Lambertson's Proxy Plan not great new idea

Lambertson presents what he thinks is a go-around on electoral reform but his Proxy Plan proposal would not work and is no easier to implement than ER. ================== On RAMPing by Lambertson

“RAMPing up Parliament – An Alternative to Electoral Reform” Ross Lambertson Canadian Parliamentary Review, winter 2916. Sadly the writer bemoans the bewildering the wide range of ER options already offered to voters - then creates a new one. He does not note that his proposal is a form of an old one. It is a party-based version of the Proxy Plan, now also known as interactive representation. "Each candidate may be voted for by any voter in the State. When elected he will cast in the Legislature the same number of votes on all measures as were cast for him by the State." (from the Carroll (Iowa) Herald, April 24, 1872)

When member based it calls for complicated calculation of votes at play at any moment in the chamber. (Lambertson does not actually deal with what to do if not all members of a party are in attendance - is party discipline to be such that individual members have no say in how their voting power will be used?) The writer presents these advantages of RAMP, which I will deal with one by one. But, would RAMP be better than the proposed alternatives to our present voting system? In PR the ballots are quite different than the ones with which most Canadians are familiar, and there is no such thing as a single MP representing his or her constituency. Instead, there are fairly large constituencies represented by several elected representatives. (This is also true of STV systems.) As noted above, with a RAMP system balloting would remain the same and so would the traditional single member representation. My answer: PR does not have to use any special ballots. X voting as we have now is the one used for Single Non-Transferable Voting (where Single voting and multi-member districts together produce mixed roughly proportional representation at the district level), or MMP does not have have to use two votes in fact one PR-writer says the best kind of MMP is one where voter casts only one vote - the local vote does double duty. The importance of transferability of votes in STV is often over-exaggerated. Many voters did not mark back-up preferences. Still, even with no back-up preference marked, Single voting in multi-member districts ensures more balanced representation. Already in the first round of STV elections, front-runners are mixed, belonging to range of different parties, and most of them are are elected in the end after all vote transfers, thus creating more diverse representation than single-winner elections. If many voters do not mark back-up preferences, more votes will be exhausted and thus wasted, than in elections where more back-up preferences are marked. But the waste will be no greater (and likely much less) than single-winner FPTP elections. (Australia does have mandatory full marking of back-up preferences (or simply marking approval of a party line (the so-called above-the-line choice)). And that means fewer exhausted and wasted votes than Canada elections, but if we are worried about putting off votes by asking them to do extra work under a new PR system, we don't want to force voters to rank all the candidates. At least we never did in Canada historic STV elections. Without forcing voters to do much more than they are doing now, we are not going to have perfect PR, or avoid all waste, if that is even possible anyway.The new system will have to be a trade-off - proportionality may not be perfect but it will be greater than we have now under FPTP; waste will not be reduced to none - it never can be - but it will be less than we have now under FPTP. I can live with that. And even if we do not require votes to rank all the candidates, thus ensuring there are none exhausted votes, the waste will not be any larger - and likely much less- than under single-winner FPTP, where sometimes 70 percent of votes are ignored. And sometimes back-up references, even if marked, are not used and make no difference at all.

Sometimes the front runners in the first count are elected with no changes at all even after all necessary vote transfers are done.

Many votes are used to elect winners with no transfers at all. Any cast in the first count for those who win in the end - that is all, any cat for those who will not be eliminated - are not transferred at all - the backup preferences marked on them are not used at all.

Many voters in Canada's past STV elections (Alberta and Manitoba provincial elections 1920s to 1950s) marked back-up preferences just along party lines. There are easy ways to make transfers along party lines without putting extra duties on voters. If we want ease of voting for voters but still to avoid waste, then we could use the Gove plan - voters do not mark transfers but they still take place. To be successful, you must have quota. Under STV, candidates are eliminated to concentrate votes on the most popular ones. The votes of the eliminated candidate are transferred according to announcement made by the candidate in advance of the election. (A different version has candidate announcing a list of preferred other candidates and the votes go to the one that is most popular as determined by voters.)

Further, I want to point out that requirement for super-majority in the HofC means that laws passed by a simple majority in the past would then be enshrined unless a super majority can be assembled to change them. Hardly fair.

