PAL representation

PAL (Proportional, Accountable, Local) representation is a system for electing a legislature, such that ballot secrecy is preserved but each voter can know who their representative is. It's a proportional system, but designed to be a gentle change from a single-member-district system; districts can remain unchanged, 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). Thus, whereas currently only 60-70% of US voters voted for their representative, and many of those because they have no choice, with PAL voting over 80% overall, and over 95% in large states, would be guaranteed have a representative whom they'd supported directly or indirectly.

The basic idea is:

• Candidates pre-announce their rank-ordering of the parties (starting with their own party) and may optionally approve/disapprove within each party candidates. Their votes will never be transferred to disapproved candidates.
• Voters may vote on the candidates in their or nearby districts, or write in candidates from farther off. Votes are delegated by default but optionally, voters may refuse to delegate or vote approval-style.
• Each delegated ballot is transformed into the pre-announced vote of the candidate it supports.
• A legislature is elected by a version of STV (with fractional transfers and a Droop quota.)
• Each district "drafts" one member of each elected party from the elected slate.
• Your representative is the member of the party you voted for who is representing your district.

Full Procedure

• Candidates pre-announce their rank-ordering of the parties (starting with their own party) and may optionally disapprove of any other candidates.
• Voters may vote on the candidates in their or nearby districts, or write in candidates from farther off.

First, to simplify the ballots, the population is separated into a "district" for each seat, and "districts" are grouped into sets of 2 or 3 "co-districts". The ballot for each district lists the incumbents and candidates from that district in a larger font, and the candidates from its co-districts below that in a smaller font. Write-ins may be used to vote for candidates from other districts not listed on the ballot, so the districts only matter for ballot simplicity (Voters do not want to have a ballot with many dozens of candidates on it, but write-ins allow full freedom for those voters who want it). Larger parties will usually run one candidate per district; smaller parties may just run one candidate per co-district set.

• Each vote is transformed into the pre-announced party preference order and individual approvals/disapprovals of the candidate it chooses.
• A legislature is elected by a version of STV.

• Delegated votes first count full-weight for their chosen candidate. Once that candidate is elected or eliminated, a vote is divided equally among all non-disapproved, non-eliminated members of the top party remaining on that ballot with any such members.
• Undelegated votes are divided equally among all approved, non-eliminated candidates on that ballot.
• Any candidates who reach a Droop quota are immediately and simultaneously elected, and their ballots are reweighted to eliminate a Droop quota.
• If there are no candidates who reach a Droop quota, the party with the fewest votes is identified, and the candidate from that party with the fewest votes is eliminated. All votes for that candidate are reassigned as outlined above.
• If the above finishes without electing a full slate, the last candidate to be eliminated is elected.
• If there is still no full slate, the process is rerun from the beginning (again electing the last candidate standing) until a full slate is reached.

• Each district "drafts" one member of each elected party from the elected slate.

The draft proceeds as follows:

• First, each representative is drafted by their home district.
• From then on, the draft proceeds in descending order of votes. That is, if more votes from district 1 go to candidate A than any other eligible district:candidate pair, then A is drafted to that district.

• General rule: All representatives from a party must be drafted N times before any representative from that party may be drafted N+1 times.
• General rule: No district may draft two representatives from the same party.

• Your representative is the member of the party you voted for who is representing your district. If no member of the party you voted for was elected, then you may look at the public ballot of your chosen candidate to see which of your district's representatives is yours.

Advantages

• Proportional

• Thus, a large majority of voters have real representation
• Each representative is elected with the same number of votes.

• 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.

• 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.

• Prudent; not a radical change from single-member districts

• 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.

Justification

PAL representation is inspired by Michel Balinski's "Fair Representation" and by SODA voting. From the former, which is used for municipal elections in Belgium, it inherits the combination of geographical districts and proportionality. However, unlike Fair Representation, each candidate elected by PAL representation has received (directly or indirectly) the same number of votes (except in rare, unavoidable cases when there are not enough candidates who get that number of votes). From SODA voting, PAL representation inherits the simple, spoilproof ballot format and the optional vote delegation.

A modified version of STV is used as the proportional system for simplicity. Other proportional systems (such as BTV [Bucklin Transferrable Vote]) would also work. The equal ranking, and resulting fractional division of votes, is necessary for three reasons. First, it allows for approval-style votes to be counted without complicating the ballot. Second, it allows candidates to exercise judgment independently from their party (disapproving of certain party members), but keeps the voter's judgment as primary. If candidates couldn't exercise judgment, parties would have to waste energy keeping out "crazy" candidates who affiliate only because of the transfer votes they might get. If candidates could fully-rank within the party, as would happen if the PR system were standard STV, there would be too many opportunities for logrolling, at a level of detail where voters wouldn't realistically keep track or hold candidates accountable. Third, equal-ranking allows us to claim that this system could, under reasonable circumstances, elect exactly the same representatives as a non-gerrymandered single-member-district system.