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Tom Monto

Dual-Member Proportional Representation (DMP)

I think DMP is too complicated and does not do what it promises.

for example, it promises that no district boundaries need to be re-drawn then says two district must be combined together. any system that has to use multi-member districts of any size can make such a non-assurance. the results shown in the PEI stimulation are: - either same as would be case under SNTV - the two most-popular candidate are elected. which cannot be criticized on grounds of fairness to district voters but DMP seems hard way to get the same result - one party taking both seats, which does not seem PR for clarity, party totals should be given for the new districts. (all numbers in the simulation are based on voters voting exactly under new system as they did under FPTP and each of the three main parties running two candidats in the new districts.) Summerside-Wilmot/Summerside South Drive PCs have 3000 votes, Green 1700, Liberal 600 each party wins one seat so that is fair in that almost all voters have someone of the party they support elected. However PC voters are almost twice the Green voters and five times the number of Liberal voters but both parties get same - one member. that is due to how overall party proportionality, not the district vote, is used to choose the second and reserve seat. as I understand it, for the extra seats, the most-popular candidates on the party list are declared elected based on relative percentage of the vote in their district, not necessarily by the being most popular receiving more votes. this cannot be analysed as the individual candidate elected is not indicated. the still-very small districts, 13 "grouped constituencies" plus 1 SMD, in a province only 6000 sq. kms in size, means far smaller districts than are necessary. The average federal riding is 29,000 sq. kms. the PEI simulation in Summerside-Wilmot/Summerside South Drive gives 55 percent for PCs and the A indicates election of one. Am I to surmise that that indicates that 55 pecent of votes are said to be satisfied by the result? I am referring to the purported 76 percent representation said to be produced by DMP in each district on the average. But a vote cast for one PC cannot truly be said to be satisfied by the election of a different PC candidate, that is not as it is done in most other analysis of representation, at least those applied to STV. party representation is important and is valuable to an extent but should not be presented as personal representation, as a satisfied vote. for GI yes but not for representation. the Summerside/Summerside example also gives us case where the most-popular candidate in the districts are not elected. if we list the candidates in order of popularity, we get: PC 1651 one PC elected PC 1378 Green 981 one Green elected Green 739 Liberal 397 one Liberal elected Liberal 214. Would voters in Summerside/Summerside be happy with the local result? I believe they would not. ===============

My PR system for PEI far better than 14 districts is to have the province of PEI as three 9-member districts, each district based on one of the three counties in the province

total population 154,000 27 members 5700 per member Queens pop 90,000 16 seats (or a district of 9 and a district of 7) an odd number producing most fairness (districts of 9 and 7 being more fair than two 8-seat districts, but a district of 16 being more fair than districts of 9 and 7.) Prince 46,000 8 seats Kings 18,000 3 seats the imbalance between the counties (applying rep by pop) is already used in the present 27 SMD system. having just three or four districts and using county boundaries as base just makes it easier to see. each voter getting just one vote (back-up preferences if desired.) in each district, likely no party would run more candidates than two-thirds of the seats, giving voters choice but lessining potential for vote splitting. (while under DMP it is assumed that each main party will still run full slates) each Droop quota of the vote in the district (a much smaller percent of the vote across the province) would be guaranteed a seat. depending on voter turnout, quota would be approx. 3500 votes Queens quota would be 6 percent of district vote (4 percent of total provincial vote) Princes quota would be 11 percent of district vote (7 percent of total province vote) Kings quota would be 20 percent of district vote (3 percent of total province vote). if district STV, with optional-preferential voting for back-up preferences, is not proportional enough, top-up seats (levelling seats) could be adopted. seats could be allocated to counties based on 8000 pop. per member, making 19 district seats plus 8 top-up seats. And then largest remainder method (Hamilton method), said by Dave Lowe to be most fair method, could be used to assess the seat share each party is due. and then by simply subtracting district seats already won, top-up allocated to parties. simple and true DMP (and MMP) would not easily be used in federal elections if it includes overall pooling of votes (across provincial boundaries) but such pooling at provincial level is perfectly consittutional even if never done so far in our history. the use of multi-member districts with fair voting, instead of SMD as under MMP or two-seat districts as under DMP, means fewer top-up seats are needed to create same proportionality. Fair voting in MMD means no Block Voting. SNTV or STV are very fair.


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from DMP website DMP for Canada

https://dmpforcanada.com/


DMP has many advantages over other proportional electoral systems.

Some of the most noteworthy improvements are:

[with my counter-arguments in brackets with each one]

  • Keeping the simple ballot design of Canada’s Single Member Plurality electoral system, [do people relly care bout ballot design? are they that much in love with the present style? STV would also use ballots with list of candidates and vogters would simply put number next to the ones they like, not much differnt from X voting under FPTP

  • Eliminating the need for long party lists, [by restricting choce to just two of each party]

  • Retaining a higher degree of local representation and accountability, [small districts electing two members isrealy micro-local representation]

  • Accommodating rural communities by providing the full benefits of proportional representation without creating enormous districts, [ when "local" members are elected aginst wishes of local voters, that is not true PR]

  • Not increasing in complexity from the voter’s perspective as region size increases, [what is region in this context - the pooling for alocaon of the second seats? then sure, just like in STV, the complexity for voters does not change but likely the chance that they will be forced to accept a local member not of their own choosing does increase]

  • Satisfying the Senate clause when multiple provinces are included in one region (this is only applicable at the federal level). [I douibt that it is constitutional for votes in federla elecitons to cross provincial borders. constitutional assumption is that votes in PEI will be used to elect PEI members and the same applies for each province.]

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