Proposal for the Revision of the Voting System

[intenseGaze]

Are we agreed that the system of voting in Israel, which is the already undesirable d'Hondt method, tweaked to be even less democratic, stinks?

Good.

Approval Voting is not a perfect form of voting. However, it is one that most psephologists I know who have been examining alternative systems of voting agree provides a palatable transition form of voting for voters who are accustomed to the First Past the Post (FPTP or FPP) form of elections, which in my humble and correct opinion really does resemble a horse race more than a system of elections that humans should take part in.

Here's a bit about Approval Voting:

http://tinyurl.com/yjdx96

http://tinyurl.com/2zbpmr

http://tinyurl.com/2dlpcw

At a more advanced level, that is when the voting public has acculturated to more sophisticated voting via Approval Voting for PM, I should recommend the following system.

First: we would all get 120 points at the polls. This, of course, represents the number of members of Knesset. We would be able to distribute the 120 points as we will.

Some of us might want to put all their points on one party. Some, like me, who found that there were strong points in various parties that I would have liked to have represented, would be able to distribute their votes as they will.

The number of seats allocated in Knesset would be in proportion to the number of seats they got as determined by the 120 points that each voter received and distributed as they did.

Next: the party that received the most votes would offer the public five or even seven alternative names for PM.

The public would then elect the PM using the Approval Voting system.

I should refer those who are interested to excellent Yahoo! groups. One is: ApprovalVoting. See: http://tinyurl.com/yv4arx

The other is the archive of this list, which has been shut down: election-methods-list. See: http://tinyurl.com/yuqcoc

D2

[Mediocrates]

Why doesn't Israel have voting districts or wards?

[intenseGaze]

Why doesn't Israel have voting districts or wards?

They'd jerrymander.

[Mediocrates]

That's what laws are for - to stop that from happening. Your basic problem is at-large voting. It creates disorder. It's stupid for someone from Haifa to elect someone who lives in Beersheva to represent them, THAT's gerrymandering.

[farmall]

"It's stupid for someone from Haifa to elect someone who lives in Beersheva to represent them, THAT's gerrymandering."

That's bizarre.

Gerrymandering is manipulating an electoral district, while electing someone with zero local ties to represent a locale opens the door for absentee politicians with conflicting interests. I can imagine some of the problems this causes, and suspect reality is worse than that!

[KettleWhistle]

Israel does not have voting districts and it does not have representatives. The elections here are a mess and really votes don't mean anything. After all, the PM of this country was elected due to his party (not even him) getting 25% of the vote.

The reason it's so screwed up is because that's the way Ben Gurion set it up in order to keep power. This way the citizenry has next to nothing to say about how the country is being ran, and to stay in power a party only needs a plurality, but not the majority, or votes.

I've said it here before--the Israeli democracy is a sham. It is not a government of the people for the people and never has been one.

[bararallu]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
-G.O.