Kathy Dopp wrote:
Condorcet is only a single seat method.
Yes but it can be expanded to be proportional mutli-seat and to be
winner-take-all multi-seat. I was really talking about the IRV
properties of STV, since STV is essentially IRV with surplus vote
transfer added on top.
There are lots of alternative proportional multi-seat methods such as
the ones mentioned by Ab dul and others on this list in response to my
original email such as the tree method, list method and others
mentioned by Abd ul - all of them better by far than STV.
STV isn't as bad as you are exaggerating it too be and it's the only one
that has any chance of ever passing, besides party lists.
Again, STV does not achieve proportional representation unless the
number of candidates running who represent each interest group is also
proportional to the number of members of each interest group. Other
methods achieve proportionality more reliably and also lack the severe
flaws that STV/IRV exhibit.
I am not sure where you are getting this bizarre property. STV can
sometimes distort proportionality if you are using the Hare quota and
you run more candidates than you have seats. But this can be largely
avoided in the Droop quota.
I prefer Condorcet for single seat districts any day over STV. Any
voting method on the planet is better than IRV/STV short of
dictatorship (OK I exagerate this point)
Just a tiny bit.
Cheers,
Kathy
On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 2:52 AM, Anthony O'Neal <[email protected]> wrote:
I was thinking of a simialar system before - but not for the same reasons
you are. It was after the BC-STV debacle, and I named it "simplified STV".
My thoughts were that an STV system without the complications of the second
part, and only the part that made it proportional, would be easier to sell
and less easy to attack by infusing confusion in the population. I know,
however, that such a compromise would actually make the system less than
ideal, and my primary hope in proposing such a simplified system is that we
could go back and change it later on.
My usual thought about IRV is that it basically takes the largest group, and
has that group decide amongst itself whom their candidate will be.
Condorcet, on the other hand, takes the largest group, and has that
electorate at whole decide who their favorite candidate out of said group
will be. That isn't necessarily an advantage for Condorcet - often people
who are voting for more "moderate" candidates are simply doing so out of
spite, and so their opinion is of less usefulness. I don't think a moral
argument can really be made for one or the other, but Condorcet is harder to
sell and susceptible to more obvious strategy problems.
Kathy Dopp wrote:
People keep asking me how to achieve a proportional representation system
so....
talking out loud...
A fair proportional multiseat STV representation system could be made
by eliminating STV's elimination rounds but using the rank choices to
transfer partial votes to a 2nd choice candidate in cases where more
voters than needed for the threshold for each candidate voted for the
same 1st choice candidate.
If the rank choices were limited to a 1st choice and a 2nd choice
candidate only, unlike Fairytale Vote's IRV/STV method this method
would would be monotonic and precinct-summable (and so be OK to
manually audit and countable in the precincts) using an n x n matrix
where n is the number of candidates running for office.
In other words, for a multi-seat election where we want proportional
representation, limit voters' choices to a 1st and 2nd choice and
count all voters' 1st choices and transfer excess votes to the voters'
2nd choices and you're done - no rounds and no transfers of already
transferred votes.
However, just like with Fairytale Vote's STV system whether or not
this system actually results in proportional representation still
depends on how much vote-splitting results when more or fewer
candidates run for office in proportion to the total number of
candidates running for office, as compared to the proportion of voters
whose interests they represent. I.e. too many candidates running who
represent your interests, or too few and proportional representation
is not achieved using either the Fairytale Vote's STV method or my
(maybe someone else thought of it before) new improved monotonic,
fairer STV method sans any elimination rounds.
Therefore, a better alternative proportional representation system is
the "party list" system where as many candidates on each party list
take office in proportion to the number of voters who vote for that
party, but this new version of STV I figured out this a.m. (maybe
someone else has thought of it before) would work fine as well as long
as the voters were restricted to ranking only a 1st and 2nd choice
candidate.
Any method of proportional representation must be precinct-summable in
a reasonable fashion and give all voters' votes equal treatment,
unlike with the current version of IRV/STV being pushed by Fairytale
Vote which does neither and also in addition does not provide
proportional representation due to vote-splitting when the number of
candidates running who represent my interests is too great, or due to
not enough candidates running in proportion to the voters who share my
interests.
That's why fundamentally the IRV/STV system is a lousy one for
achieving proportional representation even if it were modified to
treat all voters equally and be easily manually checked for accuracy.
The party list system works much better for achieving proportional
representation as long as there is a party representing your
interests. It doesn't have to be a "party", but could just be that
each candidate chooses his own list of candidates below him/her to
pass excess votes down to.
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