PAL (Proportional, Accountable, Local) representation is a system for electing a proportionally-representative legislature. It's designed to be a gentle change from a single-member-district system; districts can remain unchanged, and if single-member districts are giving fair proportions from cohesive parties, PAL representation will elect exactly the same members. The difference is that most representatives will represent multiple districts, and each district will have multiple representatives (one from each winning party). This allows each voter to know who their representative is, while preserving ballot secrecy. Thus, whereas currently only 60-70% of US voters voted for their representative, and many of those because they have no real choice, with PAL voting over 80% overall, and over 95% in large states, would be guaranteed have a representative whom they'd supported directly or indirectly.
The basic idea is:
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First, to simplify the ballots, the population is separated into a "district" for each seat, and "districts" are grouped into sets of 2 or 3 "co-districts". The ballot for each district lists the incumbents and candidates from that district in a larger font, and the candidates from its co-districts below that in a smaller font. Write-ins may be used to vote for candidates from other districts not listed on the ballot, so the districts only matter for ballot simplicity (Voters do not want to have a ballot with many dozens of candidates on it, but write-ins allow full freedom for those voters who want it). Larger parties will usually run one candidate per district; smaller parties may just run one candidate per co-district set.
Your representative is the member of the party you voted for who is representing your district. If no member of the party you voted for was elected, then you may look at the public ballot of your chosen candidate to see which of your district's representatives is yours.
Optionally, one additional rule can be added to modify step 5 above:
This would encourage small parties to join into coalitions, and thus promote a less-fragmented legislature. There are various options for T. It could be as high as 5%, similar to the 5% threshold used in the German parliament. Or it could be as low as V/(S+I-1) (that is, V/S, if the process completes in just one iteration); this would actually allow independent candidates to be their own "party", but only if they have enough support to fully deserve one of the S seats.
This rule complicates the system somewhat, so it is not recommended if the PAL representation is to be implemented by a voter referendum. If the system is being passed by a legislature, they may be more concerned about fragmentation, so they could use a relatively-high 5% threshold. And if the system is implemented by a constitutional convention, a V/(S+I-1) threshold is ideally fair.
District 5 ballot ▢ ________________________(write-in) If you only vote for one candidate who does not win, your vote may help elect that candidate's preferences, unless you check the box below: If you vote for more than one candidate, or if you vote for a candidate with no declared preferences, your vote is not delegated. In that case, it does not matter whether you check the "do not delegate" box above. |
Imagine that Tennessee is having an election on where to locate 3 public universities. The population of Tennessee is concentrated around its four major cities, which are spread throughout the state. For this example, suppose that the entire electorate lives in these four cities, and that everyone wants to live as near as many universities as possible.
The candidate sites for the university are:
The preferences of the voters would be divided like this:
42% of voters (close to Memphis) |
26% of voters (close to Nashville) |
15% of voters (close to Chattanooga) |
17% of voters (close to Knoxville) |
---|---|---|---|
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|
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The quota is (100.0008%/(3+1))=25.0002% (The small fraction represents one extra virtual voter, to ensure that the quota cannot be met by four different sites). Since both Memphis (site 1) and Nashville are over the quota, both are elected first. Memphis votes are multiplied by 17/42 and transferred to Memphis site 2, and Nashville votes are multiplied by 1/26 and then split evenly between Chatanooga and Knoxville. Totals are now:
The party with the fewest remaining votes is the Memphis party. Within that party, Memphis 2 is the site with the fewest votes (in fact, the only remaining site), so even though it has more votes than Chatanooga, Memphis 2 is eliminated. The votes are pass over the already-elected Nashville to tranfer to the Eastern party. Within that party, Memphis disapproved Knoxville, so the full total is transferred to Chatanooga. Chatanooga now has ~32.5%, more than the 25% quota, so it is the third and final site.
