At 12:22 PM 10/9/2007, Jonathan Lundell wrote: >As a side note on this discussion, the Green Party of California (as >well as GPUS, which adopted similar rules) uses an STV variation that >allows for leaving seats empty. We use BC-like STV with an additional >rule that, to be deemed elected, a candidate must receive a full >(Droop) quota of votes. The underlying idea is to require some >threshold level of affirmative voter support while preserving PR.
I thought a full quota was the Hare Quota. That is, if there are V voters and N seats, the Hare quota is 1/N. The Droop quota is smaller, designed to ensure that N seats are filled. Sounds really good. STV, with enough seats, is quite a good PR system, properly handled. There is a better system than STV, for a completely different reason than raw accuracy, though it is about 100% accurate, which creates a more involved electorate, and that's Asset Voting, if one has secret ballot, or delegable proxy, if the whole process takes place in the open.... but that may not be a discussion for today. How DP is used to create an assembly, though, is not a terribly difficult thing to understand: you take delegable proxy, then add the common-law rule that any assembly can make its own rules. If everyone who wishes to be is technically a member of the assembly, but can vote by proxy, the assembly can then make rules regarding who has *floor rights.* This is a general solution to the problem of scale in democracy... but I'm not proposing it for public use at this time, rather for use by NGOs, which could include political parties. What I've seen, though, is that when there is an existing power structure, it will resist can change that more broadly distributes power. Happens with people with the best of intentions..... So these structures first arise, I foresee, *outside* of issues of power, they are created with pure communications and intelligence purpose, they do not control, they only inform and advise. But that's huge! (The power remains with the members who either participate or don't. But those who participate will have the advantage of coordinated power, should they accept the coordination.) >Voters truncate their ballots by ranking only candidates they >approve. The operational definition of "approve candidate X" in this >case is "prefer electing X to leaving seat open". This, of course, is exactly what I think Robert's Rules is recommending, and over which I'm taking a lot of flack in the Instant Runoff Voting article conflict. >BTW, "dictator", like "sincere", is being used metaphorically in this >discussion, at least by me. Of course, they are technical terms. But, actually, this language is dangerous, because people with political agendas can and will use it to manipulate opinion. Particularly "sincere." "Sincere" is Good. Tactical Bad. And even experts fall prey to the associations. I think it better to avoid the strong emotional or judgemental implications of terms like this. Ossipoff's Favorite Betrayal Criterion was killed as a Wikipedia article because of the POV implications of the language, "betrayal" being a strong word. "Favorite Reversal Criterion" or "Preference Reversal Criterion" may be much less problematic. In any case, one of the tasks that could be taken on by EMIG is the standardization of language.... Just as a recommendation, of course! ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
