Very great stuff Olli. How do you determine the two last boys when you have a triple equality? What happens to my vote if I had some preference for two out of those three?
"Because we are physically standing in line, the voter cannot have several votes being counted simultaneously. Do you agree?" I do not know for others but I agree. However, because of your "rules" some voters are denied any vote at all: the lines they are in have no impact on the current pairwise comparison... So voters still have different voting powers. Steph. > > Date: 2002/12/09 lun. PM 02:02:00 GMT-05:00 > > At 19:13 +0200 8.12.2002, James Gilmour wrote: > >> Do you mean to say that in Approval a vote counts towards the election of > >> several candidates? > > > >No - one vote can count towards the election only of one candidate. But > >the voter > >may have several votes being counted simultaneously. > > A fine point. I don't think I understand it. > > >> Do I have more power if I approve of several candidates? > > > >That almost certainly depends on your definition of 'power'. > > I had joint stock companies in mind, where you have the more votes the more > stock you own. > > >> Do I have most power if I approve all of them? > > > >No - irrespective of your definition of 'power'. To vote for all > >candidates has > >the same effect on the outcome as not voting for any of them. In terms of the > >purpose of the election, the effect is identical - nil. > > Good, I agree, we have some common ground then. > > Let's now move on and beam ourselves to the school where the idea of STV > was born. We are again conducting an election by standing behind our > favourite candidate, but this time only one boy is to be elected. Just to > make sure, the teacher has asked us to fill in a ballot paper, an ordinary > STV ballot. But he has also, rather autocratically, imposed two new rules. > > First, when a candidate is in danger of being eliminated, we are obliged to > move into his line, if we have marked a preference for him on our ballot -- > you know, siding with the underdog and all that. The contest of elimination > is between the two lowest candidates, and we are allowed to abandon our > higher preferences temporarily without endangering them. > > Second, at this point, in connection with elimination, we are not allowed > to express a preference. If we have voted for both the last and the second > to the last candidate, we have to step back and abstain until the > elimination has been decided, even if one of the candididates is our first > preference. Or we could cast half a vote for each candidate, which gives > the same net result. With this rule we have to be a bit careful who we vote > for. We don't want to express a preference for the big bully because we > wouldn't be able to help to eliminate him. > > When it has been decided who is to be eliminated, we will strike out the > eliminated candidate from our ballot paper and move again to the line of > our favourite candidate, if he hasn't been eliminated. The election will > continue in the same way until all candidates but one have been eliminated. > Elimination is used even when there are only two candidates left, meaning > that we have to abstain if we have both on our ballot. > > Because we are physically standing in line, the voter cannot have several > votes being counted simultaneously. Do you agree? > > This kind of election should find the Approval winner sequentially, if I've > got it right. The order of preferences is of course irrelevant and so is > the order in which eliminations are decided. > > Olli Salmi > > > ---- > For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), > please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em > > ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
