On Aug 22, 2008, at 12:47 , Raph Frank wrote:
On 8/22/08, Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Aug 22, 2008, at 2:18 , Raph Frank wrote:
Thus, I don't see them as massively different ... the trees just
add more
structure and reduce the freedom.
The intention was not to reduce freedom. If a voter wants to
bypass the
default inheritance order as given in the tree he just ranks all the
candidates (also other tools like names of some groups could be
available if
we want to go for maximum flexibility, e.g. "women", "Dublin",
"under 30",
"those who voted yes for X", "candidates that support Y"). Also
declaring a
vote to be just as written is ok (no inheritance if candidates on
the ballot
run out).
Well, I meant compared to candidate lists. The candidate can set
his list up any way he likes under a candidate list system, however,
under a tree system, there are fewer valid choices. This means
freedom is reduced.
If the inheritance tree and the candidate determined preference/
inheritance lists are used just as a default inheritance rules then
the level of freedom is the same in the sense that voters can in any
case override those rules by giving a full ranking of the candidates.
The inheritance rules are more flexible with the candidate given
lists but the voter van override those anyway and from this point of
view it is possible to plan them so that they offer solutions to the
most common cases (voter opinions).
However, it is likely that this freedom is not much use as a
candidates
probably would just fill out his list semi-randomly as he gets to
the lower
rankings. The tree system helps here as it fills out all the
rankings in a
standard manner.
Yes, this leads to STV votes that support equalities. Bullet vote
to C1
could become in effect C1>G1=G2=G3>P1=P2=P3=...
Yeah.
Yes, except that I think no flexibility is lost, so on the
"negative" side
there is only the added information in the poster listing all the
candidates
and that the voters are expected to roughly understand (well, it
is maybe
much easier to understand that than trying to dig out the opinions
and more
detailed affiliations of all the potential candidates oneself).
Well, the trees/lists might be used for national vote transfers.
In that
case, the voter cannot rank all the candidates.
Bullet voting could be common if the tree is informative enough.
Also, in
elections with multiple candidates the lost fractions could be
relatively
large.
Not sure that is a good thing, but if that is how the voters vote,
then
that is their choice.
In a bullet vote with tree inheritance the first thing that one loses
is that the voter does not determine the ranking between the
candidates of the nearest grouping in any more detail than saying
which candidate within that group in the best.
However, even with 2-3 choices, most of the
vote power would be assigned based on the voters direct choice.
Few candidates end up with multiple quotas, so most of your vote
goes to your first choice (assuming they get elected).
If you don't know which one or two of the numerous candidates of your
favourite party/grouping will get elected you need to rank them all
(to make sure that your vote is not lost after all the candidates on
the ballot have been eliminated).
(Though, I would
allow a candidate to opt out).
It probably is possible for a candidate to establish one's own
party and
not contribute and not benefit of the votes given to the party (or
group).
In most cases I'd expect the candidates to benefit of being a
member of a
party/group (even if the algorithm wouldn't favour large groupings
like e.g.
d'Hondt).
I meant opt out while not having to leave the party, though I
guess that is down to party rules.
Candidates that are not members of any subgroups (at some level in
the
tree) could be grouped together to form a default list (unless
they object
this too).
I used term "list" in the meaning of "subgroup" / "branch" here.
They way I would work it is that the list they submit is constrained
by what groups they are members of.
I guess we are now talking about a combination of trees and candidate
determined preference lists. Limiting those lists to the tree
structure sounds natural (avoids the total confusion that could be a
result of e.g. some candidate forwarding votes to a competing party
although and being listed in the tree too).
If you are part of a party, then you must rank party members first,
but otherwise there is no restriction.
If you are part of a sub-group, then you must rank members of that
subgroup first and then the other party members.
Well, maybe we just automatically give the "non
left wingers" an option to form a corresponding grouping when we
learn that
a left wing grouping has been formed (and candidates may opt in
and opt
out).
Btw, the reason why I'm interested in allowing a corresponding group
to be formed in the right wing (or "remaining parts") is that in a
situation where one party has ten candidates, and each of them gets
about the same number of votes, but five of them form a subgroup, and
the party would get one seat only, many seat allocation algorithms
would allocate that single seat to the group of five, and that might
be considered unfair.
Under the above rule, a member of the left-wing might rank as
L1>L2>L3>C1>C2>C3>R1>R2>R3
whereas someone who is unaligned might rank as
L1>R1>C1>R2>C2>L2>R3>C3>L3
(i.e. it actually means not aligned, rather than not left wing)
Someone in the right wing could rank
R1>R2>R3>C1>C2>C3>L1>L2>L3
This also raises an interest point, this would be a valid
right wing ranking
R1>R2>R3>C1>L1>C2>L2>C2>L3
It would meet the condition of ranking all members of
the right wing first, however, the left and centre wings
are not ranked as would be expected by a ring-winger.
If the R-party supporters generally feel that C-party is much closer
to them than the L-party then there is also the option that R-party
and C-party form a coalition, and as a result the candidate given
inheritance rules should reflect this change in the structure of the
tree.
This is probably not an issue as it is the early votes on
a list that actually matter.
The only rule would be that they must rank all party members
before any
other candidate.
I didn't quite understand what the alternative to this would be.
Well, the alternative would be to allow party members complete
freedom on how to set up their lists. This was talking about the
case where a party member doesn't take part in the tree structure.
However, I doubt parties would give candidates that much freedom,
so a specific rule is not required.
Having a mixture of tree inheritance and candidate defined
inheritance could be quite complex to the voters. When limited to the
tree structure the candidate defined inheritance lists could however
still fit in the overall picture that the tree tries to give to the
voters (e.g. in posters). I however expect that there would be many
voters that do not fully agree with the order that the candidate has
given. For this reason the candidate given order would maybe more
often be overridden by the voter. If one expects the full agreement
with the candidate given list to be rare (say, the preference order
of >50% of the voters is different), then one could see those lists
just as (unofficial) recommendations that the candidates would be
free to advertise but that would not be used as default inheritance
orders (since that could mean that the candidate decides on behalf of
the (unaware bullet) voter (maybe more often wrong than right)).
Juho
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