Re: [EM] Fwd: Is it professional?
David L WetzellSent: Monday, June 24, 2013 4:19 PM Most IRV in real world limits the rankings to 3 candidates per voter. In real world? Evidence please - on a WORLD basis.. I have never encountered such limits in any IRV election. But then, I don't live in the USA. Some 3-only limits are imposed because of the limitations of the out-of-date equipment used to tally paper ballots. James Gilmour Edinburgh, Scotland --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 130624-1, 24/06/2013 Tested on: 24/06/2013 17:17:08 avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2013 AVAST Software. http://www.avast.com Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] proportional constraints - help needed
Although you do not appear to favour STV-PR to address your problem, I should have made it clear in my post, copied below, that there is only ONE election. That is to determine the set of successful candidates who have to be ordered for the list. There is then a succession of COUNTS of the same ballot papers, with the number of vacancies diminished by one at each successive count and the candidate defeated in the previous count omitted. Apologies if my lack of specificity in the original wording caused any confusion or misunderstanding. James -Original Message- From: James Gilmour [mailto:jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 11:49 PM To: 'Jonathan Lundell'; 'Peter Zbornik' Cc: 'election-meth...@electorama.com' Subject: RE: [EM] proportional constraints - help needed Jonathan Lundell Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 6:40 PM There is, I think, an underlying misconception here, namely that STV order of election can be interpreted as a ranking of level of support. It's not, in the general case. Jonathan is absolutely right. If you want lists ordered by relative support, you need to adopt a procedure like that recommended by Colin Rosenstiel and used by some UK political parties when they have to select ordered lists for closed-list party-PR elections. First you use ordinary STV-PR to elect the required total number of candidates. Then you conduct a series of STV-PR elections, each for one vacancy less than the preceding election. The unsuccessful candidate takes the lowest vacant place on the ordered list. Continue until you run-off between the top-two for the second-last place. For full details, see: http://www.crosenstiel.webspace.virginmedia.com/stv/orderstv.htm and http://www.crosenstiel.webspace.virginmedia.com/stv/ordstvdt.htm The second one includes a constraint for candidate's sex. James Gilmour --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 130206-1, 06/02/2013 Tested on: 06/02/2013 23:18:27 avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2013 AVAST Software. http://www.avast.com Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] proportional constraints - help needed
Jonathan Lundell Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 6:40 PM There is, I think, an underlying misconception here, namely that STV order of election can be interpreted as a ranking of level of support. It's not, in the general case. Jonathan is absolutely right. If you want lists ordered by relative support, you need to adopt a procedure like that recommended by Colin Rosenstiel and used by some UK political parties when they have to select ordered lists for closed-list party-PR elections. First you use ordinary STV-PR to elect the required total number of candidates. Then you conduct a series of STV-PR elections, each for one vacancy less than the preceding election. The unsuccessful candidate takes the lowest vacant place on the ordered list. Continue until you run-off between the top-two for the second-last place. For full details, see: http://www.crosenstiel.webspace.virginmedia.com/stv/orderstv.htm and http://www.crosenstiel.webspace.virginmedia.com/stv/ordstvdt.htm The second one includes a constraint for candidate's sex. James Gilmour --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 130205-0, 05/02/2013 Tested on: 05/02/2013 23:49:22 avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2013 AVAST Software. http://www.avast.com Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Majority-Judgement using adjectives versus alphabeticalscales versus numerical ranges.
Most of this discussion, if it relates to public elections, ignores the electors. It takes no account of the real levels of literacy and numeracy. In the UK approximately 25% of adults have a literacy level below that expected for an adult. I do not think the overall situation in the USA will be any better. I do not think the majority of electors would be happy with negative numbers. Opinion polling organisations tend to use scales graded 1 - 5 or 1 - 10. We do have experience in Scotland of voters ranking candidates in order of preference in STV-PR elections for our 32 local government councils. Details of the numbers of preferences marked, by ward and by ballot box (= Polling Station = part of a Polling District), are available on the 32 websites of the councils. The full ballot data (preference profiles) for all 353 wards will be available early in 2013. James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Juho Laatu Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 11:23 PM To: EM list Subject: Re: [EM] Majority-Judgement using adjectives versus alphabeticalscales versus numerical ranges. On 6.12.2012, at 23.54, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wrote: ¡Hello! ¿How fare you? Yesterday, I noted that Majority-Judgements does not work if we have too many adjectives because we have only so many adjectives and voters might confuse adjectives too close in meaning.. ¿Would an alphabetical scale be acceptable?: In the United States of America, we grade students using letters: A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D+ D D- F+ F F- I have 2 questions grading candidates on this scale. 1 question is for people not in the United States of America. The other question is for everyone: People outside the United States of America: ¿Do you Understand this Scale? Very understandable. If some values should be considered unacceptable, then that category should be pointed out. For everyone: ¿Is this scale acceptable to you? Followup question: If this scale is not acceptable to you, ¿why is it not acceptable to you? With 15 grades, this scale is not very different from the numerical ranges of 0 to 9 or negative -9 to positive +9. This raises the question: ¿Why not just use the ranges 0 to 9 or negative -9 to positive +9 instead? Each country could use those values (letters or numbers) that people are most familiar with. If you want to have universal coverage, then numbers are good since they heve the same meaning and people are familiar with them everyehere. It depends on the type of election if -n to +n is better than 0 to n or 1 to n. If there is an approval cutoff or unacceptable values, then the scale can be from a to b to c (b can be 0 or a positive number). Since most number systems are based on 10, ranges that are in one way or another based on that number are good. I guess low values are usually worse than high values, but one could also use ranking style values where 1 is the best value. Juho - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2221 / Virus Database: 2634/5439 - Release Date: 12/05/12 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] My summary of the recent discussion
I think Plurality can be claimed to be the ideal method for the single-member districts of a two-party system, but then one should maybe also think that third parties should not be allowed to run, and we should stick to the same two parties forever. I don't get it. of course, if there are only two candidates, there is no problem with Plurality (because it's also a Majority). so how is Plurality so flawed if we accept that a two-party system is fine and dandy? if not Third parties, for Independents? what is the scenario with two parties where FPTP is so flawed? I think you already said it. If you want a system that allows also third parties and independents take part in the election, then Plurality is flawed. Only if you think that third parties and independents should nor run, and there should be only two parties, then Plurality is fine. These contributions to this discussion take an extremely narrow view of representation of voters as it is clear this discussion is not about a single-winner election (state governor, city mayor) but about electing representative assemblies like state legislatures and city councils. There can be major problems of representation if such representative assemblies are elected by FPTP from single-member districts even when there are only two parties. Even when the electorates of the single-member districts are as near equal as possible and even when the turnouts are near equal, FPTP in single-member districts can deliver highly unrepresentative results if the support for the two parties is concentrated in particular districts - as it is in most electorates. Thus party A that wins 51 of the 100 seats in the assembly may win those seats by small margins (say 550 votes to 450 votes) but party B that looses the election with 49 of the 100 seats may have won its seats by overwhelming margins (say 700 votes to 300 votes). Thus the 51 A to 49 B result is highly unrepresentative of those who actually voted: 42,750 for party A but 57,250 for party B. These numbers are deliberately exaggerated to show the point, but here in the UK we see this effect in every UK General Election since 1945, where the win small, loose big effect of FPTP has consistently benefited the Labour Party at the expense of the Conservative Party. And where such vote concentration exists - at is does everywhere - the result can be greatly influenced by where the boundaries of the single-member districts are drawn. Move the boundary, change the result. These are fundamental defects of FPTP in single-member districts that must be addressed if you want your elected assemblies to be properly representative of those who vote. Both of these defects has greater effect if the electorates are not so equal or if the turnouts vary with party support (as they certainly do in the UK). So even when there are only two parties, FPTP is very far from fine. James Gilmour - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2178 / Virus Database: 2425/5044 - Release Date: 06/04/12 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] My summary of the recent discussion
what is the scenario with two parties where FPTP is so flawed? Only if you think that third parties and independents should nor run, and there should be only two parties, then Plurality is fine. On 4.6.2012, at 13.49, James Gilmour wrote: These contributions to this discussion take an extremely narrow view of representation of voters as it is clear this discussion is not about a single-winner election (state governor, city mayor) but about electing representative assemblies like state legislatures and city councils. There can be major problems of representation if such representative assemblies are elected by FPTP from single-member districts even when there are only two parties. Even when the electorates of the single-member districts are as near equal as possible and even when the turnouts are near equal, FPTP in single-member districts can deliver highly unrepresentative results if the support for the two parties is concentrated in particular districts - as it is in most electorates. Thus party A that wins 51 of the 100 seats in the assembly may win those seats by small margins (say 550 votes to 450 votes) but party B that looses the election with 49 of the 100 seats may have won its seats by overwhelming margins (say 700 votes to 300 votes). Thus the 51 A to 49 B result is highly unrepresentative of those who actually voted: 42,750 for party A but 57,250 for party B. These numbers are deliberately exaggerated to show the point, but here in the UK we see this effect in every UK General Election since 1945, where the win small, loose big effect of FPTP has consistently benefited the Labour Party at the expense of the Conservative Party. And where such vote concentration exists - at is does everywhere - the result can be greatly influenced by where the boundaries of the single-member districts are drawn. Move the boundary, change the result. These are fundamental defects of FPTP in single-member districts that must be addressed if you want your elected assemblies to be properly representative of those who vote. Both of these defects has greater effect if the electorates are not so equal or if the turnouts vary with party support (as they certainly do in the UK). So even when there are only two parties, FPTP is very far from fine. Juho Sent: Monday, June 04, 2012 4:06 PM Yes, that makes sense. FPTP in single-member districts is not fair in the sense that it gives only approximate results (due to the inaccuracy of counting the seats in single-member districts) and is vulnerable to gerrymandering. It is not a question of not fair (which can be a highly subjective assessment), it is simply that the result is not properly representative. And the distortion is not due to inaccuracy - the defect is inherent in the system as it is based on single-member districts. And it is a defect, given the purpose of the election - to elect a representative assembly.. Such a system is vulnerable to gerrymandering, i.e. to the DELIBERATE manipulation of the district boundaries. But the real point is that these boundary effects occur even when there is no gerrymandering, i.e. no deliberate manipulation. A system that counts the proportions at national level (typically a multi-party system) would be more accurate. Also gerrymandering can be avoided this way. Yes, the votes could be summed at national level and the seats allocated at national level. But you do not need to go to national level to achieve proper representation. Where the electors also want some guarantee of local representation, a satisfactory compromise can be achieved with a much more modest 'district magnitude' than one national district. The discussed proposal of changing the Plurality/FPTP method of the single-member districts to some other single-winner method has still many of the discussed problems (inaccuracy, gerrymandering). One could try to construct also two-party systems or single-member district based systems that would avoid those problems. But maybe proportional representation is a more likely ideal end result. Practical reforms may however start with whatever achievable steps. All single-member district voting systems will have similar defects. But remember my comments were made in direct response to the statements quoted at the top: (more or less) If there are only two parties, FPTP is fine.I think the problem with what may be regarded achievable steps is that many contributors to this list start in the wrong place. Elections are for electors - so where the objective is to elect a 'representative assembly' (state legislature, city council), the first requirement should be that the voting system delivers an assembly that it is properly representative - all else is secondary. James - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