If Knoxville had not joined a party with Chatanooga, then Chatanooga would have been eliminated, and Knoxville would have been the final site. But Chatanooga could have responded by threatening to prefer a second Nashville site, or even Memphis 2, over Knoxville, if Knoxville would not cooperate in the Eastern party. In the end, Knoxville's strategy may or may not have worked. In general, such strategic gamesmanship would be less profitable and more dangerous in a real election, with more seats overall as well as a significant degree of polling uncertainty.
PAL representation is inspired by Michel Balinski's "Fair Representation" and by SODA voting. From the former, which is used for municipal elections in Belgium, it inherits the combination of geographical districts and proportionality. However, unlike Fair Representation, each candidate elected by PAL representation has received (directly or indirectly) the same number of votes. From SODA voting, PAL representation inherits the simple, spoilproof ballot format and the optional vote delegation.
A modified version of STV is used as the proportional system for simplicity. Other proportional systems might also work (although a non-LNH system might put perverse incentives on candidates). The equal ranking, and resulting fractional division of votes, is necessary for three reasons. First, it allows for approval-style votes to be counted without complicating the ballot. Second, it allows candidates to exercise judgment independently from their party (disapproving of certain party members), but keeps the voter's judgment as primary. If candidates couldn't exercise judgment, parties would have to waste energy keeping out "crazy" candidates who affiliate only because of the transfer votes they might get. If candidates could fully-rank within the party, as would happen if the PR system were standard STV, there would be too many opportunities for logrolling, at a level of detail where voters wouldn't realistically keep track or hold candidates accountable. Third, equal-ranking allows us to claim that this system could, under reasonable circumstances, elect exactly the same representatives as a non-gerrymandered single-member-district system.
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Yesterday I posted two messages to the Election Methods list about PAL representation, a new PR system designed as a replacement for single-member districts. The system combines elements from STV, Balinski's "Fair Representation", and SODA.Basically nothing in the system as I described it was in itself a new idea. My goal was not to create an innovative system, but to blend existing ideas to find a proportional system that would be acceptable to all existing interests, including voters, theorists/activists like us, incumbent politicians, and parties.I believe that a system like this is the only kind of PR that could pass in a US environment, and also well-suited to the UK. I'm a little discouraged that a development I regard as truly important got no comment from the list.
Why not just use straight FMV with a "districting" step for each party afterwards? For example, say we use FMV and party A gets 5 seats, party B gets 4 seats, and party C gets 1 seat. We take a clean map and divide it into five regions so that there are an equal number of A voters in each region. Those are the districts for party A voters. Take another clean map and divide it into four regions so there are an equal number of B voters in each region, and those are the districts for the party B voters. The party C map doesn't get divided up because they all are represented by the one seated C candidate.Maybe you could use some kind of weighted Vonoroi to choose the districts so that the districts cluster around the homes of the seated representatives from that party. Or maybe you would use splitline or some other districting method. Or maybe you let each party decide how to divide up their map themselves. I'm hoping there wouldn't be much gerrymandering because these "party districts" don't affect future elections in any way. They're just done so you can show people "if you voted for party A, then look at this map to see who your party A representative is."
Hi Jameson,I looked over it. I didn't see any technical problems immediately, but I'm going to try to re-read it a few more times and keep thinking it over. My emotional response, though, is that it's probably beyond the complexity limit for actual implementation anytime soon. The idea that "candidates from your district are in a bigger font and candidates outside your co-districts aren't listed at all but you can write them in" is a clever trick, but I don't know if people will go for it.
Clarification on terminology: When you say "Fair Representation", is that the same thing as "Fair Majority Voting"?
- I know "Fair Majority Voting" from here: http://mathaware.org/mam/08/EliminateGerrymandering.pdf- I know Balinski has a more complicated system that allows multiple winners per district. I forget what it's called, biproportional apportionment, maybe?
- When I hear "Fair Representation", I think of his book with Young (http://books.google.com/books?id=eBFNzSeAv_sC) which is all about congressional apportionment, not about PR or voting systems.
More general questions:What are your main priorities here? Just to find some way to use the SODA ballot for a PR election? Do you see locality as a must-have or as a nice-to-have that also decreases the complexity of the ballot?
