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A proportional system means that most (if not all) choices are made AFTER the vote by horse-trading between the parties. With decades of experience with proport

A proportional system means that most (if not all) choices are made AFTER the vote by horse-trading between the parties. With decades of experience with proportional systems in Italy, I warmly advise against it.

danieltillett 12y ago
This is why AV (preferential voting) is so much better. You vote for the candidates in the order you like and the candidate the majority prefer wins. You get to vote for minor parties without ending up with chaos.
- jsnell 12y ago
  That argument makes little sense to me. You dislike PR since it'd allow small parties to actually get representation and thus "cause chaos". If you think AV doesn't have this problem, it must be because you think AV would keep the small parties out just like FPTP. But if that's case, why bother switching to a system that changes nothing?
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    Because it stops you having to tactically vote. With AV you can vote for a minor party you support without this vote helping the candidate you hate most. You don't need to vote for some candidate you don't like just because you hate another candidate more who might win. You just number tha candidates from 1 to x in your personal preference. The end result is the consensus candidate is elected while allowing everyone to vote for who they want. It is simple and it works well in practice.
    - jsnell 12y ago
      Tactical voting is still a thing in AV. If I think A > B > C, I might still want to vote A > C > B in an effort to drop B out first (hopefully giving A an easy win in a showdown with C).
      - danieltillett 12y ago
        This is not the way AV voting works. The second votes of the last candidate are distributed to the remaining candidates and the process repeated until their is a winner. There is no need to vote tactically because your vote never passes to your last placed candidate. Even in the worst case scenario where all the candidates other than your two least favourites remain then your votes goes to your second least favourite candidate without ever benefiting your most disliked candidate.
vidarh 12y ago
Consider that the "horse trading" involves actually ensuring that more opinions are represented. If you support one of the larger parties, that means more compromises, yes. But for all of the people who supports smaller parties, it means their vote actually matters a bit too, and that they're not consistently railroaded by supporters of the biggest parties.
- danmaz74 12y ago
  That's a fair argument, but it's a matter of trade-offs. All that bartering means that no-one's program will be actually enacted, and when things don't go well there is nobody to take the actual responsibility - including voters, because everybody can always say "well but this wasn't what the party I voted for was proposing" - even if that party got a relative majority. Personally, I favor a system where there is a clear winner chosen by the majority of popular vote, but where minorities have a "right to representation" where they can make their voices heard in the political debate. Not easy, but possible.
tormeh 12y ago
You sure that's not just corruption as opposed to a flawed voting system?
- danmaz74 12y ago
  This system probably also helps corruption, but by horse trading I wasn't talking about corruption. I was talking about the fact that it's almost impossible to enact clear reforms because you always need to barter this norm for that norm, etc. etc.

danieltillett 12y ago

This is why AV (preferential voting) is so much better. You vote for the candidates in the order you like and the candidate the majority prefer wins. You get to vote for minor parties without ending up with chaos.

jsnell 12y ago
That argument makes little sense to me. You dislike PR since it'd allow small parties to actually get representation and thus "cause chaos". If you think AV doesn't have this problem, it must be because you think AV would keep the small parties out just like FPTP. But if that's case, why bother switching to a system that changes nothing?
- danieltillett 12y ago
  Because it stops you having to tactically vote. With AV you can vote for a minor party you support without this vote helping the candidate you hate most. You don't need to vote for some candidate you don't like just because you hate another candidate more who might win. You just number tha candidates from 1 to x in your personal preference. The end result is the consensus candidate is elected while allowing everyone to vote for who they want. It is simple and it works well in practice.
  - jsnell 12y ago
    Tactical voting is still a thing in AV. If I think A > B > C, I might still want to vote A > C > B in an effort to drop B out first (hopefully giving A an easy win in a showdown with C).
    - danieltillett 12y ago
      This is not the way AV voting works. The second votes of the last candidate are distributed to the remaining candidates and the process repeated until their is a winner. There is no need to vote tactically because your vote never passes to your last placed candidate. Even in the worst case scenario where all the candidates other than your two least favourites remain then your votes goes to your second least favourite candidate without ever benefiting your most disliked candidate.

vidarh 12y ago

Consider that the "horse trading" involves actually ensuring that more opinions are represented. If you support one of the larger parties, that means more compromises, yes. But for all of the people who supports smaller parties, it means their vote actually matters a bit too, and that they're not consistently railroaded by supporters of the biggest parties.

danmaz74 12y ago
That's a fair argument, but it's a matter of trade-offs. All that bartering means that no-one's program will be actually enacted, and when things don't go well there is nobody to take the actual responsibility - including voters, because everybody can always say "well but this wasn't what the party I voted for was proposing" - even if that party got a relative majority. Personally, I favor a system where there is a clear winner chosen by the majority of popular vote, but where minorities have a "right to representation" where they can make their voices heard in the political debate. Not easy, but possible.

tormeh 12y ago

You sure that's not just corruption as opposed to a flawed voting system?

danmaz74 12y ago
This system probably also helps corruption, but by horse trading I wasn't talking about corruption. I was talking about the fact that it's almost impossible to enact clear reforms because you always need to barter this norm for that norm, etc. etc.