David L Wetzell Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 8:21 PM If voters can help elect a 3rd party more easily then it doesn't matter if there's a stronger role for party hierarchy in the determination of their party's candidate. This is far from the reality - it matters a great deal. Most parties are coalitions, to greater or lesser degrees. For example, here in the UK we still have left and right wings within the Labour Party and we have pro-EU and anti-EU wings with the Conservative Party. If the party hierarchy can impose one political viewpoint by putting candidates from one wing of the party in all the winnable places on the party's list the many of the supporters of that party will be faced with a hold your nose choice - either vote for they party's list dominated by the other wing or vote against the party altogether and let the opposition in. And that's not theoretical - we have seen it done here in the UK where, sadly, we do have some party-list PR elections. dlw: All that is true, but it does not change my point that election reform got on the ballot in large part because the use of quasi-PR in more local elections helped the LibDems to continue to rival the two biggest parties. When third parties can gain foot-holds, there's inevitably going to be pressure away from FPTP. This is also very far from the reality. The role of the Liberal Democrats in UK-level politics has not been fostered by the use of PR voting systems (of various kinds) in some sub-UK elections. The two things are not at all related and certainly had nothing to do with preparing any imaged climate for the AV referendum. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
But why would you want all these differences and complications? If you are going to use STV-PR for some of these elections, why not use STV-PR for all of these elections to the various representative assemblies (councils, state legislatures, US House of Representatives, US Senate). STV-PR works OK in both partisan and non-partisan elections, so it should give fair and proper representation of the VOTERS in all these different elections. Of course, with districts returning only 3 to 5 members, the proportionality and direct representation MAY be a little limited, but if small numbers are needed to make the system acceptable to the vested interests, then so be it. STV-PR with 3, 4 or 5 member districts is greatly to be preferred to plurality in single-member districts and to plurality at large. We had to accept local government wards electing only 3 or 4 councillors as part of our STV-PR package - that's practical politics. But that reform has transformed our local government - no more one-party states. James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of David L Wetzell Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:49 PM To: EM Subject: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? It seems to me that a common sense solution would be to base which gets used on the propensity for voters to be informed about the elections. Also, the two types seem to be bundled with different types of quotas. STV gets marketed with the droop quota here in the US. I'm not complaining because it's good to simplify things. But if STV were bundled with Droop then 3-seat LR Hare might prove handy to make sure that 3rd parties get a constructive role to play in US politics. So I propose that 3-5 seat STV with a droop quota, perhaps using AV in a first step to simplify and shorten the vote-counting and transferring process, for US congressional elections or city council elections and 3-seat LR Hare for state representative and aldermen elections. The latter two elections are less important and get less media coverage and voter attention. Is it reasonable to expect voters to rank multiple candidates in an election where they often simply vote their party line? Why not keep it simple and use the mix of Droop and Hare quotas to both keep the system's duopolistic tendencies and to make the duopoly contested? It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. I think it is a matter of context and that both can be useful, especially when no explicit party-list is required for a 3-seat LR Hare election. The vice-candidates who would hold the extra seats a party wins could either be selected after the victory or specified before hand. So what do you think? I'm keeping the seat numbers down because I accept that those in power aren't going to want an EU multi-party system and I'm not sure they're wrong about that, plus the US is used to voting the candidate and having their representative and they could keep that if there are relatively few seats per election. dlw Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
I don't see why anyone would want to use a party-list voting system when there are more voter-centred alternatives that fit much better with the political cultures of countries like USA, Canada, UK. Why anyone would want to use the Hare quota when, with preferential voting, it can distort the proportionality - in a way that Droop does not. Why anyone would want to restrict the voting system to 3-seat districts instead of adopting a flexible approach to district magnitude to fit local geography and recognised communities.. James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of David L Wetzell Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 9:21 PM To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? I give a rebuttal to the Electoral Reform Society's assessment of party-list PR for the case of 3-seat LR Hare. http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/05/electoral-reform-society-united-kingdom.html dlw On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 2:54 PM, David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com wrote: From: Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org To: election-meth...@electorama.com Cc: Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:01:16 -0800 Subject: Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter? On 2/17/2012 6:49 AM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... It seems to me that most folks think the choice is between ranked choices or party-list PR. ... So what do you think? I don't see this as an either/or choice, dlw: U2 apparently are not among most folks... nor do I see a viable both option being suggested. dlw: viability is a low-blow at this stage, but I guess it's a blow I use quite often. So I'll again suggest VoteFair ranking: VoteFair ranking uses ranked choices (1-2-3 ballots and pairwise counting...) for identifying the most popular candidate -- for filling the first seat in a legislative district. VoteFair ranking fills the second district-based seat with the second-most representative candidate. In the U.S., even without asking voters to indicate a party preference, that would usually be the most popular candidate from the opposite party (i.e. the opposite party compared to the first-seat winner). To further increase proportionality, VoteFair ranking fills some proportional seats based on the favorite party of the voters. (Whichever party has the biggest gap between voter proportion and filled-seat proportion wins the next seat.) We don't have to choose between proportionality (PR) and ranked methods. We can get both. And in a U.S.-compatible way. If election-method reform is to happen in the U.S., it has to merge with the reality of the two-party system. And I believe it should accommodate third parties only to the extent that voters are unable to regain control of the two main parties. dlw: I agree with the reality of the 2-party system. I also believe that we need to make the case that our 2-party system will work much, much better if we give 3rd parties a constructive role to play in it. Giving them access to one-third of the seats in the state assembly so they get to determine which major party is in power in that body every two years is such a constructive role. It will give folks more exit threat from the two major parties, thereby making both of them more responsive to the moving center. As for STV, going beyond two seats easily produces unfair results. And in the U.S. the results also would be quite unstable (i.e. not mesh well with the current two-party system). Can you elaborate? I don't see why 3-5 seat STV with a droop quota wouldn't have results like what you described that would maintain yet transform the US's 2-party system. dlw Richard Fobes -- Forwarded message -- From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com To: David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:35:58 -0600 Subject: Re: [EM] JQ wrt SODA If first-mover is all that counts, then I'm afraid we're stuck with plurality. Obviously, I hope and believe that's not true. Jameson 2012/2/17 David L Wetzell wetze...@gmail.com IRV's got a first mover advantage over SODA and to catch up you need to convince someone like Soros to help you market it. It wouldn't matter if you got the whole EM list to agree with you that it was hunky-dory. But in the context of a 2-party dominated system, there aren't as many serious candidates and so what relative advantages there are of SODA over IRV will be less, which then makes the first-mover marketing problem more significant, especially if IRV can be souped up with the seemingly slight modification of the use of a limited form of approval voting in the first stage. dlw On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:27 PM, election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com wrote: Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to election
Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?
David L Wetzell Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 7:31 PM James Gilmour: But why would you want all these differences and complications? dlw: Because context matters. I have great difficulty in believing that there are such context specific differences. I could believe that there are differences in the hostility of the political parties to proposals for reform of the voting system at different levels of government and that reforms that the parties might accept at one level would not be acceptable at another - especially their own election! dlw: 1. There are benefits to party-list PR, relative to STV. I do not agree that there are any benefits of any party-PR voting system that outweigh the benefits to the voters of STV-PR. Elections are for electors - or at least, they should be - and to change that balance in favour of the voters should be one of the key objectives of any reform of a voting system. JG: We had to accept local government wards electing only 3 or 4 councillors as part of our STV-PR package - that's practical politics. But that reform has transformed our local government - no more one-party states. dlw: Undoubtedly, and this is what made the AV referendum possible, no doubt. The reform of the voting system for local government in Scotland in 2007 had absolutely nothing to do with the 2011 UK referendum on AV (= IRV, not approval voting). THE problem with the AV referendum was that no serious reformer wanted AV. Some party politicians wanted AV, but far more party politicians (especially Conservatives) were opposed to any reform at all. The Liberal Democrats (whose party policy is for STV-PR) decided that a referendum on AV was the best they could extract from the Conservatives in the negotiations to form the coalition government. The negotiating teams were under a great deal of pressure and wanted to achieve an agreement before the UK financial markets opened on the Monday morning after the Thursday election. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Utilitarianism and Perfectionism.
Juho LaatuSent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 8:29 PM I think I agree when I say that the first decision (in the USA) is whether to make the current two-party system work better or whether to aim at a multi-party system. Juho Don't you think you might just be starting in the wrong place? Asking the wrong first question? In a representative democracy, surely the first requirement is to ensure that any representative assembly (e.g. state or federal legislature or city council) is properly representative of those who vote. If when provided with the means to choose freely among all significant viewpoints, the voters choose to cluster around two parties, then a two-party system will properly and fairly represent those voters. In other another jurisdiction, the voters may choose to cluster in significant proportions around three or more parties when one would hope the voting system would be sufficiently sensitive for all the significant clusters to be represented directly. There are real examples from national and sub-national elections where sensitive voting systems, responding to the voters' expressed wishes, elect representatives from several parties, but also example of where, despite the choice of several parties, the voters elect representatives from only two parties. James Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Utilitarianism and Perfectionism.