What advantages does this have over straight FMV? Just that it uses a SODA ballot? The fact that you are almost certain to have a representative of your own party?
Why not just use straight FMV with a "districting" step for each party afterwards? For example, say we use FMV and party A gets 5 seats, party B gets 4 seats, and party C gets 1 seat. We take a clean map and divide it into five regions so that there are an equal number of A voters in each region. Those are the districts for party A voters. Take another clean map and divide it into four regions so there are an equal number of B voters in each region, and those are the districts for the party B voters. The party C map doesn't get divided up because they all are represented by the one seated C candidate.
Maybe you could use some kind of weighted Vonoroi to choose the districts so that the districts cluster around the homes of the seated representatives from that party. Or maybe you would use splitline or some other districting method. Or maybe you let each party decide how to divide up their map themselves. I'm hoping there wouldn't be much gerrymandering because these "party districts" don't affect future elections in any way. They're just done so you can show people "if you voted for party A, then look at this map to see who your party A representative is."
Or maybe you don't care that the number of A voters is exactly the same in each of party A's regions, then you can just agglomerate the legislative districts into relatively balanced co-districts.
While I'm not sure that your proposed system is "the only kind of PR that could pass in a US environment,"
given that New Zealand adopted a German-style MMP system,
2011/10/25 Andy Jennings <elec...@jenningsstory.com>Hi Jameson,I looked over it. I didn't see any technical problems immediately, but I'm going to try to re-read it a few more times and keep thinking it over. My emotional response, though, is that it's probably beyond the complexity limit for actual implementation anytime soon. The idea that "candidates from your district are in a bigger font and candidates outside your co-districts aren't listed at all but you can write them in" is a clever trick, but I don't know if people will go for it.(Note: I've renamed "co-district" as "super-district")The super-district idea and ballot design are not fundamental. For simplicity, it would work fine if only the candidates from your local district were available, as long as you could write-in candidates from other districts.Clarification on terminology: When you say "Fair Representation", is that the same thing as "Fair Majority Voting"?Yes. Oops. I'd already fixed this error on the page.- I know "Fair Majority Voting" from here: http://mathaware.org/mam/08/EliminateGerrymandering.pdf- I know Balinski has a more complicated system that allows multiple winners per district. I forget what it's called, biproportional apportionment, maybe?Don't know that one. Can you find a link?
On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Jameson Quinn <jameso...@gmail.com> wrote:
2011/10/25 Andy Jennings <elec...@jenningsstory.com>Hi Jameson,I looked over it. I didn't see any technical problems immediately, but I'm going to try to re-read it a few more times and keep thinking it over. My emotional response, though, is that it's probably beyond the complexity limit for actual implementation anytime soon. The idea that "candidates from your district are in a bigger font and candidates outside your co-districts aren't listed at all but you can write them in" is a clever trick, but I don't know if people will go for it.(Note: I've renamed "co-district" as "super-district")The super-district idea and ballot design are not fundamental. For simplicity, it would work fine if only the candidates from your local district were available, as long as you could write-in candidates from other districts.Clarification on terminology: When you say "Fair Representation", is that the same thing as "Fair Majority Voting"?Yes. Oops. I'd already fixed this error on the page.- I know "Fair Majority Voting" from here: http://mathaware.org/mam/08/EliminateGerrymandering.pdf- I know Balinski has a more complicated system that allows multiple winners per district. I forget what it's called, biproportional apportionment, maybe?Don't know that one. Can you find a link?Here are some references:Michel Balinski, “Apportionment : uni- and bi-dimensional,” in B. Simeone et F. Pukelsheim (Eds.), Mathematicsand Democracy. Recent Advances in Voting Systems and Collective Choice, Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg, 2006,43-53.
Michel Balinski and Friedrich Pukelsheim, “Die Mathematik der doppelten Gerechtigkeit,” Spektrum derWissenschaft, April 2007, 76-80.
Michel Balinski and Friedrich Pukelsheim, “Matrices and politics,” in E. P. Liski, J. Isotalo, S. Puntanen and G. P.H. Styan (Eds.), Festschrift for Tarmo Pukkila, Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Philosophy, University ofTampere, Finland, 2006, 233-242.
