Jameson Quinn wrote:


2011/7/8 Warren Smith <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>

    Sorry, as Jameson pointed out, he has invented a voting method he
    calls AT-TV
    which (he claims)
     1. obeys a proportional representation theorem


Yes. It's instructive to see what PR criterion AT-TV satisfies, and what RRV satisfies.

The standard Droop criterion, if I'm not mistaken, is: If a group of N droop quotas of voters votes a set of >N candidates above all other candidates, then at least N candidates from that set must win.

It's actually, if *more* than n droop quotas vote for a set of k candidates, then min(k,n) must win. So to win exactly the Droop quota is not enough, as there may be too many candidates, e.g. for 90 voters to 2 seats:

30: A>B>C
30: D>E>F
30: G>H>I

Then if it had been "n Droop quotas", not "more than", it would say "elect one of {ABC}, and one of {DEF}, and one of {GHI}", which is impossible.

The AT-TV version would be: If a group of N droop quotas of voters votes a set of >N candidates at or above a given rating, and all other candidates below that rating, then at least N candidates from that set will win.

The RRV version... well, I'm not sure, but my guess is that it would be something like: If a group of N droop quotas of voters votes a set of >N candidates each with at least N times the rating of any candidate outside that set, then at least N candidates from that set must win.

Note that these are successively weaker criteria on the systems; that is, the coordination of a given party must be successively stronger to ensure PR for that party. Purely on a subjective level, I think that AT-TV criterion is about right, and that the RRV one is too weak.

I agree that the RRV one is too weak.

I further think we could classify proportionality criteria into categories such as these:

- very weak: It is possible for a party or group of candidates to get a proportional outcome if they coordinate and can control their voters. (SNTV, Taiwanese birthday type strategies.)

- weak: It is possible for a group of voters to force a proportional outcome if they can coordinate among themselves.

- middle: It is possible for a group of voters to force a proportional outcome with regards to a group of candidates they like (but not within that group) by employing a common strategy (RRV "totally racist" criterion).

- stronger: If a group of voters reward a group of candidates with some desirable relative aspect of their votes (top rank, high scores), then the candidates will receive seats in proportion to the size of the voter group and the desirable aspect, and this also counts recursively. (Droop proportionality, divisor analogs.)

Would that let us find a rated version of the DPC? If proportional representation was to be by rating instead of by seat count, it might involve that more than a Droop quota can determine the ratio of the rating of a candidate they rate highly to the rating of a candidate they rate lower... but it seems difficult to get any closer than that.

Perhaps, for the utilitarian "proportionality of ratings" approach, it would make more sense to look at party list methods first (since the concept of having different ratings for winners makes sense there), then generalize.

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