In a post otherwise about the Texas redistricting case, Rob Ritchie at the FairVote Blog sees a bright side:
Other news out of Texas shows the path we must ultimately tread. Just yesterday the College Regents of Amarillo voted unanimously to settle a federal voting rights case by adopting cumulative voting for its future elections. Cumulative voting is a proportional voting system that allows more than one political grouping to elect a representative in the same constituency.
The statement after “that” in the last sentence is valid, of course. But if cumulative voting is the “path we must ultimately tread” it’s a path to the 19th, rather than 21st, century. In no sense is cumulative voting a form of proportional representation. No classification of electoral systems by any reputable scholar in the field would ever make such a claim, and the sooner electoral reformers stop conflating cumulative voting–which has numerous pathologies that I won’t get into now–with PR, the more they will advance the real cause of fair and proportional elections.
Cumulative voting, like its close cousins SNTV and MNTV, deserves to lie in the dustbin of electoral-system concepts from the pre-party and pre-proportionality era.
Cumulative voting may or may not count as a form of PR–that’s a semantic point. And it’s not even close to as good as choice voting (STV outside the U.S.). But I still greatly prefer cumulative voting to MNTV. I would campaign for it in situations where it is politically possible and choice voting is, for whatever reasons, not politically possible. I (think I) understand the defects, especially the need for coordination by both candidates and voters, and the large role of strategic voting. But do you really think it’s as bad as MNTV?
Seed planted by Bob Richard — 30 June 2006 @ 16:33
Actually, it is not semantic whether to call Cumulative Vote “PR” or not. The usual definition of PR is a system that ensures that parties obtain a share of seats proportionate to votes in any given district (of any given magnitude >1, or preferably >2). Cumulative vote, like SNTV, is not set up to do that.
One could make the case that STV is not PR, either, but I’d rather not go down that road. On the assumption that voters’ second and lower preferences are likely to be within parties more than across them, STV is clearly PR even though there is no reason why its mechanisms have to be proportional.
In nonpartisan races, we could say that STV is proportional to candidate support bases. But CV is not.
Is CV worse than MNTV? Well, on the grounds that nothing is, then certainly not. Of the non-list systems for multi-seat districts, I suppose my ranking is something like:
STV>SNTV>CV>MNTV
But the two in the middle perhaps I could reverse, as it’s a bit hard for me to collapse all their many defects into a single dimension.
In other words, while I am not totally sold on Bob’s pragmatic solution, I would not be dead-set against it, either.
Seed planted by MSS — 30 June 2006 @ 16:58
In Belgium cumulative vote is used for some indirect elections from local councils. It gives fair results amounting to de facto PR.
Cumulative vote and SNTV are in my eyes deficient forms of PR: only when parties and voters can predict party strengts and use the optimal strategy (nomination strategy and vote distribution), PR can be reached (in fact D’Hondt predicts the outcome). In real direct elections, this is very difficult and I would recommend its use. But in indirect elections with very party-loyal ‘voters’ (councillors), party strengths are clear from the beginning and ‘voters’ can be easily ordered how to vote. In that case cumulative vote and SNTV can be used and gives PR-like results.
(* To be precise, it is used in municipal councils to elect the municipal ‘council for social assistance’ (‘conseil de l’aide sociale / raad voor maatschappelijk welzijn’) and the intermunicipal police-council)
Seed planted by Bancki — 28 February 2007 @ 16:37
CV is called proportional voting because voting equipment vendors have made it extremely difficult – almost totally impossible, in fact – to use STV for public elections.
Seed planted by Jack — 01 March 2007 @ 14:59
The limitations of machine vendors is hardly a reason to call cumulative voting “proportional”!
It might be a pragmatic reason to consider CV as the best this country can do in electoral reform (though not a “reform” I would ever support). However, that is no reason to label as “proportional” a system that is not PR.
Seed planted by MSS — 01 March 2007 @ 17:40
In my earlier planting, I’ve forgotten the crucial word NOT :
“Cumulative vote and SNTV are in my eyes deficient forms of PR: only when parties and voters can predict party strengths and use the optimal strategy (nomination strategy and vote distribution), PR can be reached (in fact D’Hondt predicts the outcome).
In real direct elections, this [is very difficult and I would *NOT* recommend its use.”
Seed planted by Bancki — 02 March 2007 @ 08:30
Successful cumulative voting election in Peoria
cumulative voting rights aren’t the optimal way to get proportional election results (take a look at choice voting*), the system continues to work well in Peoria. African-Americans have had fairly consistent Council representation since the system took route in 1991, and political newcomers have been able to win seats too.
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* Single transferable vote.–MSS
Scion grafted by The FairVote Blog — 18 April 2007 @ 21:48