On Thursday, 8 September 2016 12:07:56 AM AEST Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
In any event, as it turns out, the UK is a pretty wretched example of the Westminster _system_. Ironic, eh?
It's generally regarded that it's best to avoid version 1.0 and wait for a few bug fix releases if possible.
The Israeli Knesset is a unicameral parliament in which all 120 seats are elected nationwide at-large (not by district). Thus, it is an extreme example of proportionality -- which comes with its own set of problems. E.g., if one of the major blocs is attempting to build a governing coalition and has reached, say, 59 or 60 votes, small 1-2 member parties suddenly are in a position to ask for disproportionate favours, as their allegiance can make or break a government.
The problem here is not that a 1 member party can have the deciding vote (something that happens everywhere that has more than 2 parties). The problem is that this is combined with the fact that a party with 1 seat has about 1/120 of the votes wheras in countries like Australia getting 1 seat means having much more than 1/N of the votes where N is the number of seats. Some of the less intelligent and less honest political commentators complain about parties like the Greens getting a supposedly disproportionate say in government when they form a coalition. But the Greens get 1/45 the number of seats that the Liberal party gets while getting 1/4 of the votes! The Greens have a lot less than 1/4 the influence on Australian legislation than the Liberal party has so Greens voters aren't being served well by our current voting system. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/