RE: Open and Closed Lists (was ...STV for Candidate...)
At 05:51 +0200 12.2.2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I can understand this only if you vote for parties you don't like. It ought to be possible with STV and the Hare quota if you have to indicate all possible preferences. D- The forced transfer of surpluses using STV is quite arbitrary -- related to the forced arbitrary transfer of votes using IRV. Forced? Do you mean the system where you have to indicate all preferences? The STV results for the Nov. 2001 election for the Cambridge, Mass (U.S.A.) City Council are now available via http://www.ci.cambridge.ma.us/~Election/ 14 rounds of counting for 9 seats 9.98 percent of the votes were wasted due to the use of the Droop Quota. That's about what I'd expect, slightly below 10%. You seem to disapprove of the Droop quota. I don't think we can really avoid wasted votes. If we suppose that there is only one seat to be filled and two candidates, nearly 50% of the votes can be wasted if the contenders are rather even. The only way to avoid that is to require unanimity. The Hare quota for 1 seat is 100%, unanimity. This is why the Droop quota is better. You add 1 to the number of seats and round the result to the next higher number to avoid a 50-50 result. With more seats to be filled there may always be a group which is not large enough to be entitled for one seat. Their votes are wasted. Or have I got it all wrong? Olli Salmi
Re: [EM] Comparing ranked versus unranked methods
Using d'Hondt's rule, this sort of offensive strategic manipulation by clever vote-splitting appears to be impossible... it seems obvious from playing with examples, although I'm having trouble coming up with a clean way to explain it. So, it looks like d'Hondt might be the better choice for PAV for strategic reasons. I think a slight addendum is deserved here. All of the strategic manipulations I mention for PAV are also possible in any list PR that uses Webster's rule for allocation of seats. These problems are not really unique to PAV. Despite this, I think these problems are a much greater concern in PAV. In list PR, the candidate lists for parties have to be formed well in advance of the election. It would be very difficult for a party to foresee a specific voting breakdown, and split their party into two or more parties to take advantage of this. Even if the voting is extremely predicable, this still invites some political fallout from splitting into two parties. In general, the nature of list PR makes it very difficult to take advantage of the strategic manipulations made possible by Webster's rule. In PAV, however, the party faction split need not be set up by an actual split of the party in advance of the election. It can be done manually by the voters at the ballots. Moreover, the party leadership need not be obvious about their strategy; they can merely tell their supporters just vote for your favorite two or three candidates, no more and they might expect roughly the desired breakdown. There is already an incentive in PAV (and STV) to leave off any sure winners who you support, in order to make your vote count more strongly toward the marginal candidates you support. The additional incentive to shorten your list if Webster's method is applied to PAV could corrupt the proportionality of the results. For this reason, d'Hondt makes more sense in PAV. Standard list PR does not give the voter the freedom to manipulate the results in this way, so I would support Webster's rule for a list PR system. -Adam
[EM] Hitler's secretary dies aged 81
A historical note -- since I have used Mr. H. in my anti- IRV examples. For younger folks --- about 55-60 million folks died in World War II thanks to Hitler in Germany and Hirohito in Japan-- both tyrant killers on the all time killer tyrants list. - http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/02/13/germany.hitler/index.html Hitler's secretary dies aged 81 BERLIN, Germany -- The woman who was by Adolf Hitler's side throughout his wartime leadership and was privy to his last days has died. Traudl Junge was the Fuehrer's secretary from 1943 to 1945 and took down his last will and testament. *** She has said: I admit, I was fascinated by Adolf Hitler. He was a pleasant boss and a fatherly friend. I deliberately ignored all the warning voices inside me and enjoyed the time by his side almost until the bitter end. It wasn't what he said, but the way he said things and how he did things. ***
Re: [EM] Comparing ranked versus unranked methods
On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Adam Tarr wrote: (Side note: I'm almost sure sequential and non-sequential PAV are equivalent if there is no overlap in the votes between various voting factions.) That's right! As I mentioned, in some cases a pecking order is actually desirable. Here's another example of that. Suppose that we have a closed list method and we want to know which order to fill the list's (eventual) quota. The party could have a sequential PAV primary. Better yet use an open list instead of a primary, and let sequential PAV decide the order of filling the quota. Using d'Hondt's rule, this sort of offensive strategic manipulation by clever vote-splitting appears to be impossible... it seems obvious from playing with examples, although I'm having trouble coming up with a clean way to explain it. So, it looks like d'Hondt might be the better choice for