" The worst, and fatal, flaw of pure proportional voting is that candidates are on a list and the position on the list is determined by loyalty to the Party. "
I am scratching my head about your reply, Edwin.
What you are saying is really far from the truth and says nothing about the voters and their political freedom.
I am really curious where you are from. If you are from a two-party system, then I can understand your angle about the horrible loyalty candidates must have toward their party. If you are from a nation with proportional voting, then it sounds like this is your personal experience.
Let's look at this from the voters' perspective because that should ultimately be the foundation of our discussion.
In a two-party system, voters are not served in all possible political colors: Red and Blue dominate. The worst part in light of our discussion is that representatives toe the party line instead of listening to the voters well. They are in control, and the voters don't have a real choice to easily pick another candidate to represent them. From the voters' perspective, a candidate toeing the party line is horrible. It is better to have a rep that bends toward the voters rather than the party line. This will happen particularly with issues that are not hardened issues. But the party line is drawn solidly on the larger issues in society. In some ways, the voters are well off with their rep not toeing the party line. But when push comes to shove, the voters are not in control.
In proportional voting, there is red and blue as well, but there is also orange, green, yellow, purple, and often even more colors (pink and periwinkle come to mind). Candidates toeing the party line seems quite normal to me here. When the voters have plenty of choice, then the candidate for pink should not want to incorporate a lot of blue of course. If that candidate likes blue a lot, he or she should go join blue. From the voters' perspective the parties should stand up for their truths and make this very clear to everyone.
I consider this sufficient reply, but I want to mention that in the United States a good number of the voters flee the area they live in because they cannot stand the political climate anymore. Areas are becoming redder and bluer over time and some of the individuals, the voters, need to relocate to find a happier place for themselves.
In proportional voting, the voters do not have to do any moving. They simply pick their specific political color, no need to move or anything like that at all. The candidates or the party people themselves, however, they have to be part of a specific ideology. If they cannot find themselves (anymore) in a specific political color, then they need to move. A green party person may realize after a while that he or she is bluer than first expected, and needs to move over to the blue party.
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There is one enormous downside to proportional voting, and that occurs for large nations. Small nations tend to be encapsulated by large nations and that forces them to adjust themselves to the agendas the large nations put in place. As such, large nations cannot be as experimental in nature as small nations. Large nations must guard their stability and twenty little parties are not going to help.
A two-party system is also not the answer for stability because it jails folks in a two-color scheme. It does not allow for natural emancipation and this will come out in unnatural manners (just look at US history, I need not say more).
But I am all for large nations becoming what I call a three-to-five-party democracy.
For the United States, Germany is actually the closest example. Germany incorporated US Federalism and its voting system and then adjusted it in one single spot to make it multi-party.
Germany still has districts, but the end result is adjusted by the overall result of all votes in all districts. If the Green Party had ten percent of the votes, then they will end up with ten percent of the seats. If they won one or two districts straight-out, that's great, but Green representatives are added on top of the district winners, so the ten percent is met.
Germany is winner-take-all, but gets adjusted to a proportional outcome. They did put a five percent threshold in place, so parties not getting five percent or more of all votes do not get a seat (unless they won a district).
At the local level, proportional voting is the very best; there is nothing like it. The voters are in full control and the politicians have to listen or their seats are gone. The local level is also a safe place. Localities, even the most outspoken ones, are all encapsulated in a larger political setting and so it is safe to have the purest form of democracy in place.
Small nations, too, are smart to embrace proportional voting because it will give them twenty different views and twenty different opportunities to be themselves in this world. I'd say, any nation smaller than 25 million people should not worry about having a proportional voting system.
But... Scandinavian countries have one house and one house only. So there is more to the discussion. The more political institutions, the less power the voters have while at the same time they have to vote more. This is really a case of more being less. In the USA, voters vote for three political institutions: House, Senate, Presidency. Your vote clashes with your vote, and that means the overall outcome is less effective, and having less effective political centers can benefit certain groups (not voters, but -say- international companies) .
Italy has proportional voting, but they have two houses that each -independently from the other- can drop a coalition government. Totally weird, but a fun example to discuss quickly. Real power spread to two houses makes Italy have a very ineffective government and again -say- international companies can benefit from the constant political turmoil in Italy because the politicians cannot make the most important decisions.
Thank you for engaging me in this, Edwin. I see you like multi-party systems, so we are both already on the same side against any two-party dictatorship.
