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Multi-geographic constituencies

  • 14-11-2010 10:46pm
    #1
    Red Alert
    Hosted Moderators Posts: 7,486 ✭✭✭


    This is an idea that another thread brought to me. At the moment we have the multi-seat constituency system, which brings out the worst of parish pump-ism. At the other end of the scale we have a list system. How about something in between?

    Basically you have a number of large constituencies, that are spread in terms of geography, economic makeup or simply at random. The constituencies are hopefully too large and diverse to allow the TD to concentrate on the parish pump. I'm not sure if this would work, but could it be the answer to removing the overly local influence on national politics? Or is a straight list system the way to go?


Comments

  • #2
    Eliot Rosewater
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,745 ✭✭✭Eliot Rosewater


    I suppose you could have 4 constituencies, like in the Euro Elections, and have a list system for each.

    The Euro election for Ireland South seemed to be concentrated on Cork City and Limerick City to the detriment of other places, which is of course undesirable, but I think this was mainly because of the small number of seats up for grabs (it was worth concentrating on the cities). A list system would result in 30-40 reps being returned from each constituency. But perhaps I'm not comparing like with like at all: the Euro elections are run using PR-STV and are thus based on candidates and not parties.

    Having multiple list constituencies would also help stability, as I mentioned in the other thread.


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