Use Parlement to learn about proportional representation

[wellsoberlin]

If we get a program running (perhaps on a Google spreadsheet as I
suggested before) that calculates election results given population
and bloc distribution and bloc records, we could modify it to provide
other election systems. There are many election systems to accomplish
proportional representation. (See proportional representation in
Wikipedia.)

One of them is the Hare system. In the 1980's I wrote a Pascal
program that would run a Hare election, but I have lost the work.
This could be somewhat intricate to do in a spreadsheet.

In any case, I could imaging political science classes in college
playing around with different systems to see what the results are.
One thing I can say is that the system I chose for the original
Parlement allows lots of politicking and coalition forming, and
results in wilder swings than almost any other system. Most GOOD PR
systems result in very small swings from election to election, unless
of course the electorate changes its opinions sharply (which has
happened during the last 10 years in some European countries).

Charles Wells