I think that is an unrealistic interpretation of current law in the United States.
But let's imagine that you convinced a State that Congress left a loophole. You would likely then have a legislature where the party that is advantaged by district elections, is also advantaged in legislative elections. So you go to Maryland or Illinois and tell the legislature that if they adopted this new system, that more Republicans would be elected to Congress.
That their good friends who they had just contributed the maximum amount to, might lose his seat, and all their efforts at gerrymandering were for naught. And in particular, you tell them that it is the white Democrats from swingy districts that will lose their seats. If they were honest, they would tell you it was not to their partisan advantage. But they could simply say that it doesn't appear to be legal and thank you for your time.
--in order for this to be true, your rep needs to know, i.e. it needs
to be public information that,
you voted for his party.
So you've just abandoned ballot secrecy.
Now if (as in the whole first part of your post) you're looking for something
that would be unacceptable in the USA... you just found it.
>More seriously, a mixed member system would be totally unacceptable to--also [relatedly] highly unconvincing. I think many politicians
existing incumbents, as it would draw too many of them out of their
existing
districts.
don't give a damn that they are "drawn out of" their districts. The
USA has in fact had in the past, states with "at large" congressmen,
so we know for sure you are wrong.
>The basic idea is:
> - Candidates pre-announce their rank-ordering of the parties (starting
with their own party) and may optionally approve/disapprove within--I cannot parse the above sentence after the word "optionally."
each
party candidates.
> - Voters may vote on the candidates in their or nearby districts, or
>Their votes will never be transferred to disapproved
candidates.
write in candidates from farther off.--you neglected to explain the minor matter of what a "vote" IS!!!!
Hello?
--as opposed to what? (And the wording "may refuse to X or Y"
>Votes are delegated by default but
optionally, voters may refuse to delegate or vote approval-style.
has unclear meaning. I in fact do not know which of the two meanings
you intended,
and I also do not know what happens when they refuse, I presume you
have some alternative in mind.)
> - Each delegated ballot is transformed into the pre-announced vote of the
candidate it supports.
> - A legislature is elected by a version of
STV<http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/STV> (with
fractional transfers and a Droop quota.)--so the votes were rank-order ballots? (implied?) THis
unfortunatley cuases
things to be complicated, since Droop STV is complicated. Which is
fine, but if your goal was to make things simple, you just blew it.
> - Each district "drafts" one member of each elected party from the
elected slate.
--which one?
> - Your representative is the member of the party you voted for who is
representing your district.
--so voters vote for parties not people???
--well, I quit reading here. Maybe you've got a nice idea (a "big
deal" as you put it),
but up to this point it has been written incomprehensibly.
--aha. Quite complicated.
> > >The basic idea is:
> > > - Candidates pre-announce their rank-ordering of the parties (starting
> > with their own party) and may optionally approve/disapprove within
> > each
> > party candidates.
>
> > --I cannot parse the above sentence after the word "optionally."
>
> They say for example "I like Red (candidates A and C but not B and D); then
> Green (all of them); then Blue (only candidate X)".
--aha.
> A vote is either a delegated bullet vote or an undelegated approval vote.
--so your system screws Bernie Sanders (senator from Vermont
> > > - Each district "drafts" one member of each elected party from the
> > elected slate.
> > --which one?
> See the section just below. This is just the outline, not the full rules.
> > > - Your representative is the member of the party you voted for who is
> > representing your district.
> > --so voters vote for parties not people???
> You vote for a person, that person has a party.
who is not a member of any party)??
I don't like voting systems that make everybody be part of a party.
I think parties are evil. I wish they could be banned.
Unfortunately they cannot be, but *requiring* them is rather much.
--this seems unhealthy. I mean, each rep has the attitude "golly,
>You know who your representative is, but they don't. All they know is that
>you're in one of their districts.
everything I do is
flawless because every one of my constituents -- every single one --
always agrees with me.