Juho LaatuSent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 8:07 PM As I earlier wrote, I think the US has many options on how to go forward with the reform. The presidential election is maybe the most interesting one. Juho This may be the most interesting election, but as it is almost certainly the most difficult in which to achieve any practical reform, it is perhaps best left to last. The vested interests in maintaining various aspects of the electoral college system are such that much more could be achieved by turning the single-winner focus on to other single-winner elections. And of course, along with that, I would recommend changing the voting systems for all the various representative assemblies to make them properly representative of those who vote. Once these are all in place, the presidential election will stick out like a sore thumb. Your chance of reform of the voting system for that election will be much greater then. James Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] [CES #4194] Re: The Occupy Movement: A Ray of Hope -- inPolitics
The trouble with this group, judging by their website, is that, like many other electoral reformers in the USA, they recognise only part of the problem: First Past the Post Voting is Obviously Flawed - most definitely. But they fail to see the bigger picture (representation of voters) and show almost no appreciation of where the real solution might lie (some system of proportional representation). Issues concerning ballot access and recounts are trivial in comparison with the distortion of representation of the voters - i.e. the relationship between votes cast and seats won. Of course, there are some major challenges in improving the election of officials to single-office positions by single-winner elections. But the bigger picture concerns the representative assemblies - the city councils and boards, the state legislatures and both Houses of the Federal Congress. No improvement of the voting system used to elect these members from single-member districts is going to deliver real improvement of the representation of the voters. James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Leon Smith Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 8:29 PM To: electionscie...@googlegroups.com Cc: politics_currentevents_gr...@yahoogroups.com; nygr...@yahoogroups.com; rangevot...@yahoogroups.com; EM; mike+dated+1324017722.00c...@zelea.com Subject: Re: [EM] [CES #4194] Re: The Occupy Movement: A Ray of Hope -- inPolitics I suppose the existence of this group is worth noting: http://reformact.org/ They were a little naive about election methods at first, advocating Instant Runoff, but they have been receptive and are now open for debate, though they seem to be tentatively arguing for Condorcet. And they take a comprehensive look at electoral reform, not just method. Best, Leon On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com wrote: I am delighted to hear of this valuable activity. A couple notes: . local, state, federal and global levels are Open_voting_network topics. All except global are important in the US in 2012 as a year in which serious activity is possible - within the framework of current laws, but without depending on instantly changing the laws.. . primary is a word used here. It is different from the primary elections used in the US - they are used by parties to cope with the needs of plurality voting. . Among the possibilities would be such as destructive competition between Occupy-backing candidates in the Green and Libertarian parties - if they split the votes of Occupy backers and thus each lost. On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:42 AM, Michael Allan wrote: Dave Ketchum wrote: Write-ins can be effective. I hold up proof this year. For a supervisor race: 111 Rep - Joe - on the ballot from winning primary, though not campaigning. 346 Con - Darlene - running as Con though unable to run as Rep+Con. 540 Write-in - Bob - who gets the votes with his campaign starting 18 days before election day. We're floating the idea within Occupy of a primary voting network that might help by giving independents a leg up. It would extend not only across and beyond parties, but also across any number of voting methods and service providers: (see also the discussion tab here) https://wiki.occupy.net/wiki/User:Michael_Allan/RFC/Open_voting_networ k It's not easy to summarize, but maybe easier from the voter's POV: We won't endorse any single provider (monopoly) of primary voting and consensus making services. Instead we'll maintain an open voting network (counter-monopoly) in which: (1) no person is excluded from participating in the development of alternative technologies and methodologies of consensus making; (2) no toolset, platform or practice is excluded; and (3) each person may freely choose a provider, toolset and practices based on personal needs and preferences without thereby becoming isolated from participants who make different choices. None of this is especially difficult (not technically), but it's hard to imagine how it could ever get started without Occupy. -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Dave Ketchum wrote: ... Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and single constraints, like gender quotas
Peter If you haven't already found the Church of England Regulations for STV with constraints, they are here: http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1307318/stv%20regulations.doc These are the only published regulations for STV with constraints that I know of. Your first link (below) is to a Joe Otten paper that describes one way of ordering a list with STV. If that is one of the tasks you have, you may find it useful also to look at the method devised by Colin Rosenstiel: http://www.cix.co.uk/~rosenstiel/stv/orderstv.htm and http://www.cix.co.uk/~rosenstiel/stv/ordstvdt.htm James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Peter Zbornik Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 10:55 AM To: Election Methods; election-methods Subject: [EM] STV and single constraints, like gender quotas Dear all, do anyone of you know the best way to incorporate single constraints into STV and proportional rankings from STV (see for instance: http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/issue9/p5.htm)? For instance, the constraint can be that at least 1/3 of the elected seats go to candidates of each gender. I found some information in the links below, but I wonder if there are better or more recent suggestions: http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P1.HTM http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/issue9/p5.htm Best regards Peter Zborník Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Proportional, Accountable, Local (PAL) representation: isn't this a big deal?
Interesting, but not relevant to what Kristofer had actually written. Finland uses a party-list voting system - Kristopher was writing about STV, and specifically about 5-member districts. James -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Juho Laatu Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 5:11 PM To: EM Subject: Re: [EM] Proportional, Accountable,Local (PAL) representation: isn't this a big deal? On 29.10.2011, at 16.58, James Gilmour wrote: Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:14 AM STV is not mixed member proportional. As for the complexity issue, STV seems to work where it has been implemented. I agree that complexity will put a bound on how large each district can be, but as long as you keep below that size, it should work. If you have a district size of 5 members and 10 parties, that would give a seemingly unmanagable number of 50 candidates. I think that is most unlikely. The only party that would likely nominate five candidates would be one that had reason to believe it could win at least four of the five seats in the multi-member district. Parties that might have an expectation of winning two seats would likely nominate only three candidates. Parties that expected to win only one seat would nominate at most two candidates, and based on our experience here in Scotland, many would nominate only one. So the total number of candidates in a 5-member district would almost certainly be far short of 50I think a total of 20 would be much more likely. Here's some data from last parliamentary elections in Finland. The largest multi-member district had 35 representatives and 405 candidates. All the large parties had 35 candidates. The largest party got 11 representatives. The two smallest multi-member districts had 6 representatives and 94 or 108 candidates. One of the parties grew from 5 representatives to 39 representatives. So it needed lots of candidates too in order to not run out of candidates in some districts. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_parliamentary_election,_2011) If one has only one or two candidates more than the number of representatives that this party has or expects to get, then the decision on who will be elected will be mainly made by the party and not by the voters. Preliminaries could help a bit by allowing at least the party members to influence. If proportional results are counted separately at each district, then it would be good to have a large number of representatives per district to achieve accurate proportionality. In order to allow the voters to decide who will be elected there should be maybe twice as many candidates per each party as that party will get representatives. In that way no seats are safe. It is also good if there are such candidates that are not likely to be elected this time but that may gain popularity in these elections and become elected in the next elections. All this sums up to quite a large number of candidates. My favourite approach to implementing ranked style voting in this kind of environments would be to combine party affiliation and rankings somehow. The idea is that even a bullet vote or a short ranked vote would be counted for the party by default. If one looks this from the open list method point of view, this could mean just allowing the voter to rank few candidates instead of naming only one. Already ability to rank three candidates would make party internal proportionality in open list methods much better. Probably there is typically no very widespread need to rank candidates of different parties in this kind of elections, but it ok to support also this if the method and the requirement of simplicity of voting do allow that. From STV point of view the problem is how to allow better proportionality and voter decisions instead of party decisions in some nice way. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] A design flaw in the electoral system
Michael Allan Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 9:31 AM ABSTRACT An individual vote has no effect on the formal outcome of the election; whether the vote is cast or not, the outcome is the same regardless. These statements worry me - surely they contain a logical flaw? If these statements were true and every elector responded rationally, no-one would ever vote. Then the outcome would not be the same. I am not into logic, but I suspect the flaw is in some disconnection between the individual and the aggregate. When A with 100 votes wins over B with 99 votes, we cannot say which of the 100 individual votes for A was the winning vote, but it is clear that is any one of those 100 votes had not been for A, then A would not have won. At best, if one A-voter had stayed at home, there would have been a tie. If one of the A-voters had voted for B instead, the outcome would have been very different. Or am I missing something? I do appreciate that there can be a disconnection, large or small, between the outcome of an election and the consequences in government (policy implementation - or not), but the statements quoted above were specifically about elections per se. That's why I'm puzzled. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 87, Issue 54
Kathy Dopp Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 11:23 PM My point is, that the two examples you gave IMO are very *strong* Condorcet winners in the sense that the vast majority of voters would prefer the Condorcet winner over one or the other of the other two candidates which are far less popularly approved. Yes, in YOUR opinion these were both strong Condorcet winners. But I made it very clear - which you persistently ignore - that it was electors with a majoritarian view of elections and partisan politicians and party members who are likely to regard the 5% first preferences Condorcet winner as weak. And I based that assessment on my experience of politics and elections in the UK, with which I have been involved for 50 years. Maybe my reading of the US and Canadian press is too selective, but I see much the same attitudes expressed there - no surprise given that both share the appalling British legacy of plurality elections in single-member districts. I think the IRV fanatics oppose centrist compromise winners who are supported by a majority of voters whenever IRV would elect a less popular winner. IRV proponents support a more extremist winner, supported by far fewer voters as long as the candidate, enough to fabricate hypothetical political consequences, claiming that a majority people would oppose the Condorcet winner. Sure, of course at least a few persons who had supported the 1st round plurality winner would complain, but that is probably all. I.e. IRV proponents seem to be deeply emotionally attached to the method, regardless of how much unhappiness the outcome would cause in how large a proportion of voters by eliminating the Condorcet winner, as it did in Burlington, VT. My comments were in no way based on the views (or likely views) of any IRV fanatics. I would certainly favour the election of centrist compromise candidates, but I fear the election of a weak Condorcet winner (i.e. one with few first preferences) to a position of real political power would immediately trigger a call to repeal the Condorcet reform and revert to the previous plurality system. Burlington, VT is a real life counterexample to your counterfactual, where people would have preferred the Condorcet winner and so got rid of IRV. So Burlington adopted the Condorcet system? No, I thought not. The failure to elect the Condorcet winner may have added some theoretical fuel to the flames in the campaign to ditch IRV, but the real impetus came from those who wanted to go back to FPTP with top-two run-off when the front-runner didn't achieve the artificial threshold. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 87, Issue 54
