Surely proportionality is not the correct goal for elections. At least, when you remember that people aren’t identical copies of one of a few “kinds”, it becomes less obvious what proportionality means.
I propose this. First, suppose a perfectly educated population would vote on every bill (using some single winner method X) and remember their choices. Second, let the same population elect a government (using some multi winner method Y) and then let that government vote on every bill (using some single winner method Z). The multi winner method Y is “good” if the outcomes of the first simulation (running X) are matched by the outcomes of the second one (running Y followed by Z) - I believe this is the correct justification for electing a government. Or you could just measure utilities more directly, to be fair.
Of course, proportionality correlates with this definition of “goodness” (and if there were perfectly homogenous voting blocks, and if X=Z, I think the correlation would be 1). But, by Goodhart’s law, correlation isn’t good enough.
One important observation here is that the “goodness” of the multi winner voting system is strongly related to the “goodness” of the voting system used by the elected officials. I.e. if the senate’s voting system has some pathologies, then the we might want to correct for those pathologies in the general election.
Speaking of which, what voting system does the senate use? I think they vote on two options (yes/no), one bill at a time, but in reality there is more than one option at a time, which might lead to some unique pathologies. E.g. “I like the bill A, but I like bill B even more, and if we pass A, we won’t even vote on B, so I’ll vote against A”.
Surely proportionality is not the correct goal for elections. At least, when you remember that people aren’t identical copies of one of a few “kinds”, it becomes less obvious what proportionality means.
I propose this. First, suppose a perfectly educated population would vote on every bill (using some single winner method X) and remember their choices. Second, let the same population elect a government (using some multi winner method Y) and then let that government vote on every bill (using some single winner method Z). The multi winner method Y is “good” if the outcomes of the first simulation (running X) are matched by the outcomes of the second one (running Y followed by Z) - I believe this is the correct justification for electing a government. Or you could just measure utilities more directly, to be fair.
Of course, proportionality correlates with this definition of “goodness” (and if there were perfectly homogenous voting blocks, and if X=Z, I think the correlation would be 1). But, by Goodhart’s law, correlation isn’t good enough.
One important observation here is that the “goodness” of the multi winner voting system is strongly related to the “goodness” of the voting system used by the elected officials. I.e. if the senate’s voting system has some pathologies, then the we might want to correct for those pathologies in the general election.
Speaking of which, what voting system does the senate use? I think they vote on two options (yes/no), one bill at a time, but in reality there is more than one option at a time, which might lead to some unique pathologies. E.g. “I like the bill A, but I like bill B even more, and if we pass A, we won’t even vote on B, so I’ll vote against A”.