In general, I don't like the negotiation aspect of asset voting. It seems like an inherently chaotic system, where negotiations could result in somewhat off-center results if the percentages work out right (or wrong, depending on your point of view). There's actually a good empirical example of this in politics already - the negotiations between parties trying to form coalition governments in parliamentary democracies. Sometimes this results in nice centrist governments. Sometimes this results in one side shutting out the other side. Other times a small fringe party ends up exerting undue influence by playing the "king-maker" role. (One arguable example of this would be when orthodox parties have been part of ruling coalitions in Israel.)
In general, I'd be more comfortable with one of three options:
1) True proxy voting - my vote for a candidate gives them one vote in the assembly. Depending on the system, this vote may be given in turn to someone else, and/or I may be able to give it to different candidates at different times depending on the issue. There may be a minimum number of votes in order to vote in the assembly, or possibly just to speak in the assembly.
Basically, true proxy voting is as close as we can practically get to actual direct democracy. Depending on what rules it uses, it is closer or farther from that ideal. It has many advantages; its disadvantage is that it can't be used without changing the entire system (a non starter for congressional elections, for instance).
2) Something like asset voting, only some multi-winner voting method (STV, for instance) is used in stead of a negotiating process, and the candidates must publish their ballot in advance of the election. This way, I know for sure how my vote is going to be used.
3) Just let me vote for real in a legitimate PR system, like STV or PAV or the range variant of PAV I mentioned earlier.
I have one specific quibble below about something Abd said.
On 8/30/05, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
Not true. Once there are N+1 candidates left in an N-winner election, all of the assets held by the candidate with the least assets (who is then eliminated) are "wasted". Furthermore, a candidate is not required to distribute his surplus votes, so these are also in some sense wasted.
Now, IF the candidates have the exact same preferences as all of their voters, and IF optimal strategy is used, then the number of wasted votes is minimized (at most 49% in single winner, 33% in two-winner, 24% in three-winner, et cetera). But it is not zero, even with those VERY generous assumptions.
In fairness it's not zero in any multi-winner method, of course, but the claim is still false.
Since I changed the thread title, I'll leave the remainder of Abd's comments here for completeness, although I do not comment on anything below.
For full PR, Asset Voting is the king of the heap as far as I am
concerned. Not a vote is wasted.
Not true. Once there are N+1 candidates left in an N-winner election, all of the assets held by the candidate with the least assets (who is then eliminated) are "wasted". Furthermore, a candidate is not required to distribute his surplus votes, so these are also in some sense wasted.
Now, IF the candidates have the exact same preferences as all of their voters, and IF optimal strategy is used, then the number of wasted votes is minimized (at most 49% in single winner, 33% in two-winner, 24% in three-winner, et cetera). But it is not zero, even with those VERY generous assumptions.
In fairness it's not zero in any multi-winner method, of course, but the claim is still false.
Since I changed the thread title, I'll leave the remainder of Abd's comments here for completeness, although I do not comment on anything below.
I've suggested the simpler form of
Fractional Approval Asset Voting to use for this. It is Asset Voting
because those who receive votes may consider them as Assets, used to
elect themselves directly, or in combination with votes from others
to elect themselves or others. It is Approval because the ballot is a
standard ballot, one marking position per candidate. It is Fractional
Approval because, in this scheme, votes are not lost (as they are in
regular approval), so dividing the votes is appropriate and,
actually, necessary. But votes are divided automatically, not, as in
regular Asset, by voters assigning fractions. This system produces a
maximally representative assembly with exact proportional
representation (where it fails to do this, it fails by the acts or
failures to act of specific and publicly identified persons, who can
thus be held responsible by those who voted for them.)
(The "Fractional Approval" aspect is not essential, it is only used
where a voter wants to delegate the votes to more than one person. In
Delegable Proxy, which is quite similar, the implementations I've
been working on require a single assignment, and this is quite
important because DP is not only an election method, it is also a
communication system that works in both direction....)
To use a form of Asset voting for district-based semi-PR, where every
district has a representative who has been chosen by majority vote
*within the district*, tiny subdistricts are used, perhaps elementary
school districts. Each subdistrict elects a subdistrict
representative. Approval voting would serve quite well for this. Then
the subdistrict representative has the authority to use votes equal
to the district population to elect a member of the assembly. Those
subdistricts whose votes contributed to the election of that member
are effectively merged. This is districting by a form of deliberate,
benign gerrymandering. It would allow any party which can win a
majority in even the tiniest subdistrict to exercise political power,
and if they can win a majority in enough of these subdistricts, they
can gain a seat.
This scheme might pass muster for congressional districts, unless
federal law requires such districts to be contiguous. (I think that
there are districts which are "contiguous" only by virtue of weird
patterns drawn through bodies of water.... so I think this might
indeed be a matter of state law, not federal. And maybe not.) A
similar scheme could be used with a contiguity requirement, but it
would be less advantageous to third parties.
However, full PR must allow parties with scattered membership to
still have representation, as long as they can muster enough total
votes to reach the quota. Asset Voting allows this to happen
*without* being party-list. The individuals who receive the votes
might be party representatives, indeed, but they might also be
independent. And, big secret: if write-in votes are allowed (and they
should be), *anyone* could serve as an elector in such a system. If
everyone wrote in their own name, how would this be different from
what we have now? Well, votes would be reassigned in Asset
*publicly*, which means that quid pro quo can be involved. It is a
deliberative process. (Some political scientists list bargaining
separately from deliberation, but to me that are aspects of the same
thing, and both are quite different from aggregation, i.e., voting.)
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