Ralph Suter Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2011 3:12 AM 1. Despite your own certainty about how the real world of partisan politics functions, your opinion is entirely speculative with no basis in historical events, since no Condorcet elections have ever been held in any major public elections (or even any minor ones I am aware of). You are right, so far as I am aware - there have never been any Condorcet public elections anywhere in the world. That in itself should tell us something as the Condorcet voting system has been known since 1785. We do, however, have some preferential vote elections in Scotland (local government). Both in the multi-winner (3 or 4) elections and in the single-winner by-elections the winners after the transfers of votes are commonly those who had most first preference votes - that should be no surprise. But when a lower placed candidate comes through on vote transfers to win a by-election, there are always some howls from the anti-reform parties. There is no great public outcry about this here because we do not directly elect anyone into a really powerful single-person office. 2. In arriving at your conclusions, you have neglected two critically important considerations. a. A so-called weak Condorcet winner could, immediately following an election, make strong and possibly widely persuasive arguments that she/he not only deserves to have won but is the strongest possible winner, one who in separate contests with every other candidate would defeat every one - or, in the event there was a cycle that had to be resolved, would still have credible claim to be stronger overall than any other candidate. She/he could then quickly move beyond such arguments to act in ways that demonstrate her or his actual political strength beyond any reasonable doubt. The early carpers about the candidate being a weak winner would soon be forced to shift focus to other more important issues. If you want to seriously address practical politics, you need to address this highly credible post-election scenario. I follow your argument, but I wonder how well a directly-elected President of the USA would be managing right now if that President was a weak Condorcet winner, with say only 5% of the first preference votes in a 3-candidate contest. b. Your arguments, weak though they are, are even less applicable (if at all) to elections of legislators than to elections of officials in executive offices (president, mayor, etc). In fact, in a sharply divided electorate (whether divided on ideological, religious, ethnic, or other grounds), most people would likely prefer a middle-ground compromise winner (even one from a small minority party or group) than one from the major opposing party or group they strongly disliked, since the middle-ground winner would, though far from ideal to most voters, also make far less objectionable legislative decisions overall than a stronger but widely disliked major party winner. All legislators (federal House of Representatives, federal Senate, State legislatures, and city, town and county councils) should all be elected by some system of proportional representation to ensure proper representation of the voters. Discussion about weak Condorcet winners should be of no relevance to such elections because none on the members of those representative assemblies should be elected by single-winner voting systems. Much more of political benefit could have been achieved if some of the considerable effort expended on the near-insoluble problems of obtaining (and measuring) the best representation in single-winner elections had been directed to that more practical objective. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 87, Issue 54
Kristofer MunsterhjelmSent: Saturday, September 24, 2011 10:22 PM James Gilmour wrote: You are right, so far as I am aware - there have never been any Condorcet public elections anywhere in the world. That in itself should tell us something as the Condorcet voting system has been known since 1785. Nanson's method was used in city elections in Marquette, Michigan. It might not be a very large-scale public election, but I think it was public. Although Nanson's method satisfies the Condorcet criterion, I would not have recognised it as a Condorcet count. It is essentially a variation of the Borda points system. To me, Condorcet counts are based strictly on pair-wise comparisons. According to the Wikipedia page, Nanson's method was used for those city elections in the 1920s (when other US cities were using STV) and for some semi-public elections in Australia. But if we regard Nanson's method as a Borda count, of course Borda counts have been and still are used for some public elections. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Weak Condorcet winners
Warren Smith Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 1:53 AM At the present time, Jon Huntsman gets only a tiny fraction of the USA-republican-presidential-nomination votes, according to polls. For this reason, certain media people have been saying it is a travesty Huntsman continues to run and is allowed in debates, etc. However... it is mathematically possible (and might even be true -- I have no idea... it's at least somewhat plausible) that Huntsman is everybody's second choice and therefore is the Condorcet candidate who would defeat every Republican rival one on one. So there's a possible very important example of a weak Condorcet winner in your face right now. Your point is obscure. My point is not that a weak Condorcet winner might exist or be elected, but about the political and Political consequences of such a result. The electors may vote that way, but once they and the party politicians see what has happened all hell will break loose. And it will be stirred up by a very hostile media. At least, that's what I would confidently predict would happen here in the UK. The weak Condorcet winner, while being the Condorcet winner, would be totally ineffective in the discharge of the office to which s/he was elected. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Weak Condorcet winners
Juho Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 12:29 PM I think term weak CW should not be used as a general term without referring to in what sense that winner is weak. There are different elections and different needs. In some of them weak CW is a good choice, in some others not. 51: A 49: B Yes, this CW is weak in terms of difference from the opposition, but that weak winner will be accepted by the electorate who, in countries like the UK, USA and Canada, take a majoritarian view. And it will be accepted by the partisan politicians because next time, it could be our turn. As you can see A is a weak CW here. Not so if you measure the number of first preferences, but very much so if you compare the strength of the winner to the strength of its competitors. 45: ABC 5: BAC 5: BCA 45: CBA If this is an election, I don't think the Condorcet winner here, with only 10% of the first preferences, would be effective in office in a country with an electorate of majoritarian view and partisan politicians and media to match. But now you have introduced something completely different. This next example is an exercise in choosing among policy options. A = set tax level to 20% B = set tax level to 19% C = set tax level to 18% It is obvious that B is the alternative that should be chosen. Other end results would be plain wrong. B is not a weak candidate in any way. Your are wrong to use the word candidate here. This is not a candidate election - it is a decision about policy options. And that is something very different. In my experience, the attitudes and approaches of electors (and even politicians) to these two different tasks also differ. What would be acceptable in making a policy decision (a weak Condorcet winner) would not be acceptable in a candidate election. This is a practical distinction the advocates of a social choice approach (sociology + political economy) have failed to understand and appreciate. Term weak CW seems to be heavily linked to the understanding that the winner should have lots of first preference support This is what electors, at least in some countries (UK, USA?, Canada?) clearly seem to be wanting and saying. As I said in first post under the original heading, I think we could sell the third-placed Condorcet winner provided that candidate was not too far behind the front two in first preferences. But the really weak CW, that is weak in first preference votes (5% or 10%), is not worth thinking about in terms of practical reform of the voting system to be used for public elections in such countries. (or it should often belong to the most preferred subgroup of the candidates). This is a viewpoint that is quite strong in two-party countries (that want to stay as two-party countries) since in those countries whoever is in charge has typically more than 50% support among the voters. No, that is typical only of the USA (a very atypical example of FPTP) - it is not typical of the UK or Canada. NO government in the UK since 1945 has been elected with even 50% of the votes, never mind more than 50% support among the voters. But with two exceptions, all of those governments had absolute majorities of seats in the Parliament. I am not sure how you define two-party countries, but for several decades the UK has had three significant parties and Scotland and Wales have each had four significant parties. And the majoritarian view of single-winner elections prevails. But what is weak in this kind of thinking need not be weak in some other set-up. But what matters here is the perception of the electors - and how the partisan politicians (and hostile media) could exploit that to render a weak Condorcet winner ineffective in office. Failing the majority criterion is, in my view, a similar flaw to electing a weak CW. I think electing a weak CW is a flaw only in some set-ups with some specific requirements that make weak CW a bad choice. Majority criterion is a requirement far more often, but not always. There are also elections where majority is not a requirement. And there are also elections where it is sometimes a requirement to elect against the majority opinion. This sounds more like (benign) dictatorship than democratic representation. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 87, Issue 54
But you are completely missing the point of what I wrote. It is the political consequences of the second result that are important. In the real world of partisan politics, such a weak Condorcet winner (and their policies) would likely be torn to shreds by the party politicians and their party members, to such an extent that s/he would be ineffectual in office. And based on my experience of UK electors, with their majoritarian views of elections, the weak Condorcet winner would get little support from those whose votes had voted him or her into office. It must be for others to judge whether the electors in their countries (USA, Canada) would react in a similar way, but I have seen nothing in the US or Canadian press to suggest otherwise. It is dirty practical politics that is the problem here, not the fact that voters could rank their choices honestly. In my view, such a result would be less acceptable to the electors than the plurality result, despite all the obvious defects in the plurality voting. That's just how it is - and if you want to achieve real, practical reform, you have to understand that. James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Kathy Dopp Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 8:48 PM To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 87, Issue 54 In both the following cases, candidate C, the Condorcet winner, is a GREAT choice because a majority of voters, in both cases, would prefer C over A or B. This system allows voters to honestly rank their choices, without worrying about helping their least favorite candidate to win - far better than methods like IRV or plurality. 35 AC 34 BC 31 C 48 AC 47 BC 5 C Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] [CES #3650] FairVote folks are not the friendliest bunch
