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@cfrank If others have examples, simulations, or citations for my claim that "over time the two opposing factions become more and more polarized” I'd love to have those on hand too. I'm not sure I'm referencing any one thing I've read or heard in particular, but more putting multiple things together to get the big picture.

On the math alone I think you're right that the center is an important block for the two parties to court as well, but in practice I think that that incentive is outweighed by the other perverse social incentives to demonize the other side, to punish "traitors" considering switching, and so on.

Cancelling people who question the party line costs center voters, but it also discourages others from following. I think this was the subliminal Democratic Party tactic over the last decade that paid dividends for a while but then ultimately lost them the "big-tent" advantage and the presidency. I'm not saying it was an intentional strategy. There are big cultural forces at play here. That's obviously my own personal opinion.

Back on topic: As the narrative gets dominated by two polarized factions and the middle is silenced, the real middle (the center of public opinion) almost ceases to be a part of the political spectrum because it's doesn't actually map on to the left, right, and swing voter boxes.

Identifying and presenting consensus win-win policy and then getting it passed is the goal. We need to incentivise and empower that one way or another.

@cfrank I have been thinking about the same questions. I think that the safeguard to fascism is ensuring checks against polarizing factions taking control.

In FPTP two party domination, the center-squeeze effect ensures that over time the two opposing factions become more and more polarized and this gives the illusion of majoritarianism, but as we know, the electability bias from voters having to vote for the frontrunner on their side can wildly inflate the perceived popularity of those frontrunners. In practice the moderate and third party voices are silenced and we see super polarizing candidates like Donald Trump (who initially only had some 25% of the vote in the 2016 primary) winning decisive control of their party. His own party has little they can do if they don't like his leadership, and the opposing party also has no leverage whatsoever if they can't beat him head to head. This last presidential election we saw both parties put forward candidates with record low approval ratings, but nobody else had a chance of challenging them at the same time. This is textbook polarized entrenched two party domination.

Meanwhile, I'm not convinced that a multi-party system on it's own will address any of that and it could make it worse. Just as choose one ballots can create a center-squeeze in FPTP, they can do the same in PR, resulting in a donut of polarized factions represented and little to no representation for the middle. In an election where the quota to win is 10% for example, a candidate could theoretically be strongly opposed by 90% of the electorate. Meanwhile, other factions could win with their standard-bearer also preferred by 10% of the electorate, but also strongly supported by many more and only strongly opposed by a slim minority.

When some winners are hyper-polarizing and others are not, it not only allows for the rise of dangerous factions who are more likely to bring about civil war, it also creates a lopsided and unstable winner-set. That's not the idealized definition of proportionality we're aiming for even though it would technically pass PR criteria. Theoretically, we should be able to do better.

The magic of a more expressive ballot or especially a 5 star ballot is that voters can show not only who their favorites are, but how much they like and dislike candidates from other factions. In an ideal system, this data could then be used to:
a) ensure that factions who deserve a seat at the table get one, and
b) ensure that candidates or factions that are seen as dangerous and harmful by others are not platformed when better alternatives exist.

In single-winner STAR, voters who are in the minority who are not going to get their favorites elected still have a strong vote against their worst case-scenario in the runoff. This is a massive check on authoritarianism and fascism. This is amazing and we don't need to switch to PR to get this windfall.

And, in a top shelf 5 STAR-PR system, theoretically we could do the same, using scores to identify which candidates and factions meet quota rules, while using scores and runoffs or preference data to identify the most polarizing and most opposed candidates.

At best, PR systems boast that legislatures where all perspectives are represented at the table. These legislatures are more likely to put forward more broadly acceptable legislation, but at their worst, they can give extremist factions massive leverage to cause stagnation or tear the system apart from the inside. For example, a super polarizing candidate like Israel's Ben Gvir who was elected with only 3.5% of the vote has the power to make or break the majority coalition and call a new election with a vote of no confidence if Netanyahu defies him. At worst, PR systems can give small polarizing factions extremely disproportionate leverage. Some of this can only be reformed with governmental system reforms such as higher quotas, but some of it can be fixed with the voting method itself.

Again, I think with a more expressive ballot and a hybrid ordinal and cardinal (STAR) approach we can do better.

This looks quite nice. Presumably for PR elections? I came up with something similarish when doing a mixed member system that used score/approval ballots, and you could vote for candidates and their parties together / separately.

I've seen weighted seats proposed before. It is a fairly intuitive idea, so nothing new. But my instinct is that I don't think it's such a good idea. I think there is something to be said for a parliament made up of people with equal power.

Would the weighting purely count towards their voting power in the elected body, or does it have other effects such as more time to speak?

I think one problem is that it there might be a "celebrity" effect. If multiple candidates are standing for one party, the best well known one is likely to take most of the power available to that party without necessarily being "better".

Also while it's based on votes, voters don't get a say in this weighting. I might prefer candidate A to B (from the same party, or having similar ideals) by a small amount but might still prefer them to have equal power in parliament rather than having all the power directed to A. So I'd have to weigh up what I think other people will vote for and then vote in the opposite direction to balance it out.

If democracy was working properly in the first place, there should be enough candidates out there to represent your views without having pin everything on potentially just one candidate - a single point of failure.

@cfrank said in Idea for truly proportional representation:

@Toby-Pereira I wonder what you think about this, since you have deeper knowledge of PR systems.

Just to let you know I've seen this, but I'll get back to you in the next few days. For some reason I'm not getting much time to post on here at the moment!

@A Former User said in Kennedy Jr’s Candidacy as a Route to Voting Reform:

This thread made me lose interest in this forum. RFK Jr. is a monster.

Just one person posting something you disagree with made you lose interest in the whole forum?

There is an online obituary if you want to read it here.

@cfrank While I'm not an expert in how to make methods pass particular criteria, participation seems to be a very hard one to get. Most of the methods that pass it seem to be simple adding up ones (e.g. FPTP, Borda, approval, score), although Descending Solid Coalitions and Descending Acquiescing Coalitions are slightly weird methods that do pass it apparently.

@cfrank said in Fixing Participation Failure in “Approval vs B2R”:

(6) Run a secondary, independent head-to-head election between the B2R winner and their adversary, with the following caveats:
--> Voters are not tied down in any way to their original preference between the B2R winner and the adversary, and can freely vote for either in the independent head-to-head. Also, voters who did not participate in the first round are fully allowed to participate in the final round. By default, voters' original ballots will be used to determine the preference, but voters may opt in to swap their rating either 0 or 1 times, whichever amount is necessary to indicate an advantage that they wish to disclose.
--> However, based on these swaps, we can count the net number of swaps that are advantageous to the adversary over the B2R winner compared with the original ballots. If this number is positive, the election proceeds as you would expect, with ties broken by the sort order. However, if the number is not positive, if the original head-to-head was in favor of the B2R survivor, and if a material difference would be incurred, then the adversary will be conferred an automatic +1 head-to-head advantage, and will also automatically win ties.

I find this part a bit hard to understand.

Also, if it's an independent head-to-head, do you mean a separate trip to the polling station, or just a separate part of the ballot paper? If it's a separate trip, then it would be impossible to manage the swaps and each voter's default position without losing anonymity.

@kodos I've changed it so new users have to register with an e-mail address. I don't think that's too onerous, and it should make the problem go away.