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> There is a noticeable gap there, any plan to fix it? A gap doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem, unless you believe that proportional representation

by ska 5y ago

> There is a noticeable gap there, any plan to fix it? A gap doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem, unless you believe that proportional representation is important enough to do away with seats having a regional tie completely. If you don't want to go all that way, algorithmic/automatic redistricting goes a long way to address issues. [edit since I was obviously not very clear. I'm not suggesting you do actually want to get rid of all districts, just making the point that by nature regional representation and proportional representation are in conflict in pretty fundamental ways. You can hack around it with ideas like floating representatives, super-regions, etc. but you can't really solve it. Gerrymandering, otoh, is an issue in its own right. I probably should have said "not a problem, or at least not a problem addressable at this level of the system"]

dragonwriter 5y ago
> A gap doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem Yes, it does. > unless you believe that proportional representation is important enough to do away with seats having a regional tie completely. Two problems here: (1) it prevents a false dichotomy that the only way to address the gap is erasing regional ties completely, and (2) it confuses the question of “does a problem exist?” with the question of “is there a means of fixing the problem that doesn't have it’s own, equally or more significant problems?”
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > Yes, it does. For a concrete scenario: a 50/50 split state with three Congressional seats. One party will likely get one seat, the other two. Potentially by tiny margins. There will be a major gap in representation, even with perfectly fairly drawn districts.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    Heck, even with three seats with PR you get that result; that's a proportionality problem from limited granularity. This is also why strong, independent, unitary executive systems are themselves an additional proportionality problem on top of any that exist in the legislative branch, as a one-member body is the extreme limit case of granularity-limited proportionality. Of course, granularity-limited proportionality in a representative body has a fairly obvious trivial approach for mitigation to any arbitrary extent desired, so proportionality gaps from this source are neither non-problems or problems without corrections available.
joveian 5y ago
Proportional representation does not necessarily (or even usually) completely do away with seats having a regional tie, although it does increase the size of the region.

by ska 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> A gap doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem Yes, it does. > unless you believe that proportional representation is important enough to do away with seats having a regional tie completely. Two problems here: (1) it prevents a false dichotomy that the only way to address the gap is erasing regional ties completely, and (2) it confuses the question of “does a problem exist?” with the question of “is there a means of fixing the problem that doesn't have it’s own, equally or more significant problems?”

ceejayoz 5y ago
> Yes, it does. For a concrete scenario: a 50/50 split state with three Congressional seats. One party will likely get one seat, the other two. Potentially by tiny margins. There will be a major gap in representation, even with perfectly fairly drawn districts.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Heck, even with three seats with PR you get that result; that's a proportionality problem from limited granularity. This is also why strong, independent, unitary executive systems are themselves an additional proportionality problem on top of any that exist in the legislative branch, as a one-member body is the extreme limit case of granularity-limited proportionality. Of course, granularity-limited proportionality in a representative body has a fairly obvious trivial approach for mitigation to any arbitrary extent desired, so proportionality gaps from this source are neither non-problems or problems without corrections available.

joveian 5y ago

Proportional representation does not necessarily (or even usually) completely do away with seats having a regional tie, although it does increase the size of the region.