Jameson Quinn Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 2:00 AM If I'm right, the claim is that voters, and especially politicians, are intuitively concerned with the possibility of someone winning with broad but shallow support. In Approval, Condorcet, Majority Judgment, or Range, a relatively-unknown centrist could theoretically win a contest against two high-profile ideologically-opposed candidates. The theory is that the electorate would be so polarized that everyone would explicitly prefer the centrist to the other extreme, but because the voters don't really expect the low-profile centrist to win, they might miss some important flaw in the centrist which actually makes her a poor winner. I cannot comment on the quoted remark (cut) that prompted your post and I know nothing at all about the activities of anyone at FairVote, but you have hit on a real problem in practical politics in your comment above - the problem of the weak Condorcet winner. This is a very real political problem, in terms of selling the voting system to partisan politicians (who are opposed to any reform) and to a sceptical public. For example, with 3 candidates and 100 voters (ignoring irritant preferences) we could have: 35 AC 34 BC 31 C C is the Condorcet winner. Despite the inevitable howls from FPTP supporters, I think we could sell such an outcome to the electors. But suppose the votes had been (again ignoring irrelevant preferences): 48 AC 47 BC 5 C C is still the Condorcet winner - no question about that. But I doubt whether anyone could successfully sell such a result to the electorate, at least, not here in the UK. And I have severe doubts about how effective such a winner could be in office. Quite apart from the sceptical electorate, the politicians of Party A and of Party B would be hounding such an office-holder daily. And the media would be no help - they would just pour fuel on the flames. The result would be political chaos and totally ineffective government. The flaw in IRV is that it can, sometimes, fail to elect the Condorcet winner. But IRV avoids the political problem of the weak Condorcet winner. I suspect that's why IRV has been accepted for many public and semi-public elections despite the Condorcet flaw. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] [CES #3650] FairVote folks are not the friendliest bunch
Peter Zbornik Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 6:41 PM I agree with James, and that was why I proposed that election reform took the path through added election rounds. Reform of FPTP would thus add a second election round where the Condorcet winner would meet the FPTP winner. Who in the UK would object to that? I cannot think of ANYONE in the UK who would support a proposal for any form of two-round voting for public elections. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] [CES #3650] FairVote folks are not the friendliest bunch
robert bristow-johnson Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 7:00 PM On 9/22/11 12:40 PM, James Gilmour wrote: But suppose the votes had been (again ignoring irrelevant preferences): 48 AC 47 BC 5 C C is still the Condorcet winner - no question about that. But I doubt whether anyone could successfully sell such a result to the electorate, at least, not here in the UK. even though there were 48 voters who preferred C over B, 47 that preferred C over A, along with the 5 that preferred C over both A and B. that does not appear to me to be such a bad result. But you are missing the point. It is not how the Condorcet winner appears to you or to me - it is how that winner, with only 5% of the first preferences, is seen by ordinary electors and by hostile partisan politicians of Party A and Party B. I think I know how that result would be received in the UK (total rejection), and I would expect a similar reaction in the USA or Canada, judging by what I have read in their on-line newspapers. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Weak Condorcet winners [was: FairVote are not the friendliest]
Jameson Quinn Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 7:38 PM And while I don't take everything Richie says at face value, he does have more experience than basically anyone else at promoting voting reform, so it would be unwise to entirely ignore his point of view. I believe that he honestly sees the weak Condorcet winner scenario as an impediment to promoting Condorcet, and one of his basic reasons for putting his eggs in the IRV basket. So I think the scenario does deserve attention. And not just from the point of view of actually resolving the issue, but also from the point of view of finding a sound bite/talking point for overcoming it. I have been actively involved in practical electoral reform in the UK for fifty (50) years and never in all that time have I heard anyone suggest the use of a Condorcet system. IRV (and STV-PR) have been under practical consideration and promotion (and nearly adopted) in the UK since the late 1880s. I suspect Condorcet didn't get a look-in because, compared with IRV, it gets progressively more complicated with each increase of candidates above three and because there was no agreed and SIMPLE means of breaking Condorcet cycles (and there still isn't). I suspect the specific issue of the weak Condorcet winner may not then have been too significant because no-one suggested using a Condorcet system. But that would certainly be an issue now, given the nature of our current politics. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] [CES #3650] FairVote folks are not the friendliest bunch
Toby PereiraSent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 8:11 PM From: James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk But suppose the votes had been (again ignoring irrelevant preferences): 48 AC 47 BC 5 C C is still the Condorcet winner - no question about that. But I doubt whether anyone could successfully sell such a result to the electorate, at least, not here in the UK. And I have severe doubts about how effective such a winner could be in office. Quite apart from the sceptical electorate, the politicians of Party A and of Party B would be hounding such an office-holder daily. And the media would be no help - they would just pour fuel on the flames. The result would be political chaos and totally ineffective government. The flaw in IRV is that it can, sometimes, fail to elect the Condorcet winner. But IRV avoids the political problem of the weak Condorcet winner. I suspect that's why IRV has been accepted for many public and semi-public elections despite the Condorcet flaw. I don't think I would have a problem with C winning here, if the votes were all sincere. Even if all the votes are sincere, it is irrelevant what you or I think. It is what ordinary electors would think about such a winner, with only 5% of the first preferences. And those electors would not be left in peace to reflect quietly on the potential of their (weak) Condorcet winner. Their views would be whipped up by partisan politicians and by a hostile press and media. That Condorcet winner would still be the Condorcet winner, but that's not how such an outcome would be portrayed. The world of real politics is a very brutal, nasty and dirty place, but that's where practical electoral reformers have to work (at least for the time being) if they really want to change anything. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Weak Condorcet winners [was: FairVote are not thefriendliest]
Peter Zbornik Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 9:04 PM Well I think the argument that two-rounds systems are silly and complex, can be countered with the fact that it is used all throughout Europe and elsewhere. Yes, and the French Presidential election of 2002 showed us very clearly what is wrong with such two-round voting systems. I would say runoff elections are the standard way of conducting single member elections. Even though I have no data for this claim, Yes, I should like to see some hard data to back up that statement. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Preferential Party List Method Proposal
Greg Nisbet Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2011 4:31 AM My system does not have voters voting for candidates at all. In fact, candidates needn't even exist (theoretically of course) for my method to be well-defined. Instead people simply vote for parties, with parties that can't get any seats dropped from the lowest weight first. Making the system more candidate-centric could be done, but my algorithm (or class of algorithms) is supposed to be a minimal, easily analyzable change from non-preferential party list methods. But this is not what the majority of electors want, at least not in polities like USA, Canada and UK. Electors in some continental European countries do seem to be happy with party list PR without any voter choice of candidates, but I would suggest, that would not be acceptable in our political culture. For the UK, that opinion is based on various public opinion polls; for the USA and Canada it is based on my reading of local media and blogs. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Preferential Party List Method Proposal
Greg Nisbet Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 10:25 PM All current forms of party list proportional representation have each voter cast a vote for a single party. I say this is inadequate since a small party can be eliminated and hence denied any representation (this is particularly relevant if the legislature has a threshold). However, votes for a party that doesn't have sufficient support to win any seats in the legislature are simply wasted. Not necessarily so. See apparentement. Parties can chain their votes so that fewer votes are wasted in the seat allocation calculations. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?
Juho Laatu Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 5:12 PM On 4.8.2011, at 14.21, James Gilmour wrote: There is only one real issue in elections: representation of the voters. If in a single winner partisan election the voters vote 51% for A and 49% for B, we have a major problem in representation. Ok, 49% of the voters without representation. This throws the problem into its sharpest perspective. There are related, difficult problems when there are three, four or more candidates for the one seat. If one uses single-member districts to elect multiple representatives, then this means also some randomness in the results. This is not really a problem of single-winner methods themselves but a problem in how they are used (as multi-winner methods). I agree. It is fundamentally wrong to use any single-winner, single-member district voting system to elect the members of a representative assembly (e.g. city council, state legislature). But if the voters vote in the same way (51% to 49%) in a two-member election, any sensible voting system will give one seat to A and one seat to B. Compared to that difference in providing representation of the voters, all the other differences between single-winner and multi-winner elections are trivial. From this point of view single-winner methods are more problematic than multi-winner methods (at least when used to elect multiple representatives from single-member districts). No - not just when (improperly) used to elect the members of a representative assembly. THE problem is inherent in the single-winner election. As you go on to say in your next comment. This problem of single-winner methods is quite impossible to fix (most single-winner methods respect the will of the majority). The extreme problem (51% to 49%) is impossible to fix and so it is the greatest challenge in electoral science to obtain the most representative outcome. In the two-candidate election, the best we can do is to guarantee representation to the majority. The 51% vs. 49% problem is present also in accurately proportional representative bodies since also those bodies may make majority decisions. One way to alleviate this kind of narrow majority related problems is to seek compromise decisions. I have to part company with you here. It should NOT, in my view, be part of the function of the voting system to manipulate the votes to obtain any outcome other than representation of the voters. It is not part of the function of a voting system to seek consensus. If the voters want to vote for candidates who will seek consensus, that's fine - but that is very different for making seek consensus an objective of the voting system. The function of the voting system should simply be to return the most representative result in terms of representing the voters, as expressed by the voters' responses to the candidates who have offered themselves for election. Seeking consensus and not seeking consensus are aspects of how the elected members will behave within the elected assembly. And of course, the voters may rightly take such views into account in their assessments of the candidates before they cast their votes. But that is just part of candidate appraisal. Given a sensitive voting system, the outcome (seats won) will reflect the views of the voters, which may include views on seeking consensus. James That is what in principle happens e.g. in coalition governments. Coalition governments may represent well over 50% of the voters. Let's assume that this is the case. The program of the government may contain multiple topics that would be 51% vs. 49% questions in the representative body or among the voters, but probably all coalition members will get more than they lose. Let's assume that the coalition is heterogeneous so that it does not agree on all the 51% vs. 49% decisions that is has to make. Maybe there are two 51% vs. 49% topics that go the right way against every one such topic that goes wrong. In that way we don't have a narrow majority that always makes 51% decisions but a supermajority that has considerably higher support behind everything it does (although all parties of the coalition do not like all the decisions). In two-party systems the balance is based more on two alternating policies. Often both parties have quite centrist policies since both try to meet the needs of the median voters. In some topics they may however have also clearly opposite positions. I guess the overall policy and results of two-party system governments are typically more 51% majority driven than in multi-party governments. (Coalition governments may however also have only narrow majority and the coalitions may be quite fixed, e.g. left vs. right, and as a result their decisions may follow the 51% majority style.) My point is just that in addition to multi-winner methods
Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?
