On Feb 1, 2009, at 12:26 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote:
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Jonathan Lundell
<[email protected]> wrote:
I know what you mean. I tried to automate STV with two tin cans and a
string, and got nowhere at all. STV sucks.
Jonathan,
Don't know what you're trying to say. If you mean that a spreadsheet
won't work to automatically count STV, then that just shows how
nontransparent the STV counting process is that an ordinary citizen
who doesn't do computer programming and have programming tools and
training cannot with out huge effort and time check the accuracy of
any STV election by simply checking the tally during the canvass
period, even if all the individual ballot choices of every voter are
publicly published.
Other methods, such as Condorcet and certainly the easy range or
approval are trivially easy to count with a spreadsheet.
If technology-avoidance is your goal, to the point of counting by
"ordinary citizens", I don't know why you want to bring spreadsheets
into the picture. There are several forms of STV in use that are
amenable to hand counting. However, the actual counting algorithm for
any STV method (with a minor exception for a couple of proposed
composite methods that are not in actual use) is quite
straightforward, and it's not difficult to implement the count in a
scripting language that ends up being considerably more readable than
a complex spreadsheet.
What's more important, it seems to me, is that the counting software
be open to inspection, and/or that the ballots be available for
independent counting. There are multiple open-source counters
available that could be used for either purpose (primary counting or
verification).
I have seen spreadsheet-based STV counts, but spreadsheets simply
don't express iterative algorithms very well. (For that matter, I
wonder whether a complete Condorcet count by spreadsheet can fairly be
called "trivial", depending on the method employed to deal with cycles).
This is all something of a red herring, though, isn't it?
BTW, I am against using any method where voters can only cast one vote
for filling two or more at-large seats because this takes away votes
from the voter - especially when using a single STV vote method to
fill two or more at-large seats where sometimes your second choice
will never be counted, even though your first choice ends up losing
and even though you would have, under the plurality method, been
allowed to cast two votes to fill the two at-large seats as it should
be.
By that standard, at-large plurality disregards all votes save those
cast for the winners, since everyone else is eliminated and their
voters are left without representation.
PR, including PR/STV, seeks to produce a body that is as fairly
representative of the electorate as possible, a goal at which
plurality at-large elections fail miserably.
The more I've learned about STV and IRV, the more amazed I am that
anyone would consider using such an unfair method in any election,
especially to cast one vote for a multi-seat contest where your second
choice may never even be counted.
I'm more concerned that my vote actually contribute to the election of
a candidate. STV significantly improves the chances of that. If you
can't recognize the core flaw of plurality-take-all elections, I'm
disinclined to attach much weight to your STV nit-picking.
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