Howdy, I'm on the board of a small non-profit, and have been tasked with revising the portion of the bylaws that defines how to elect the board of directors. Having had some exposure to better election methods through a colleague, I'm interested in exploring how we might use a ranked voting system effectively. Most of the methods I've seen, however, are intended for electing a single winner -- and for the board of directors, we have multiple seats. Additionally, the number of seats is variable.
I'm looking for methods that would more or less "optimally" (by variable definitions of optimal) elect a variable number of people. "Single Transferable Vote" seems to be the most talked-about multi-winner ranked system; but the vote transfer process requires a pre-defined number of seats to fill. It seems like the option to have a variable number of seats opens up possibilities for improving representation by adding a winner, or eliminating polarizing candidates by removing one. Thoughts? best, Charlie ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