You can also have minority government (usually single-party), where the majorities are by consensus, issue by issue, transcending the parties. Incidentally, what is pure proportional representation? It is a term I have come across quite frequently. James -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Juho Laatu Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 5:38 PM To: EM list Subject: Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list? I was also looking for pure proportional representation. The compromise decisions would take place after the election in a representative body or in a government. The election methods need not be tampered. My theory was just that in the case that the majority (of parties) that forms the government is considerably larger than 51% the decisions could have wider support than in the typical 51+% governments of a two-party system. The larger government would have to make compromises that are at least acceptable to all parties in the government. Juho On 6.8.2011, at 17.39, James Gilmour wrote: Juho Laatu Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 5:12 PM On 4.8.2011, at 14.21, James Gilmour wrote: There is only one real issue in elections: representation of the voters. If in a single winner partisan election the voters vote 51% for A and 49% for B, we have a major problem in representation. Ok, 49% of the voters without representation. This throws the problem into its sharpest perspective. There are related, difficult problems when there are three, four or more candidates for the one seat. If one uses single-member districts to elect multiple representatives, then this means also some randomness in the results. This is not really a problem of single-winner methods themselves but a problem in how they are used (as multi-winner methods). I agree. It is fundamentally wrong to use any single-winner, single-member district voting system to elect the members of a representative assembly (e.g. city council, state legislature). But if the voters vote in the same way (51% to 49%) in a two-member election, any sensible voting system will give one seat to A and one seat to B. Compared to that difference in providing representation of the voters, all the other differences between single-winner and multi-winner elections are trivial. From this point of view single-winner methods are more problematic than multi-winner methods (at least when used to elect multiple representatives from single-member districts). No - not just when (improperly) used to elect the members of a representative assembly. THE problem is inherent in the single-winner election. As you go on to say in your next comment. This problem of single-winner methods is quite impossible to fix (most single-winner methods respect the will of the majority). The extreme problem (51% to 49%) is impossible to fix and so it is the greatest challenge in electoral science to obtain the most representative outcome. In the two-candidate election, the best we can do is to guarantee representation to the majority. The 51% vs. 49% problem is present also in accurately proportional representative bodies since also those bodies may make majority decisions. One way to alleviate this kind of narrow majority related problems is to seek compromise decisions. I have to part company with you here. It should NOT, in my view, be part of the function of the voting system to manipulate the votes to obtain any outcome other than representation of the voters. It is not part of the function of a voting system to seek consensus. If the voters want to vote for candidates who will seek consensus, that's fine - but that is very different for making seek consensus an objective of the voting system. The function of the voting system should simply be to return the most representative result in terms of representing the voters, as expressed by the voters' responses to the candidates who have offered themselves for election. Seeking consensus and not seeking consensus are aspects of how the elected members will behave within the elected assembly. And of course, the voters may rightly take such views into account in their assessments of the candidates before they cast their votes. But that is just part of candidate appraisal. Given a sensitive voting system, the outcome (seats won) will reflect the views of the voters, which may include views on seeking consensus. James That is what in principle happens e.g. in coalition governments. Coalition governments may represent well over 50% of the voters. Let's assume that this is the case. The program of the government may contain multiple
Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?
There is only one real issue in elections: representation of the voters. If in a single winner partisan election the voters vote 51% for A and 49% for B, we have a major problem in representation. But if the voters vote in the same way (51% to 49%) in a two-member election, any sensible voting system will give one seat to A and one seat to B. Compared to that difference in providing representation of the voters, all the other differences between single-winner and multi-winner elections are trivial. James -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Juho Laatu Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 7:07 AM To: EM list Subject: Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list? Yes, there are areas where single-winner methods are more challenging. For example multi-winner STV works better than single-winner STV, and it is easier to collect sincere ratings in multi-winner methods than in single-winner methods. On the other hand the field of study may be wider in multi-winenr methods (a bit like N is more complicated than 1). In multi-winner methods we may have some additional aspects to study and solve like proportionality, geographical proportionality and the computational complexity related problems tend to cause problems. Individual problems may thus be more numerous in multi-winner methods although some individual problems may be more challenging in single-winner methods. Juho On 3.8.2011, at 19.35, James Gilmour wrote: Juho Laatu Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:04 AM Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated than single-winner methods. I disagree. It is much easier to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a multi-winner election than it is to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a single-winner election. Choosing a method to elect the candidate who best represents the voters in a single-winner election is the most difficult challenge in electoral science. As soon as you elect two or more candidates together, many of the problems disappear. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?
Juho Laatu Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:04 AM Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated than single-winner methods. I disagree. It is much easier to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a multi-winner election than it is to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a single-winner election. Choosing a method to elect the candidate who best represents the voters in a single-winner election is the most difficult challenge in electoral science. As soon as you elect two or more candidates together, many of the problems disappear. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Challenge: two-party methods
Juho Laatu Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 10:35 AM After some recent discussions and thoughts around two-party systems I thought it would be interesting to discuss two-party systems also in a more positive spirit. The assumption is thus that we want the system to be two-party oriented. We want to have two strong parties, and one of them should rule. We want to allow only well established parties with wide support to rule. The first obvious approach is to ban all other parties than the two leading parties. But maybe we don't want to be so brutal. Let's not ban the possibly already existing, much liked and hopeful third parties. It is also good to have some competition in the system. Let's not allow the two leading parties think that they don't have to care about the voters and they can do whatever they want, and stay in power forever. This is a very strange proposal, all the more so because your principal objective is not clear. Is your objective to manipulate the voting system so that all the smaller parties are more or less crushed out of the political system, leaving only two? Or is your objective to ensure single-party majority government where the government comes directly from the national elections? The first of these is not, to my mind, compatible with any definition of democracy. If single-party majority government is the objective, that is very easy to implement. If no party (in fairly representative elections) wins more than half of the seats, allocate 55% of the seats to the party with most votes nationally and divide the remaining seats proportionately among the remaining parties. This has already been done in national public elections, e.g. in Italy in the 1920s, when the 'premium' was two-thirds not 55%. Assuming you are suggesting this in the context of electing an assembly (national or regional parliament) and not a single-winner election (state governor or president), it is very interesting to note what happened in Malta after STV-PR was introduced some 80 years ago. Before STV-PR was introduced AND for the first 40 years of its use, candidates from three, four or five parties were elected to the Parliament at each election, but for the past 40 years only two parties have been represented in the Parliament. If you believe at all in representative democracy I think it is much the best to leave that aspect of party dynamics to the voters. James Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Challenge: two-party methods
Juho I regret to have to say that I find your approach confused and confusing, and basically anti-democratic - which is a surprise and a disappointment. There is nothing at all wrong with a two party system if that is what the voters really want. But it is something else altogether to devise or manipulate a voting system so that it will produce a two party result when that is not the wish of the voters. There is nothing inherently good or bad about a two party system, provided it does fairly reflect the wishes of the voters. Of course, such a system would be bad if it did not fairly reflect the wishes of the voters. If we are discussing voting systems for use within a representative democracy to elect a parliament or assembly, I cannot see how there can be any escape from the requirement for democracy in the voting system. A voting system may have one effect or another, and its effects may be tolerated by the electors, but that is quite different from deliberately devising a system to crush the smaller parties. That can only be anti-democratic. All political parties are coalitions, some broad, some narrow. So there is a very simple solution to the spoiler problem where single-party majority government is required, especially with the 55% seats rule for the largest minority. If the potentially largest party finds itself second, all it has to do is broaden its internal coalition to take in the supporters of the most acceptable of the spoiler parties so that it will secure first place. The attraction for the spoiler party is that it will become part of the government. One could argue that plurality in single-member districts, as in the UK and the USA, is a voting system designed for a two party political system (ignoring its other defects). Conservative and Labour in the UK and Republicans and Democrats in the USA no doubt see this system as a mechanism for entrenching and reinforcing the two party system. It is thus interesting, that in England there is a three party system and in Scotland a four party system, and these emerged under plurality in SMDs. What happened in these two countries, for different reasons, was that the two main parties were not able to broaden their coalitions and successfully reach out to the third and fourth parties and the supporters of the third and fourth parties. It is my view that in England, at least, the political landscape could have been quite different if the UK had used STV-PR to elect the Westminster Parliament since 1945. On a smaller point, I find your use of single winner undesirably confusing. Surely single-winner should refer only to single-seat elections? The term has to mean something very different if you try to apply it to multi-seat elections for a representative assembly. In a single-seat election the best you can do is guarantee representation to the majority of those participating in the vote - and you deny any representation to all the minorities. But in a multi-seat election the situation can be, and should be, completely different, in that you can guarantee representation to all significant points of view. So I think we should always reserve single-winner for single-seat elections and use single-party majority for multi-seat elections. The concepts are quite different. James Juho Laatu Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 2:53 PM On 9.7.2011, at 16.14, James Gilmour wrote: Juho Laatu Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 10:35 AM After some recent discussions and thoughts around two-party systems I thought it would be interesting to discuss two-party systems also in a more positive spirit. The assumption is thus that we want the system to be two-party oriented. We want to have two strong parties, and one of them should rule. We want to allow only well established parties with wide support to rule. The first obvious approach is to ban all other parties than the two leading parties. But maybe we don't want to be so brutal. Let's not ban the possibly already existing, much liked and hopeful third parties. It is also good to have some competition in the system. Let's not allow the two leading parties think that they don't have to care about the voters and they can do whatever they want, and stay in power forever. This is a very strange proposal, all the more so because your principal objective is not clear. Is your objective to manipulate the voting system so that all the smaller parties are more or less crushed out of the political system, leaving only two? The idea is not to manipulate a working system but to provide an ideal two-party system. The rules and ideals of a two-party system may be different from other systems, so the method may seem strange if seen as a proposal for some other kind of elections (e.g. for multi-party countries). There may thus be different elections with different kind of requirements. Here the requirement
Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system?
