by Jack Santucci
On Friday, I showed NOMINATE scores for Cincinnati City Council members elected under permissive rules. Polarization was super low* for some years because, in each of those years, a lone wolf was able to play coalition kingmaker in a hung parliament.**
Now look at 1947, which is new in this plot, and watch those parties diverge. Yup. STV is totally compatible with high levels of polarization. (I never said it wasn’t.)
Continue reading “STV is also totally compatible with polarization”
Entertain me for a moment while I present a conspiracy theory. Congress banned multi-member House districts in 1967 in order to curb the threat of proportional representation.
Continue reading “Really, the US chose its electoral rules in 1967”
Last week I described and reflected on twenty-four U.S. cities’ experiences with proportional electoral rules in the first half of the last century. That post included brief comment on similar episodes in twenty more Canadian cities.
I reported that Edmonton and Winnipeg had the longest runs with PR-STV. Dennis Pilon pointed out that I got Edmonton wrong (late-night transposition goof). It was Calgary instead. So here is the chart from last week, this time with the Canadian cities:
