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PAL representation: Difference between revisions
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PAL (Proportional, Accountable, Local) representation is a system for electing a proportionally-representative legislature.
== Simplified Process ==
=== Predeclaration ===
In order to assure voters that their delegated votes would be used in a way they support, each candidate would predeclare a simplified preference order. This means:
* Candidates choose a party, or may run as independents.
* Party candidates may choose a list of other candidates within their party to declare as "their faction". Factional affiliation need not be mutual.
* Whether or not they choose a party, they may list a preference order over the other parties and independents.
For instance: Betty Best affiliates with the Good party. Among the Good candidates, she declares Bob Better and Irma Improved as her faction (we'll call these the "Better" faction). After the Good party, she prefers (any member of) the Decent party, then independent candidate Andrew Average, then the Acceptable party. She does not support the Bad or Horrible parties.
Bob Better, as it happens, defines his faction to include Irma but not Betty. His party preferences are similar, but he ranks the acceptable party above independent Andrew Average.
If you vote for Betty, your vote will be transferred in the order she declared. That is, even though it will probably count temporarily as one of Bob's votes, it will not take on any of his preferences for other candidates.
=== Balloting ===
Most voters would vote for one local candidate listed directly on their ballot. Some more politically-engaged voters would write-in a candidate from faraway. A few, who do not like the idea of delegating their vote or do not agree with the predeclared preferences of any candidate, would approve a set of several candidates; these ballots would still be counted fairly. Thus, voting is very simple, and it is nearly impossible to accidentally spoil your ballot.
=== Transfers ===
Say that you vote for candidate Betty Best from the predeclaration example above. Your vote would go toward electing Best if possible; if she were eliminated as being too weak, it would be divided among the un-eliminated Better candidates; if all of them were eliminated, it would go to the remaining Good candidates; then to the Decent ones; then to Average; then to any of the Acceptable ones. If at any point in this process one of these candidates won, then whatever fraction of your was necessary to ensure that win would be used up; so probably, before all the Good candidates were eliminated, you would already have helped elect one or more candidates you'd support, and only a small fraction of your voting power would continue being transferred.
=== Assignment ===
Districts would be assigned based to representatives based on their support and their party's support in that area. Thus, in an area where one party was particularly dominant, a representative from that party might cover just their local district (though that district would also be assigned as part of the territory of one representative from each of the other winning parties, so minority-party voters in that district would still have local representation from someone they'd supported). In an area where a party was weak, that party's winners would have to cover large territories.
The district assignment algorithm tries to assign each candidate the districts where their support most exceeded their average overall support. Thus, while no district assignment will be perfect, in general candidates will be sympathetic to the districts they represent; for instance, in a state where rural and urban issues were significantly different, rural districts would tend to have rural representatives, even within a party which appealed more to urban voters.
== Advantages ==
It's easy to get confused by the details of any given electoral process, because rules which cover every eventuality are rarely simple. However, this system is very simple for the voters; all you have to do is vote for your favorite candidate.
Also, it's designed to be a gentle change from a single-member-district system. The ballot format is similar; districts can remain unchanged; voters will still have a single person they can point to as "their representative"; and '''if single-member districts are giving fair proportions from cohesive parties, PAL representation will elect exactly the same members'''.
The difference is that most representatives will represent multiple districts, and each district will have multiple representatives (one from each winning party). This allows each voter to know who their representative is, while preserving ballot secrecy. Thus, whereas currently only 60-70% of US voters voted for their representative, and many of those because they have no real choice, with PAL voting over 80% overall, and over 95% in large states, would be guaranteed to have a representative whom they'd supported directly or indirectly.
=== P ===
*Proportional
:*Thus, a large majority of voters have real representation
:*Each representative is elected with the same number of votes.
*Prudent; not a radical change from single-member districts
:*No redistricting necessary
:*If:
::* all votes are for one of the two main-party candidates in the voter's district,
::* all candidates approve everyone from their party
::* and the districts are divided fairly so that plurality would give a proportional result
::... then PAL representation (like Balinski's "Fair Representation") gives the same results as plurality. These assumptions will not generally be perfectly true, but they will generally be close to true, so PAL representation will give results that are recognizably similar to those of single-member districts. It is hoped that this would make it a more acceptable system to politicians who have won under single-winner rules.
=== A ===
*Accountable
:*Voters, not party bureaucrats, decide which members of a given party get seated.
:*Since the total votes needed for election is higher, the "margin of victory" is reduced. There are no safe, gerrymandered seats where corrupt representatives can hide.
=== L ===
*Local
:*Representatives know who is a constituent and voters know who is their representative.
:*Neighbors can organize to lobby their shared representatives.
:*Fair attention for local issues.
=== Compared to other PR systems ===
Other PR systems have problems which make them extremely hard to pass as a replacement for single-member districts. PAL resolves all of the following issues:
*A closed list system would be (rightly) attacked as a power grab by party bureaucrats. Voters have been souring on parties for decades now, and they wouldn't stand for that.
*A global open-list system such as STV would have unacceptably-complex ballots. Who can keep track of dozens of candidates, let alone fully rank them?
*A districtless system would be too radical a change. People are used to having "their" representative.
*A multimember-district system would help with the above problems, but wouldn't actually solve them. Who wants a system where ballots are only a little bit too complex, where you only sort of know who your representative is, and which is only mostly proportional?
*A mixed member system would be an ugly hybrid. US democratic ideals may be too egalitarian to accept the idea of two different kinds of representative.
*More seriously, multimember or mixed member systems would be totally unacceptable to existing incumbents, as either would draw too many of them out of their existing districts. And perhaps this is in part a valid concern. It is true that the public interest is to have representatives who are accountable, not complacent; but that does not imply that there's a value in change simply for change's sake.
*[http://mathaware.org/mam/08/EliminateGerrymandering.pdf Fair Majority Voting], as used in Zurich, Switzerland for municipal elections, resolves all of the concerns above, but it would be very hard to justify the fact that some representatives would lose with a majority vote. It's very hard to respond to a simple question like "Why should my opponent win with 45%, when I lose with 52%?" with a complex answer about party balance and compensating for gerrymandering.
**Note that PAL representation would actually tend to give the same result as FMV, but would provide an easy justification for that result. Responding to the question above, you could say: "Each representative needs exactly the same number of votes to win. Your opponent got the vote transfers they needed to reach that threshold and you didn't. Those votes were transferred in accordance with the explicit will of the voters, and disallowing transfers would disenfranchise those voters."
== Full Procedure ==
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This example shows some of the advantages of PAL representation. In district 1, voters clearly prefer party R, but their local R candidate is corrupt; even though many of them lazily vote for this local incumbent, PAL gives them an R representative who is cleaner. In district 2, party D has a plurality, but the majority is anti-D; PAL respects that anti-D majority by still electing â…” of the state reps from party R. And party R can't neutralize D voters by gerrymandering them into district 3; If D could get an extra 10% in any district, they'd take an extra seat. Finally, the minor parties C and L do not elect any representatives because, even combined, they have not reached the threshold of 75% of one district (25% statewide); but their concerns cannot be ignored, as either one still could hold the balance of power between R and D for one seat.
== Note on legality in US ==
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