Other Ensemble Rules

Issues	Candidates

Serving	A	B	C	D  

Drinks	Milk	Tea	Coffee	Wine

Soups	Beef	Onion	Veggie	Chicken

Breads	Rye	Wheat	Bagel	Croissant

Salads	Chief	Cobb	House	Spinach

But what if a person wants one from column A, two from column B and one from column C? In a restaurant he can order what he wants, if it is on the menu. In an election the menu has only 2 or 3 choices

The same problem is faced by a voter who wants "liberal" social policies and "conservative" foreign policies - no candidate with a chance of winning espouses the right combination.

"Direct Rep" allows a voter to move his weight only once a year and sets a minimum and maximum on the rep's weight. It is like STV but the minimum quota required to win a seat is lower than the maximum quota which requires surplus votes to transfer.

This allows the waiting strategy used under STV: Don't commit to any likely winner early in the voting. If other voters give your favorite a surplus, the small surplus fraction of their weights will go to their next choice(s) whereas your whole vote can go to your next candidate.

Vivarto allows the voter to move his weight at any time and to select different reps for different issues. Some compare selecting one rep for all issues with having to select food by the full grocery bag rather than having a choice of which groceries to put in the bag.

Local elections come close to this ideal in some jurisdictions. A voter may cast ballots for Mayor, Auditor, Sheriff, Fire Chief, and Judges; and for City Council reps, School Board, Planning Board, and Health Board members.

A direct-representation council varies the weight each rep has in legislative voting. When such inequalities appear on a small council, some reps may have zero power according to analysis with a "power index". A rep with no power in this sense does not have enough weight to turn an minority coalition into a majority. When others realize this they ignore the weak rep. Phillip Straffin gives several excellent examples from the early Common Market to small towns in New York State. The voters linked to a powerless rep have wasted their votes.

For example, let's say a council has 7 reps. Six each have 15% of the council's voting weight, but Ann has only 10%. She can turn any minority of 45% into a majority. She has as much power as any of the reps with 15% voting weight so her voters are over represented.

Direct Democracy

Even a direct democracy needs decision making rules that are well centered and decisive. That is the topic of the next chapter.