any system that uses MMD district would be more fair than SMP.
(DM-4 is a bit troublesome as i say below.)
the trick is to get Canadian government to bring in multi-member districts of whatever size -
the rest of it -- whether list PR, ST. L list PR, DeH list PR, STV SNTV -- would be much less important.
(as long as each voter has just one vote.)
or even some sort of pooled-vote top-up, prov-wide or city-wide or in "regional" districts...
so yes your system even with only one back-up pref would be improvement and yes could be improved even more later.
so yes if that is what is on offer, it would be improvement over FPTP., a step toward PR
A three-seat district might be easier to get than a four-seat district
it is a smaller district -- less grouping, less apparent attack on local rep. (see below)
a 3-seat dist. would likely be more often fair (majority versus minority-wise) than an even-number 4-seat district.
to get majority of seats in a 4-seat district, a party might need 62 percent or more of votes but only 51 percent of votes in a 3-seat district.
a party with 51 to about 60 percent of the vote is not likely to get three seats in a four-seat district.
Numbers needed to win the majority-tipping seat may vary whether equiv. of Hare is used or Droop
but a party with a small majority (51 to 62 percent) is not likely to get maj. of seats in 4-seat dist. under any system of seat allocation.
For that reason, I wonder wny anyone would choose districts with DM-4, instead of districts with DN-3, unless there are other reasons...
As a multi-member district is larger, peole might suspect a loss of local representation.
BUT -
People need not fear an attack on local representation --
because --
Any fair system of seat allocation in MMD preserves local rep in two ways -
--any locally-concentrated group with quota (or effective quota) will elect member for that portion of district (if they give their vote to the micro-local candidate (and don't suffer from vote splitting) (or if they mark their preferences for micro-local candidates when ranked voting is used), and there is nothing other voters elsewhere can do about it.
--even a MMD with 8. or ten or 20 members produces local rep if it takes in only area that people think of as their locality.
a city for example
Is the mayor a local rep -- yes
is the city's sports team local -- yes
local is liquid term and seldom used for something as little as 1/20th of a city (which is what single-member dist. in a city with 20 members covers).
and further, a single member district produces a local remember but often not local representation for most voters
- often most votes did not vote for the local member so how can she or he represent the voter, other than in some sort of pretend make-believe way?
but using larger DM may be seen more easily as an "apparent attack on local rep" for those who believe in that pretend make-believe way -which many many do - than a smaller-DM district.
Even in discussion of PR, people cannot seem to get their head around idea that members elected in the district will belong to diff parties thinking MMD necesarilly means Block voting or Ticket voting ala U.S. electoral college.
Or that all voters in a district vote for the member so how can there be variety of sentiment held by voters in the district...
Here's some fictitious dialogue:
Forecaster: the majority of [your part of the country] will experience a heat wave tomorrow.
TV anchor: what do you mean?
Forecaster: hot weather, hot temperatures, high humidity
TV anchor: Yes, I get that. What do you mean by a majority?
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