FPTP vs MMP

[JoeHill]

Christopher Browne wrote: 

> On 10/10/07, JoeHill <joehill-R6A+fiHC8nRWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> >  
> > > Lennart Sorensen wrote:  
> > > > 39 out of 129 seats is 30% not 45%.  So instead of 107 ridings you end
> > > > up with 90 ridings, so yes a decrease would occour.  It takes 3% or more
> > > > of the popular vote before you can get any of the proportional seats
> > > > (which makes sense since 2% would require 50 seats and there are only
> > > > 39 of them available)
> > > >  
> > > The numbers such as 3% and 39 seats are completely arbitrary. They give
> > > the Greens power while shutting out the Family Coalition Party.  
> >
> > I'm cool with that ;)  
> 
> Unfortunately, that's not a good enough reason to say that it's an
> acceptable arbitrary choice.

I was being silly...mostly.

> > > As such, they indicate a wilful manipulation designed to advance the cause
> > > of small parties -- providing they're not too small. And the definition of
> > > " what is too small" is totally arbitrary.
> > >
> > > While FPTP has its downsides, it doesn't by design impose arbitrary
> > > limits on anything.
> > >
> > > And, as I mentioned before, MMP is designed to work against independent
> > > candidates as well as really small parties.  
> >
> > Waitaminnit...I thought you said the MMP benefitted fringe parties, a bad
> > thing. Now it's a bad thing that it doesn't let in _enough_ fringe parties?
> >
> > Okay...  
> 
> Well, that's where this particular *implementation* of MMP has a
> particularly interesting edge case.
> 
> Generally speaking, one would expect MMP to be of benefit to fringe
> parties that have some general popularity that is too diffuse for them
> to get any "FPTP" seats.
> 
> But the proposed implementation has a cut-off that essentially cuts
> out any party below a particular "popularity level."
> 
> And it fairly inherently biases against independent candidates; they
> are a "political animal" that tend to be geographically based, who
> would only be able to capture enough votes to capture one region's
> seat.  Getting publicity outside a local seat is hard enough (even
> with the Internet!) that independents can't expect to go far on a
> "general province" basis.

Listen, I believe in direct democracy. You do not want me put in charge of
setting up an electoral system. You would either move to another country or
assassinate me, probably the latter. Then again, under my system, it would
immediately render me powerless, so, there you go.

However, I accept that we need to look for solutions that:

a) work for the largest number of people and

b) are acceptable to the largest number of people

Invariably, b) demands that there be some cutoff, and any cutoff you implement
is going to be arbitrary in some way to someone. Do we let 15 year olds drive
on the 401? No, even though I'm sure I could find lots of 15 year olds who I
would rather have on the highway than the _tools_ I see on there all the time.

Don't even get me started on the 80 yr olds.

One thing that is really making me laugh here, if the government had simply
said 'this is what we're doing', the debate would have been limited to the most
vocal on either side (grumble grumble, rabble rabble), like we see with any
decision made by these jokers. People are so used to just doing as they're
told, when someone actually asks for their opinion, they go nuts.

Look at Poland or Czechoslovakia when they got to vote for the first time.
You'd think the ballots were made of cocaine.

/note to self, new idea to increase voter turnout

-- 
JoeHill
++++++++++++++++++++
Bender: "In the event of an emergency, my ass can be used as a floatation
device." 
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