PAV for strategic reasons. I consider this to be a shame, since Webster's is the most proportional method we could choose. It's like the question of rounding up or rounding down. The bank rounds up if you owe them any part of a penny, and rounds down if they owe you any part of a penny. The D'Hondt rule is the rule that comes out just right on the borderline cases: if there are n+1 candidates in a race for n seats, and there are two disjoint factions of size m and n*m, respectively, then the larger faction gets the first n-1 seats, and it is a toss up between the two remaining candidates. The case of n=1 is the case of two candidates competing for one seat. Off the top of my head I don't remember which of Hamilton or Jefferson matches with d'Hondt, but if you say it was Jefferson, I'll go along with you. In sequential PAV d'Hondt gives a seat to the smallest party sooner than Webster or Hamilton, so it helps the small guys. So I guess Jefferson wanted to favor the small states, Hamilton wanted to favor the large states, and Webster was aiming for the middle. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. I'm too lazy to look it up right now. But when it comes to campaigning for the methods, d'Hondt has two advantages: it seems more intuitive, and it can be called Jefferson's method. And no good American can disagree with our illustrious third president. How about Bart? He's a good American :-) Forest
Re: Comparing ranked versus unranked methods
Adam wrote in part- In list PR, the candidate lists for parties have to be formed well in advance of the election. It would be very difficult for a party to foresee a specific voting breakdown, and split their party into two or more parties to take advantage of this. --- D - Any historical facts available as to the maximum number of parties in nations having list PR ??? Especially splits in larger parties over the years -- especially in Israel (1 national district -- 120 Knesset (Parliament) seats) ???
Re: Finding the probable best candidate?
Blake said: So the existence of candidates that are best for specific individuals proves that there are no absolute best candidates? I claim that toads don't exist. After all, you admit that frogs do exist. What more proof do you need? I reply: I must admit that I don't understand the connection between your frogs and toads and your claim that there's a single absolute best candidate when various people consider different candidates to be the obvious genuine absolute best. What can best mean under those conditions, unless it is with reference to a particular voter or group of voters? Is it that you're depending on an oracle? You gave an example about a candidate who claimed the earth was flat. That's a factual issue. Our elections have important issues that are not factual issues, and whose answers aren't provable even in principle. How much should we help the homeless? Is the price in lives and billions of dollars justified in order to win some war for which certain benefits are claimed if we win? Should general tax revenue be used to pay for the automotive infrastructure such as highways, roads, streets, parking space, highway patrol, etc.? These issues have relevant sub-issues that are factual, of course. How many homeless are there? What will the war cost? But the issues themselves are not factual issues. It's a matter of Is this benefit worth that cost? Is that undesirable result worse than this undesirable result? As I said, the answers aren't provable even in principle. Blake continued: But why do we prefer democratic voting systems? I like democracy because I think that it provides better government than the alternatives. I reply: We all like it for that reason. Suppose that Mike says, At least democracy is our insurance against a rule by someone like Blake., and Blake says At least Democracy is our insurance against a rule by someone like Mike. We agree that democracy is our best bet, even though I believe that the policies that you consider best are the worst, and you believe the policies that I consider best are the worst. Agreement that democracy is the best idea certainly doesn't imply any absolute best. Blake continues: But you think that better government is meaningless. I reply: We can all agree that democracy is better than the risk of worse governments, even though we have no agreement on which is worse than which. What's meaningless is that in some absolute verifiable-in-principle sense, one government is better than another, or one particular candidate is the absolute best. Blake continues: So democracy, like any standard, can't really be defended, but must be accepted dogmatically. I reply: We don't defend standards dogmatically (though I shouldn't speak for you). We describe standards, and if someone likes them they do, and otherwise they don't. That's it. We can point to the popularity of a standard, and suggest that a less poplular standard won't win popularity. Blake continued: We like democracy because it is more democratic. I reply: Are you saying that, or quoting me as saying it? I didn't say it. I told you in my previous message, and again, above, in this one, why we like democracy. Blake continues: Your whole argument sounds like postmodernism. I reply: Then maybe there's something to postmodernism. But it's a funny word. What would they call what comes after postmodernism? Mike Ossipoff _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