Kathy Dopp Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2011 2:30 AM On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 7:19 PM, James Gilmour Kathy, your comments illustrate the fundamental problems with all party list voting systems: 1. you must have registered political parties; As someone else noted in this thread already, registered political parties are unnecessary to use the party list system. Candidates can simply put together their own lists. But someone has to control, or take responsibility for, each list, even if it is only to submit it to the Returning Officer on nomination day so that an agreed list will be printed on the ballot paper. I am aware that in some jurisdictions otherwise independent candidates can form groups for this purpose, but these groups are registered for the purpose of the election. 2. each party must produce a list of candidates ordered in some way; Each *list* is normally ordered - Yes. But the list method does not have to be done that way if it is an open list system where voters can vote for candidates, and thus voters determine the list order. In open-list systems the names of the candidates are printed on the ballot paper, under the respective party headings. So the names must be ordered in some way, even if it is alphabetical or random. So the voters do NOT determine the order of the candidates in each party's list. The voters may vote in ways that determine which of the listed candidates is elected to one of that party's seats, and determine the order in which the candidates in a list are elected, but that is all post-election. The voters in the public election do not in any way determine the order of the candidates in the parties' lists as those names appear on the printed ballot papers. Most voters would disagree with you and think it is a benefit to have the political party or leading candidate put together the list order for them so as to save the voters the time and effort it would take to research all the candidates. It is clearly most voters in some countries (because those voters appear happy with their present closed-lists), but others would disagree and prefer to have some or a lot of choice in determining which of their favoured party's candidates should actually fill the seats allocated to that party. The voters could have a great deal of effect without having to research every candidate or indicate a ranking for every candidate on their favoured party's list. However, a less popular system, would simply require voters to pick a candidate from the list. I don't know what you mean by less popular, but this (pick one candidate) is in fact a common version of open-list party-list. I suppose it's possible, as some have also commented here, to allow voters to rank order a list, but that would be administratively burdensome and probably not practical for large national elections, as has been mentioned. The practicality depends on the size of the electoral districts, and on how the candidates are presented. In some countries there is one national list for each party; in others, the votes are totally nationally, but the parties' list are presented on a regional basis. 3. voters are restricted (to a greater or lesser degree) in how they can respond to the choices of representative offered to them. Relative to some electoral methods that are less desirable in other ways, perhaps. However, the list system has many benefits those other systems don't have, which is why it is so popular in many countries - for nationwide legislative bodies where other systems may not be practical or desirable. Yes, even closed-list party-list delivers party PR in a way that some other systems do not, notably plurality in single-member districts (UK, USA and Canada). If there were no alternative, that would be an advance. But we already know how to do better than that. All of these impose unnecessary limitations on the PR of the voters that could be obtained by a less constrained voting system. You might want to read up on the many studies of voting behaviour - say American Voter Revisited or Controversies in Voting Behavior. Most voters do not want to have to investigate and individually rank hundreds of candidates, so an open party list system where they are familiar with the top ranked candidates on each list and have the chance to vote for someone they prefer most to move them up the list. I am certainly not recommending any voting system that would require voters to investigate and individually rank hundreds of candidates. That is both undesirable and unnecessary. The number of candidates presented to voters in any one electoral district is a function of electoral district size. If the voter chooses a list headed by a familiar candidate and then has the chance to vote for someone they prefer most, it MAY move that candidate up the list, but very large numbers of such votes
Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system?
Kathy Dopp Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 2:53 PM However, either the election method used within each party to determine the list orders would be majoritarian (in which case the system isn't proportional beyond the party level), Plurality is how it is done I believe. To have PR within the party would require some sort of party primary system I suppose to determine which candidates are on each list in the general election for each party. This suggestion misses the point. For any voting system to give full effect to proportional representation of the voters, the selection of the candidates to take the seats won by a party must be decided by those who vote in the actual public election - not decided by any kind of party primary. After all, the party primary (before the public election) has already decided who should be on the party's list and has ordered that list. The nice feature of existing party list methods is that it allows the election of a large number of candidates to a large national body of legislators without requiring voters to rank individually a huge number of candidates. This makes the job for voters and election administrators much easier than asking voters to rank from among a huge number of candidates. But it is precisely this nice feature of most open-list party-list systems that causes the failure of such systems to produce proportionality WITHIN parties. If you are going to do this properly, to produce a within-party PR result, the voters for each party would have to mark preferences against the candidates in their chosen party's list (not necessarily all candidates, depending on the system you choose). And then you would need to use STV-PR (or something like it as you don't like STV) to determine which candidates should take the seats allocated to each party. No such system could be precinct-summable, but that is not a priority for everyone. And as has already been said, if you are prepared to go the bother of counting what is in effect a separate PR election WITHIN each party, why not go all the way and apply your chosen PR system to all candidates across all parties? That would give the voters real choice and would also avoid completely the problem of entrenching the political power of the parties' machines. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system?
Juho Laatu Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 4:30 PM (Of course the idea of having proportionally ordered candidate lists in a closer list election would make voting in the actual election even simpler. But then one would need to have a primary to find the ordering for each party.) But that would not give proportional representation of the voters, i.e. those who voted in the public election. Any ordering of a party's list by a primary election can, at best, reflect only the views of those entitled to vote in that primary. That is a private, internal matter for each party. For real proportional representation of the VOTERS, the voters must be free to express their opinions among the parties and among the candidates within the parties. That can be done only in the actual public election, i.e. all at one time, when all the voters know which parties are contesting the election and can see all the candidates of all the parties. James Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system?
Jameson Quinn Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 5:03 PM As I said in my last message, asset-like systems can let you have your cake and eat it, if you trust your favorite candidate to agree with you in ranking other candidates. This is fundamentally different from trusting your party, because your favorite candidate in asset-like systems could, in principle, be arbitrarily close to you - even BE you, if you're willing to give up vote anonymity, and if the system allows this extreme. Most systems will put some limits on this, but still, they are far closer to this extreme than any party list system. Also, there is no need to stay within the arbitrary bounds of any party; a candidate can have affinities based on ideology, so candidates at the fringes of their party (including the centrist fringes) have full freedom. I am a campaigner for practical reform of voting systems and I do not think an asset system or asset-like system will be acceptable for partisan public elections - certainly not here in the UK. And I see nothing in US or Canadian politics to make me think such a system might be any more acceptable there. I disagree about the no such system statement. I myself have worked out an unpublished system which is not perfectly droop-PR, but is a ~99% approximation thereof; and which is complicated, but still 2n² summable. It's not worth sharing the details here, but, having gone through the exercise, I believe that it should be possible to do better than I did. If you have done this I would encourage you to write it up for publication in the (somewhat informal) technical journal Voting matters. In the UK we do not sum or count the ballot papers from any public elections in the precincts, but it would be very interesting to see how this could be done in a practical way for STV-PR or a system that would deliver comparable PR results. James Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system?
Kathy Dopp Sent: Monday, July 04, 2011 10:40 PM James, As someone on this list already pointed out, such a system as you suggest does *nothing* to ensure proportionality *within* the party list because the list of candidates could all have been chosen by either the leaders or the majority of the political party prior to the election and thus represent the same group within the party. Therefore, I said that a party primary allowing all party members to vote in a PR way would be needed *before* the election in order to ensure proportionality. Unless, you are suggesting a rule about how parties can operate requiring that anyone can get on any party's ballot who wants to, or has some number of signatures, without having permission of the political party, I suppose. Not sure what effects that might have. Thus, the suggestion for a party primary to ensure proportionality among voting party members in the primary, at least. Kathy, your comments illustrate the fundamental problems with all party list voting systems: 1. you must have registered political parties; 2. each party must produce a list of candidates ordered in some way; 3. voters are restricted (to a greater or lesser degree) in how they can respond to the choices of representative offered to them. All of these impose unnecessary limitations on the PR of the voters that could be obtained by a less constrained voting system. I would also say that these restrictions are undesirable, but that view reflects my political culture. I do, however, recognise that these restrictions are accepted by many in continental Europe who happily use party-list PR voting systems without any clamour for change. Your comments also confuse what are essentially private matters with public matters. The candidates who can stand in the name of a registered political party must be decided by that party. Some parties may decide that by centralised control; other may do it by very democratic (PR) elections (primaries) of all party members. All parties are coalitions, some broad, some narrow. It is in a party's interest to ensure that its list of candidates will appeal to the widest range of its potential supporters among the electorate. Thus all significant factions within a party are likely to be represented on its list. If some faction within a party finds it candidates consistently excluded, that faction will almost certainly go off and form a new party. If some faction within a party finds its candidates on the list, but always at the bottom (and so with little chance of election), that faction may well split off and form a separate party, when its candidates will automatically be at the top of its list. That does happen, especially with closed-list party-list systems. It is open for any group that can meet the requirements to be a registered political party to present a list. In some jurisdictions, that can include individuals standing as independent candidate. But these are all private matters (within-party), determined by the respective parties before the public election. At the public election a voter can choose one party from among the various parties, and in open-list systems make one choice (or a restricted choice) from among the candidates of that one party. The counting rules provide good proportionality among the parties (subject to various arbitrary thresholds). But with the commonly used open-list systems, the counting rules do not provide PR within the parties. Significant groups of voters who support a particular party can be seriously under-represented in terms of the within-party balance, either through piling up massive votes for some particularly popular candidates or through spreading their votes across too many candidates. To overcome this defect, the votes must be transferable in some way. And to ensure PR of the voters, those transfers must be determined by the voters, not by some party-list rule in the legislation. What you then end up with is a series of STV-PR elections within each party list (or with something comparable for those who don't like STV). The most complex open-list party-list systems go some way towards this. But I have to say again, if you are going to go to all that bother, why not go the whole way and fully open up the voters' choice by removing all the restrictions of 'voting for a party' and of 'voting within one party list'? James Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system?