Like to write more but don't have time now.... ======================================== “RAMPing up Parliament – An Alternative to Electoral Reform” Ross Lambertson Canadian Parliamentary Review, winter 2916. ” Electoral reform is a complicated proposition, yet the current first-past-the-post (or single member plurality) system has been criticised for leading to “wasted votes” and “strategic voting,” as well as often creating “false majorities.”

In this article, the author proposes a novel “Revised Additional Majority Parliamentary” (RAMP) system which could address some of these criticisms without fundamentally altering the way we elect our parliamentarians. He concludes by noting that RAMP is a democratic, inexpensive, and simple way to experiment and innovate if either the status quo or a completely new way of electing parliamentarians are deemed undesirable.”

============================================================== http://www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp?param=229&art=1720 ============================

Further notes on why the proxy plan does not ensure 100 percent effective votes:

the term "weighted vote" is usually used when one vote is weighted differently from another 

Wiki "weighted vote" which of course is not what we want in PR.

what i think you mean is explained in

Applying Proportional Representation (PR) through a Regional Weighted Voting System Submitted by Marilyn Reid (online)

weighted voting system (AKA proxy vote) -- not "weighted vote".

because it is not votes that are weighted in your "WPR" but the MP has different weights or value/ number of votes to cast in the HofC

you say districts are not important  - this can only apply if votes can drift outside districts.

porous districts can be used under any system as long as voters accept that their vote might be used to elect someone that they did not vote for.

and in Canada of course votes cannot drift across provincial borders (it seems clear to me) and 

also total number of MPs (or number of MPs in each province) cannot just be altered at will.

Any system where electorate is divided into districts or into provinces can produce false majority under certain conditions, especially as any party with less than 2.5 percent of votes in BC or AB or SK should not get a seat proportionally in any of those provinces.

list PR or STV in districts or some form of MMP/RUPR; referendums and CAs are enough options for us to contemplate, IMO

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the old term for "RAMP" was the Proxy Plan, as proposed in oregon back in 1912.

from Wiki "Proxy voting"

 the so-called Proxy Plan, or interactive representation electoral system whereby elected representatives would wield as many votes as they received in the previous election. Oregon held a referendum on adopting such an electoral system in 1912.^[3]

if you arereferring to provincial level elections only, cross-prov vote sharing is not an issue.

but still some qualms likely still apply.

varying number of members,

difficulty of calculating vote-majority at each meeting each time a vote is held, etc.

Votes would drift outside the district if they are pooled with others cast elsewhere to be wielded by a member,

or would each district elect one member for each party irrespective of some threshold, and then just use their number of votes to set their power?

Would each independent candidate getting at least one vote would be elected to the chamber? to wield the number of votes he or she received - perhaps just one vote?

if so, then we might have a chamber of thousands of people.

how would speaking time be shared?

I don't think it will work or be easier to get support for than electoral PR.

Regarding false majorities

-any system where electorate is divided into districts or into provinces can produce false majority under certain conditions, especially as any party with less than 2.5 percent of votes in BC or AB or SK should not get a seat proportionally in any of those provinces.

Someone might say that [false majority is] ..  one party wielding majority power in the House when the number of people who voted for them is less than or equal to the number of people who voted for other parties which are represented in the House -- or more to the point, which should be represented in the House, and would be under a good system of PR.

Yes i agree with that definition.

I was looking at federal WMPR and thinking provincial borders or districts might cause vote wastage and thus produce ineffective votes and thus allow a party to exceed his proportional share of seats enough to take more than half the seats without taking more than half the votes.

But like i say, under the Proxy Plan, either votes for less-pop. party would be shared with party votes in other districts,

or each district has to elect a member of that party, if we want those votes represented. 

The first means some voters elect people they never voted for (and varying number of votes, depending on turnout).

the other means a large assembly; of varying number of members from election to election (and varying number of votes from election to election, depending on turnout) 

districts set which candidates the voter can vote for and party too in some cases, 

so districts can hardly be transparent under WMPR 

unless you just look at party proportionality,

and not at all at personalization -- the ability of a voter to vote for a specific candidate -- unless under WMPR every candidate will be elected.

If every candidate is elected,  then i agree with your statement "false majority is impossible under WPR." 

but at what cost?

very  large assembly; constant vote counting in the chamber, etc.

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