Oh wait, some don't. OK... I deduce, those guys are just lying and
pretending to be my constituents.
OK... I conclude all that really matters are my money donors. I can be
sure who they are and that they really exist.
Screw the voters."
--I more or less understand your PAL system now (I think)
and it seems to me to be an extremely complicated kludge,
certainly one of the most complicated
PR system proposals ever advanced.
Lots of moving parts.
I'm not even sure it works; but it seems plausible it does (or can be
made to).
Also, the whole "nearby district" thing is kind of a mess.
Perhaps rulemakers will further step in to mess it up more to
manipulate things.
However, as you say, for the voter it may not seem so bad because
voter
just delivers approval-style ballot or a delegated-approvals bullet
vote.
So... I'd have to say I'm not very satisfied and certainly not
concluding "this field has pretty much been killed now."
I liked your initial insight/goal, which was that "single winner in
district" and
"proportional representation" do not necessarily need to be
incompatible.
That's a good place to start. But I hope one can cook up a lot
cleaner
system than PAL, to demonstrate that.
2011/10/26 Jim Riley <jim...@pipeline.com>I think that is an unrealistic interpretation of current law in the United States.Thanks a lot for your legal analysis; you clearly know a lot more about this than I. I won't address your (very interesting) case-by-case discussion, but I will respond to your point about the politics of this:
(c) Until a State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof after any apportionment, the Representatives to which such State is entitled under such apportionment shall be elected in the following manner: (1) If there is no change in the number of Representatives, they shall be elected from the districts then prescribed by the law of such State, and if any of them are elected from the State at large they shall continue to be so elected; (2) if there is an increase in the number of Representatives, such additional Representative or Representatives shall be elected from the State at large and the other Representatives from the districts then prescribed by the law of such State; (3) if there is a decrease in the number of Representatives but the number of districts in such State is equal to such decreased number of Representatives, they shall be elected from the districts then prescribed by the law of such State; (4) if there is a decrease in the number of Representatives but the number of districts in such State is less than such number of Representatives, the number of Representatives by which such number of districts is exceeded shall be elected from the State at large and the other Representatives from the districts then prescribed by the law of such State; or (5) if there is a decrease in the number of Representatives and the number of districts in such State exceeds such decreased number of Representatives, they shall be elected from the State at large.
In each State entitled in the Ninety-first Congress or in any subsequent Congress thereafter to more than one Representative under an apportionment made pursuant to the provisions of section 2a(a) of this title, there shall be established by law a number of districts equal to the number of Representatives to which such State is so entitled, and Representatives shall be elected only from districts so established, no district to elect more than one Representative (except that a State which is entitled to more than one Representative and which has in all previous elections elected its Representatives at Large may elect its Representatives at Large to the Ninety-first Congress).
But let's imagine that you convinced a State that Congress left a loophole. You would likely then have a legislature where the party that is advantaged by district elections, is also advantaged in legislative elections. So you go to Maryland or Illinois and tell the legislature that if they adopted this new system, that more Republicans would be elected to Congress.Very good point. A state legislature which performs a partisan gerrymander, will not want to undermine all that hard work by adopting FMV or PAL...That their good friends who they had just contributed the maximum amount to, might lose his seat, and all their efforts at gerrymandering were for naught. And in particular, you tell them that it is the white Democrats from swingy districts that will lose their seats. If they were honest, they would tell you it was not to their partisan advantage. But they could simply say that it doesn't appear to be legal and thank you for your time....and thus they will tend to (or pretend to) interpret any gray area of the law against the new system.This is a pretty solid argument that FMV will not pass until the 1967 law is overturned.
It is not an argument that the law will be impossible to overturn. Undermining partisan gerrymanders on a state-by-state level will tend to balance out more on a national level. And counting all the states with under 3 reps plus all the states with reasonably non-partisan redistricting rules (AK, AZ, CO, CA, HI, ID, IA, MO, MT, NJ, PA, WA), you can reach a majority of the House; so gerrymandered representatives don't have veto power over an overturn.
