat body, like an assembly or a council or a legislature or a parliament or whatever. This assembly serves a region where its voters live.
Single-member districts Divide the region up into electoral districts, one for each assembly seat. Each district's inhabitants then do a single-seat election for each seat's occupant (FPTP, IRV, ...).
Party-list proportional representation Vote for a political party, and each party will get a number of seats in proportion to the number of votes that it had received. One then uses some algorithm that gives every party an integer number of seats. Parties usually publish lists of candidates that they want to seat, thus the name.
Parallel voting The assembly is divided up into two uncoupled sub-assemblies, one of district seats elected in single-member-district fashion, and one of list seats elected in party-list fashion. One votes for both a district candidate and a party.
Mixed-member system Like the parallel system, but the list seats are assigned to make the entire assembly proportional, both list seats and district seats.
Single transferable vote Like instant runoff voting, but with winners in addition to losers. A quota or threshold for winning is established, (total votes)/((seats) + 1), and a candidate who gets more than the winning quota of top votes gets seated. That quota of the candidate's ballots is removed from the count, with the candidate's excess ballots remaining in the count, or else all those ballots remain, but get weighted by (excess)/(total). If no candidate can get a seat, then the candidate with the lowest top votes gets removed, as in IRV. As each candidate gets removed, the ballots in the count gets recounted, and this counting continues until all the seats are filled.
STV is done in multimember electoral districts with 3 to 7 seats or thereabouts, because more than that requires ranking a *lot* of candidates. Likewise, party-list and mixed-member elections can also be done in multimember districts, with the mixed-member ones subdividing those districts into single-member ones for the district seats.
Magical brownies In case you are all confused.
Single-member districts Divide the region up into electoral districts, one for each assembly seat. Each district's inhabitants then do a single-seat election for each seat's occupant (FPTP, IRV, ...).
Party-list proportional representation Vote for a political party, and each party will get a number of seats in proportion to the number of votes that it had received. One then uses some algorithm that gives every party an integer number of seats. Parties usually publish lists of candidates that they want to seat, thus the name.
Parallel voting The assembly is divided up into two uncoupled sub-assemblies, one of district seats elected in single-member-district fashion, and one of list seats elected in party-list fashion. One votes for both a district candidate and a party.
Mixed-member system Like the parallel system, but the list seats are assigned to make the entire assembly proportional, both list seats and district seats.
Single transferable vote Like instant runoff voting, but with winners in addition to losers. A quota or threshold for winning is established, (total votes)/((seats) + 1), and a candidate who gets more than the winning quota of top votes gets seated. That quota of the candidate's ballots is removed from the count, with the candidate's excess ballots remaining in the count, or else all those ballots remain, but get weighted by (excess)/(total). If no candidate can get a seat, then the candidate with the lowest top votes gets removed, as in IRV. As each candidate gets removed, the ballots in the count gets recounted, and this counting continues until all the seats are filled.
STV is done in multimember electoral districts with 3 to 7 seats or thereabouts, because more than that requires ranking a *lot* of candidates. Likewise, party-list and mixed-member elections can also be done in multimember districts, with the mixed-member ones subdividing those districts into single-member ones for the district seats.
Magical brownies In case you are all confused.