Hello, thanks for the information. It seems a bit unusual to keep switching methods. I don't understand how proportionality is achieved. I would appreciate if Votefair ranking would have some mathematical description and at least well described and discussed in some peer-reviewed paper. According to the description votefair ranking looks like STV.
I also have some concerns about the vote-counting. We would need to make sure that the vote counting cannot not be manipulated and that the count is independently verifiable. Is the vote-counting program possible to install on a computer? Is it open source? Is the count implementable by a reasonably skilled programator? Peter On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 10:20 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > To Peter Zbornik, per your request for a proportional election method for > the Czech Green party: > > I recommend that you use VoteFair representation ranking to achieve your > goal of fairness in electing your Green Party's council members. > > VoteFair representation ranking has these characteristics: > > * It is relatively easy to explain and understand. (It is explained > below.) > > * Reliable software to do the calculations (and optionally the balloting) > is > available for free at VoteFair.org. > > * Drafts of statutes to implement it already exist, and I can modify those > for your situation. > > * It has been successfully used in a similarly adversarial election of > directors. > > * Most importantly, it produces fair results when a group is split into a > few different sub-groups. > > Here is a testimonial from Allan Barber who coordinated the use of VoteFair > representation ranking for electing directors of the San Francisco Bay Area > Curling Club: > > "Our club is extremely pleased with multiple aspects of the VoteFair > system. > The ability to vote online meant an extremely high voter turnout, > approximately 70-75%! Equally as important are the concepts underlying the > VoteFair system. Using a comparison system instead of the more common > method of voting for a single candidate we came out knowing that we had > voted in the candidates our club members preferred to have in the seats. > Not only were there a number of good candidates, which could have split a > conventional vote to the point of electing a non-preferred candidate, but > our club is essentially split between 2 facilities and some candidates were > known better in one or other of the facilities. VoteFair [ranking] gave us > the ability to balance that out transparently. Thanks!" > > Verbally I was told that everyone in the club -- except the people who did > not get re-elected -- liked the results. > > Before explaining the method, please consider that the reason your group's > voters are "dishonest" is that the current voting rules allow a voter to > vote strategically in a way that gives that voter (or that voter's > subgroup) > increased (compared to other voters) influence over the results. A > well-designed voting method does not allow the results to be influenced by > strategic voting. In other words, widespread strategic voting reveals that > the voting method, not the voters, are flawed. > > Regarding strategic voting, range voting is vulnerable to strategic voting > by using an approval-like approach where the approved candidates are given > the highest score and the disapproved candidates are given the lowest > score. > (I presume the re-weighted version has the same basic weakness.) IRV and > (all versions of) STV also are well-known to be vulnerable to strategic > voting. These reasons alone are enough to disqualify them for use in your > situation. The fact that they do not necessarily elect a Condorcet winner > is yet another flaw. > > As you recognize, the Condorcet criteria is important for electing your > president. You want to ensure that he/she is pairwise preferred over each > of the other candidates. > > To achieve the Condorcet portion (but not yet the proportional portion) of > the outcome, I recommend using the Condorcet-Kemeny method. For a simple > description of the method, here is the first paragraph of its description > in > the "Condorcet method" Wikipedia article > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method#Kemeny-Young_method): > > "[This] method considers every possible sequence of choices in terms of > which choice might be most popular, which choice might be second-most > popular, and so on down to which choice might be least popular. Each such > sequence is associated with a Kemeny score that is equal to the sum of the > pairwise counts that apply to the specified sequence. The sequence with the > highest score is identified as the overall ranking, from most popular to > least popular." > > Of course you would have to add a description of pairwise counting, but > Wikipedia and other sources (indicated below) provide simple and clear > descriptions of pairwise counting. > > The second paragraph provides a visual way to think of the Condorcet-Kemeny > method: > > "When the pairwise counts are arranged in a matrix in which the choices > appear in sequence from most popular (top and left) to least popular > (bottom > and right), the winning Kemeny score equals the sum of the counts in the > upper-right, triangular half of the matrix (shown here in bold on a green > background)." > > A disadvantage of the Condorcet-Kemeny method (emphasized by Markus > Schulze) > is that it is difficult to write software to calculate the results quickly, > and it is difficult to write the code that handles cases of circular > ambiguity and multiple highest Kemeny scores. Yet this software-writing > disadvantage disappears by using the software at VoteFair.org; I've already > resolved those software-writing challenges. Anyone can use that > server-based software for free. During the last 10 years it has been used > for hundreds of real-life polls and surveys and dozens of (non-government) > elections, so it is fully debugged. > > In your situation, the Condorcet-Kemeny method would be used to identify > which candidate is most popular. That person would be elected president. > > Now I'll describe VoteFair representation ranking. It would be used to > fill > the second seat, which in your case would be the vice president. (There > has > been some debate about whether the president and vice president should be > elected separately from the other council members, but I suggest keeping > the > process simple; the approach I'm recommending will produce fair results.) > > The core of VoteFair representation ranking is to reduce the influence of > the voters who just elected the winner of the first seat. Those voters, > who > clearly constitute a majority (because they elected the president), would > have their collective influence reduced to the degree that they exceed a > majority (50 percent of the voters). For example, in a simplistic case, if > 60 percent of the voters favor the about-to-be-president as their first > choice, then their collective influence would be scaled back to what can be > thought of as 10 percent (the amount beyond 50 percent), so that the > remaining 40 percent of the voters can (to the extent they are in agreement > with one another) elect their first choice as the vice president. > > To prevent strategic voting (such as by marking an obscure candidate as the > first choice), there is an adjustment for identifying which voters account > for the winning of the first seat (the presidency in this case). It is a > two-step process. First, all the voters who ranked the new president as > their first choice would have their ballots ignored temporarily, and the > most popular candidate (based on the remaining ballots and the remaining > candidates, and using the Condorcet-Kemeny method) would be calculated. > This person we'll call the "alternative winner." As the second step, the > ballots identified for reduced influence (for filling the second seat) are > the ones in which the new president is ranked higher than the "alternative > winner." With this approach, a voter cannot strongly favor the new > president and also strongly oppose the likely winner of the second seat. > In > fact, if there is a strategic way to vote under this method, I don't know > what it is. > > A recent example of how well VoteFair representation ranking works occurred > in a poll for American Idol contestants. The results are at this URL: > http://www.votefair.org/results-43200-51085-40733.html > In this poll, the majority of voters were fans of Clay Aiken (which caused > him to be ranked as most popular) and those voters insincerely ranked Adam > Lambert very low, so that Adam Lambert was seventh out of twelve according > to Condorcet-Kemeny calculations. Yet VoteFair representation ranking > reveals that Adam Lambert is actually second-most popular -- or second-most > "representative." > > (Clarification: The word "popular" has two different interpretations, where > one refers to how many people approve of the choice and the other refers to > how strongly people like the choice. As an example, TV stations basically > only care about how many people watch the show, not how much the viewers > like the show -- beyond what it takes for them to choose to watch it.) > > After identifying (via Condorcet-Kemeny) the most > popular-and-representative > candidate (your president), and after identifying (via VoteFair > representation ranking) the second-most representative candidate (your vice > president), the third-seat winner is identified using the Condorcet-Kemeny > method among the remaining candidates (and all the ballots). The fourth > candidate uses VoteFair representation ranking where the just-elected > choice > is the the third-most representative choice. And so on. This process > (which is executed using a single mouse click) would identify the top five > or seven most-representative candidates as your council members (with the > top-ranked ones also being designated as president and vice president). > > I've just explained VoteFair representation ranking. Do you think your > Green-party members will understand this method? > > An even clearer explanation of VoteFair representation ranking is in my > book > titled "Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections." It can be read > online (free) using Google books; just search for "Richard Fobes". Chapter > 15 is the one that describes VoteFair representation ranking. Chapter 12 > clearly describes VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically > equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method (which I was unaware of when I > created the method). (If there are any access limits on these chapters, > please let me know and I can resolve that.) > > Another resource is Wikipedia. The Condorcet-Kemeny method is described in > the "Kemeny-Young method" article. Currently I cannot write a Wikipedia > article that explains VoteFair representation ranking because the method > hasn't been published in an academic publication, and because I am its > originator. However, if the Czech Green party chooses this method and > someone else expands the "VoteFair ranking" article (which now just > redirects to the Condorcet-Kemeny article), I would be happy to refine the > article to include a description of VoteFair representation ranking (and > other components of VoteFair ranking, which also includes party-based > proportionality methods). > > Yet another description of what is mathematically equivalent to the > Condorcet-Kemeny method appears in my how-to book on creative problem > solving, which is titled "The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox." The book > has been translated into Czech, so you might find that there is a > Czech-language description of that method in the Czech edition. (I haven't > seen the Czech edition.) > > As for ballots, your voters could vote online using the interactive ballots > at VoteFair.org, but duplicates would have to be removed (probably based on > randomly assigned ID numbers). For this purpose consider that the VoteFair > site can handle high levels of voting traffic, presumably even if all 400 > ballots are cast within the same minute. Or you can collect digital data > from 1-2-3 ballots (also known by the redundant phrase "preferential > ballots") from some other source, and I can write code that converts its > output into VoteFair XML importable code. I don't know of any open-source > software that reads paper ballots, but if you find such software, we can > similarly import it into the VoteFair XML format. > > Perhaps a more viable option would be to digitally photograph all the paper > ballots, distribute those photographs to two or three groups of members, > and > each group can have 5 or 10 people manually enter the preference > information, with the groups using separate/independent VoteFair election > IDs. If the results are different between the groups, the errors > (intentional or not) can be tracked down (especially if two of three groups > get the same result). When you create the paper ballots, I suggest using > the layout that is used in the interactive ballots; otherwise you will be > tempted to ask voters to write numbers, and those numbers are often > illegible. > > The VoteFair site does have a limit of 12 choices (per question). On my > computer I can handle more choices. However, I find that voters are > overwhelmed if they have to rank more than 12 choices -- even though they > can rank multiple candidates at the same preference level. If this > limitation is a problem, there are other alternatives, one of which is to > use an informal approval-voting process to dismiss candidates who do not > have significant support. > > I have not yet answered all your questions, but at this point I have a > question. Is this approach of interest to you? If so, I would be happy to > assist you in developing a proposal to your group, and then making it > happen. > > As the author of a how-to book on creative problem solving that has been > published in nine languages, I'll point out that unfair voting methods are > the cause of many of the world's biggest problems. Helping your group > would > create a path for others to follow as we take democracy to higher levels of > fairness. > > Richard Fobes > > >
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