Once the law is overturned, the fight will move to the states. There, it will be a tough fight, but there are two ways to overcome the pro-gerrymander bias Jim described. First, voter initiatives (in states which allow them); and second, states where partisan control has switched since the last redistricting.
>More seriously, a mixed member system would be totally unacceptable to
existing incumbents, as it would draw too many of them out of their
existing districts.
--also [relatedly] highly unconvincing. I think many politicians
don't give a damn that they are "drawn out of" their districts. The
USA has in fact had in the past, states with "at large" congressmen,
so we know for sure you are wrong.
This is a pretty solid argument that FMV will not pass until the 1967 law is overturned.If the 1967 law were repealed (it is unlikely to be overturned - since Congress has the authority of dictating the manner of electing representatives),
It is the change that the representatives would be concerned about. They favor the system that elected them, over the system that didn't elect them.
It seems to me PAL severely disadvantages such candidates,
or anyhow effectively treats them highly differently.
They may already face disadvantages, but not ones intentionally built
into the voting system itself. The latter really rubs me the wrong
way.
I think that is fair, not discriminatory. PAL is actually much more party-independent than SPAL in practice, even though SPAL never mentions the word "party" and PAL does.
--well, "Up until 1970, every congress but the 30th, 44-47th, 51st,
and 52nd contained at least one member elected 'at large' (i.e.
statewide not in districts)." Note the 52nd congress
was in the year 1891.
Pretty much everything on that page by me was got from the single book
Michael J. Dubin: US Congressional Elections 1788-1997, McFarland & Co. 1998.
Which is fine, but it means I'm sort of vulnerable. It would be better
to have more sources.
What sources do you use? It might be very helpful+interesting if you
(Jim Riley) were to write a post about how you do your research and
what are your sources, since you often seem to find out a lot of stuff
the rest of us did not know. Which is probably because
the rest of us don't know how to do that kind of research.
> District elections have been the norm since 1788, and the law since 1842.
> It is wishful thinking that the 1967 law was a sneaky behind the scenes
> attempt to kill off proportional elections.
--well, I'm not sure how to quantify "sneaky" & "behind the scenes"...
it was a rider attached to
a special immigration bill designed to help
Doctor Ricardo Vallejo Samala
immigrate.
Is that "in front of the scene" and "straightforward standard approach"?
I mean, doesn't that strike you as a teeny bit peculiar?
--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)
> Being that you are the mathematician, could you quantify "a lot" in terms of
> members and years?--well, "Up until 1970, every congress but the 30th, 44-47th, 51st,
and 52nd contained at least one member elected 'at large' (i.e.
statewide not in districts)." Note the 52nd congress
was in the year 1891.
Pretty much everything on that page by me was got from the single book
Michael J. Dubin: US Congressional Elections 1788-1997, McFarland & Co. 1998.
Which is fine, but it means I'm sort of vulnerable. It would be better
to have more sources.
What sources do you use? It might be very helpful+interesting if you
(Jim Riley) were to write a post about how you do your research and
what are your sources, since you often seem to find out a lot of stuff
the rest of us did not know. Which is probably because
the rest of us don't know how to do that kind of research.
> District elections have been the norm since 1788, and the law since 1842.
> It is wishful thinking that the 1967 law was a sneaky behind the scenes
> attempt to kill off proportional elections.--well, I'm not sure how to quantify "sneaky" & "behind the scenes"...
it was a rider attached to
a special immigration bill designed to help
Doctor Ricardo Vallejo Samala
immigrate.
Is that "in front of the scene" and "straightforward standard approach"?I mean, doesn't that strike you as a teeny bit peculiar?
> It is wishful thinking that the 1967 law was a sneaky behind the scenes
> attempt to kill off proportional elections.--well, I'm not sure how to quantify "sneaky" & "behind the scenes"...
it was a rider attached to
a special immigration bill designed to help
Doctor Ricardo Vallejo Samala
immigrate.
Is that "in front of the scene" and "straightforward standard approach"?I mean, doesn't that strike you as a teeny bit peculiar?