Talk:Additional Member System

From Academic Kids

Henrygb, can you please justify this recent change in the definition of AMS? It might be nice if AMS and MMP meant different things, but AFAIK that's simply not true, I have always been under the impression that when someone in Scotland says 'AMS' they are referring to the original definition ie: equivalent to MMP.

Even if the definition of AMS is to be changed, it would be better if the old page was moved to MMP rather than being edited in place, ie: change the title, not the content. As it stands most of its content is still specific to MMP, and the MMP branch has lost its history and much of its content.

Pm67nz 01:00, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Having checked the usual definition with a couple of pages of Google results I've reverted it, but I tried to keep as much of the new content as possible.

Pm67nz 01:25, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The point is that AMS on the face of it means each voter having two votes in elections (using two systems) where the members in the second election are additional to those in the first. That is the position in Scotland, Germany etc. But it is also the position in Russia, Japan etc. Indeed the inclusion of Japan in the list of countries on the AMS page, when it has a parallel system is an indication of the confusion. I do not see that parallel voting systems are any less AMS than mixed member proportional systems are AMS; parallel and MMP should each be seen as subsets of AMS. Google is likely to be biased to the worldwide examples that English speakers are familiar with. That being said, I don't want to get into a revert war, so I have added a paragraph trying to explain the difference. Henrygb 29 Jan 2004

Since the issue may have arisen again (see below) here's my late reply. Unfortunately what AMS or any other term means "on the face of it" doens't matter. Many voting systems have less than ideal names (What does "alternative vote" tell you for example!) but meanings are defined by common usage.

Pm67nz 01:57, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Re Japan and Macedonia. Other wikipedia pages (eg: Table of voting systems by nation) state that Japan uses a parallel voting system, and a quick google suggests the same for Macedonia. Pm67nz 01:30, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

But it is clear that several people regard "Additional Member System" as meaning two elections (or at least two counts), one less proportional and one more proportional to provide "additional members". The question of whether it requires the proportional part to take account of the non-proportional part is, in my view open as "common usage". For the sake of clarity, I still think that AMS should be the general term, pointing to "Parallel voting" and "Mixed member proportional voting" as specific terms. Germany and others would still be AMS, but they would also be MMP. --Henrygb 20:25, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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In Phil Hunt's Voting Systems FAQ (http://pl.atyp.us/misc/votefaq.txt), what is called Mixed Member System is called Parallel voting here. -- Dissident (Talk) 21:39, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, though it does not explicitly use AMS to describe New Zealand, but instead MMP (even if it does say similar to Germany). And it does use AMS for Norway for what is essentially a regional proportional party list system with a very small national proportional top-up. --Henrygb 14:48, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Treatment of Overhang in NZ

I've deleted this text: and in New Zealand the other parties get compensatory seats to obtain the proportionality.

It's simply a big lie... uh... mistake. I've read the Electoral Act before (it's online if you want to check it) and the Electoral Commission website confirms my understanding [1] (http://www.elections.org.nz/esyst/govt_elect.html). In New Zealand, you just keep your overhang seats, no compensation for the other parties. I'd love to know where that idea came from though.

There is another quirk in the New Zealand system, the number of seats that are allocated proportionally can be less than 120, if some of the constituency seats have been won by people who were independent or effectively independent (their party didn't stand a list). Say there were 5 independents, then 115 seats would be allocated to parties proportionally. This means that independents do not cause an overhang. You only get overhang if a real party wins more constituency seats that it would have been otherwise entitled to.

This is all academic (so far) because we have never had an independent elected, and never had an overhang, although it's conceivable that the Maori Party may overhang at the election next year.

Another piece of speculation just occurred to me. There's a grubby piece of legislation called the Electoral Integrity Act, whereby a rebellious MP can be kicked out of parliament if they "interfere with the proportionality of Parliament" (or wording to that effect). The idea is if you leave your party you have to continue to vote along with your party or they can have you expelled. Constitutionally dubious, but the drafters of the bill must have known that, because they build a sunset clause into it. Anyway... if a party was in overhang, presumably their rebels would be free to leave, because their party had too many MPs anyway.

Sorry this is way off-topic, I got carried away.

Ben Arnold 14:43, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

if that's true, the examples in the "how to deal with" list in the overhang seat-article has to be changed. --Braunbaer 19:11, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is known as an underhang, and probably deserves its own page, indeed I'll start one up at underhang seat. --Gregstephens 08:43, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Decoy lists

I cut out most of "It needs be considered that this problem has never occurred in most countries using AMS, where the candidates must generally be part of a readily identifiable party. In theory, it would be possible by setting up two separate parties, one to run a list and one to run in electorates, but as these parties would have to be incorporated separately, there is strong potential that divisions between the two parties could prevent any fruitful cooperation. Alternatively, the electorates could be run by indepedent candidates, 'appointed' by the party with the list, however yet again the party will have no control over the indepedent electoral candidates. Both concepts also risk alienating voters." and replaced it with "Decoy lists are not used in most countries using AMS, where most voters vote for candidates from parties with long-standing names." The rest is in my view a POV apologetic analysis. If there is evidence of an attempt to do this elsewhere which went wrong then it should be included. Other speculation as what might happen if ... is unencyclopedic. One maight as well say that only Italian voters are clever enough to respond to decoy lists. What is interesting is that the Italian version of AMS required the list candidates to be defeated constituency candidates with the same party label - i.e. a protection against decoy lists, but it did not work. --Henrygb 00:06, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)