First we have to recognise that there is no one voting system called party list proportional representation. There are probably as many variants of party-list PR as there are countries and jurisdictions using such a system for their public elections. However, these party-list PR voting systems fall into two broad categories: closed-list party-list PR and open-list party-list PR. In both closed and open versions of party-list systems the order of the candidates in each party's list is determined by the relevant political party. Different countries have different rules about how that is to be done and different parties have different procedures within those rules for ordering the lists. Some parties exercise very strong centralised control; other parties are much more democratic and give every member a vote. In closed-list systems the voters can vote only for a party. Seats are allocated to parties by an arithmetic formula, usually d'Hondt (favours parties with more votes) or Sainte-Laguë (favours parties with fewer votes). Candidates take the seats allocated to their respective parties strictly in the order in which they are named on their parties' lists. In open-list systems the voters can also mark a vote for a candidate but usually only for one candidate. Votes for a candidate are counted as votes for that candidate's party and seats are allocated to the parties by an arithmetic formula, usually d'Hondt or Sainte-Laguë as in closed-list party-list systems. When candidates are allocated to the seats won by each party, the votes for each candidate within the relevant party are taken into account (in different ways in the various implementations). Sometimes the candidates' votes can change the order in which they are allocated to the party's seats. The main objection to party-list voting systems is that they are centred on the registered political parties and not on the voters. (Of course, such systems cannot be used in non-partisan elections.) The prime objective of all party-list voting systems is to deliver PR of the registered political parties. Party-list voting systems entrench the political power of the political parties (especially the central party machine) at the expense of the voters. This is most certainly true of closed-list party-list voting systems where the voters have no say in which candidates are elected. Open-list systems do allow the voters some say in which of the parties' candidates should be elected, but most such systems do not provide proportional representation WITHIN the respective parties. In some situations, getting the balance of representation right between competing wings WITHIN one party may be as important as getting the balance of representation right among the parties. Whether these approaches are acceptable or not is determined by political philosophy. If all you want is PR of the registered political parties, party-list voting systems will deliver that. The closed-list variety will deliver nothing more. The open-list variety will allow the voters (to varying degrees) some power to affect the balance of representation within parties, but only the most complex of the open-list systems will deliver anything approaching proportionality of the voters' wishes. But there are other views - that representation should be about the voters and not just about the registered political parties. That the proportional representation the voting system should delver should be PR of the voters' wishes (as expressed by their preferences among the candidates who offer themselves for election) and not just PR of the registered political parties. There are historical reasons why different countries have favoured one approach over the other, reflecting, and reflected in, differences in political culture. James Gilmour Scotland (where we use 5 different voting systems for public elections, including 3 different PR systems, one of which is closed-list party-list) -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2011 4:50 PM To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: [EM] What's wrong with the party list system? Someone from Europe on this list recently said that they did not like the party list system. Why not? Party list seems like a fair, simple system of electing legislators who represent people in approximately the same proportion that they exist in the electorate. I have not found a better-sounding proportional system yet. So, what's wrong with the party list system? -- Kathy Dopp Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] C//A
You have missed the point completely, ignoring issues of illiteracy (25% of adults) and disability and discrimination. It is simpler to rank candidates 1, 2, 3, 4, etc or to rate them on a 1 to 7 scale with the options in seven clear columns than to engage in any combinatorial addition. JG -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of fsimm...@pcc.edu Sent: Monday, June 13, 2011 11:35 PM To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: [EM] C//A Some folks have opined that the ballot line [candidate name] (4) (2) (1) Is too complicated. How about just [name] (2) (1) with the understanding that the score that you assign to the name is the sum of the digits of the bubbles that you darken, namely zero (for the empty sum), one, two, or two plus one. The only arithmetic you need to know is that 2+1 is greater than 2, which is greater than one, which is greater than nothing. If that is too complicated, then we are left with the only thing simpler, namely Plurality ballots, which means that the possible methods are Plurality, Asset, Approval, and SODA. In any case, I think that the 2+1 style ballots are adequate for Condorcet methods, because even when your favorite is not in the top three cycle, you can still rate these four candidates distinctly. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] C//A
fsimm...@pcc.edu Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 10:42 PM I think the following complete description is simpler than anything possible for ranked pairs: 1. Next to each candidate name are the bubbles (4) (2) (1). The voter rates a candidate on a scale from zero to seven by darkening the bubbles of the digits that add up to the desired rating. Given the reported levels of illiteracy and its arithmetic equivalent in the USA, in the UK and elsewhere, I would be extremely doubtful if any ballot system involving such addition would be acceptable for public elections. If you want voters to rate each candidate on a scale from 1 to 7, you would need to have seven separate columns (bubbles). The challenges for voting system and ballot design arising from illiteracy are considerable. The separate challenges arising from disabilities of various kinds should also not be ignored in designing for public elections. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Theoretical Issues In Districting
There is an ISO standard for Geographic information -- Geodetic codes and parameters (ISO/TS 19127:2005) but there do not appear to be any ISO standards for census or population. The interest expressed here may be exclusively for USA, but other countries take very different approaches from that in the US. For example, by using the resister of electors rather than the population census. Some have very prescriptive limits and automatic triggers for redistricting while others are very relaxed in almost every aspect. A redistricting exercise is currently in progress in the UK, following the decision to reduce the number of MPs in the House of Commons (UK Parliament lower house) from 650 to 600. The Boundary Commission for Scotland has brought a lot of relevant information and data together on its website at: http://www.bcomm-scotland.gov.uk/6th_westminster/ (There are separate Parliamentary Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are also separate Boundary Commissions for Local Government within each part of the UK.) On a related topic, the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland has conducted a consultation on how to determine the appropriate numbers of councillors for the councils that serve the 32 very different local government areas within Scotland: http://www.lgbc-scotland.gov.uk/reviews/councillor_numbers_2011/ James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Warren Smith Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2011 3:39 PM To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm Cc: electionscience; Michael McDonald; election-methods Subject: Re: [EM] Theoretical Issues In Districting ISO standard... --that's an interesting idea. Is there an ISO standard for geographic and census data? If there were, that'd be a good step toward solving districting problem in practice. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org -- add your endorsement (by clicking endorse as 1st step) and math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Usability studies of ranking/rating/approval methods
Steve You MAY be interested to take a look at this Guidance on ballot paper design issued by the UK Electoral Commission, and some associated documents: Making your mark: design guidance for government policy-makers http://bureau-query.funnelback.co.uk/search/click.cgi?rank=7collection=electoral-commissioncomponent=0docnum=4147url=http%3A%2F% 2Fwww.dopolitics.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0003%2F80931%2FMaking-Your-Mark-Design-Guidance-For-Government-Policy-Makers- Web-Final-2.pdfindex_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dopolitics.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0003%2F80931%2FMaking-Your-Mark-Design-G uidance-For-Government-Policy-Makers-Web-Final-2.pdfsearch_referer= Making your mark: designing for democracy http://bureau-query.funnelback.co.uk/search/click.cgi?rank=3collection=electoral-commissioncomponent=0docnum=11545url=http%3A%2F %2Fwww.electoralcommission.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fword_doc%2F0008%2F67184%2FMaking-your-mark-Project-summary-Sept-2008.docindex _url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoralcommission.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fword_doc%2F0008%2F67184%2FMaking-your-mark-Project-summary-Sept -2008.docsearch_referer= Uservision report on ballot paper design http://bureau-query.funnelback.co.uk/search/click.cgi?rank=1collection=electoral-commissioncomponent=0docnum=12313url=http%3A%2F %2Fwww.electoralcommission.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0008%2F77687%2FUservision-report-on-ballot-paper-design---FINAL.pdf index_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoralcommission.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0008%2F77687%2FUservision-report-on-ballot-pap er-design---FINAL.pdfsearch_referer= The Electoral Commission Ballot Paper Testing Summary Final Report http://bureau-query.funnelback.co.uk/search/click.cgi?rank=2collection=electoral-commissioncomponent=0docnum=12311url=http%3A%2F %2Fwww.electoralcommission.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0007%2F77686%2FThe-Electoral-Commission-Ballot-Paper-Testing-Summar y-Final-Report.pdfindex_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.electoralcommission.org.uk%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0007%2F77686%2FThe-Electoral -Commission-Ballot-Paper-Testing-Summary-Final-Report.pdfsearch_referer= James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Steve Wolfman Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 8:53 PM To: election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: [EM] Usability studies of ranking/rating/approval methods There's been some recent discussion of which ballots are easiest to use. Does anyone know of published (experimental) studies of usability of non-plurality ballots (perhaps vs. plurality ballots)? I'd be happy to take personal responses and summarize for anyone who would rather not post to the list. Thanks, Steve P.S. From what I've looked at so far: A good starting point into the literature on usability for plurality ballots is Sarah Everett's thesis: The Usability of Electronic Voting Machines and How Votes Can Be Changed Without Detection. That references Herrnson et al's book Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act.., also a substantial work in the area. Both discuss usability of a few non-standard ballot features (e.g., review screens/VVPAT), and at least the latter discusses select 2 contests. However, neither addresses ranked/rated/approval ballots. In the US, NIST has developed usability standards for voting (specifically for non-ranked contests). Here's NIST's voting homepage http://www.nist.gov/itl/vote/, but I haven't found the navigation path to the specific usability benchmark document yet; so, see: http://vote.nist.gov/meeting-08172007/Usability-Benchmarks-081707.pdf - Steven Wolfman, Ph.D. Sr Instructor, UBC CS Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Statement by this list (was Remember toby Nixon)
On 27.5.2011, at 10.01, Jameson Quinn wrote: 1. We draw up a statement which details the serious problems with plurality in the US context, and states that there are solutions. Juho Laatu Sent: Friday, May 27, 2011 9:43 PM Good approach. I have one comment on the target statement. Expression problems with plurality in the US context contains the assumption that the traditional two-party system in not the correct solution for the US. I would respectfully suggest that this statement is not correct. I don't think JQ's statement says or implies anything about the traditional two-party system. But even if the electors and voters in the USA wanted and voted only for the traditional two-party system, there could be, and probably would be, problems with plurality, even in the US context. Plurality frequently distorts the voters' wishes, is inherently unstable, and even when it delivers acceptably balanced representation overall there are often electoral deserts where one party or the other has almost no representation despite having significant voting support there, even when there are only two parties. And I think you need to distinguish between the two types of election that occur in the US context: election to a single-office (city mayor, state governor, etc); and election to a representative assembly (city council, state legislature with upper and lower houses, federal legislature with upper and lower houses). These two types of election present different opportunities for securing representation of the voters within a system of representative democracy. These are more fundamental issues that I would suggest you need to address, and they are quite independent of any consideration of the number of parties (or the number of effective parties) that might come later. JG Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Why is wikipedia so biased pro-IRV?
Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 1:18 PM James Gilmour wrote: Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 2:29 PM I'm not a UK politics expert, but it seems this is a minimal concession, of the sort one would see in negotiation. AV/IRV doesn't really lead to multiparty systems, if Australia is to be any judge. Instead, you get two large parties and one middle sized party (as in Australia's Labor and LibNats), which is an improvement from Plurality, and definitely so from the point of view of the Liberal Democrats (who could become the middle sized party). The UK already has a multi-party system - all under FPTP.- at least as measured by votes. Of course, not as measured by seats - but that's FPTP. Although I was thinking of measured by seats, that's interesting. What keeps the Liberal Democrat voters from going lesser-of-two-evils? I can't answer that directly, except perhaps to suggest their supporters are more concerned to keep the political equivalent of the one true faith. Support for the two largest parties is at the lowest it has been in modern times - see: http://www.jamesgilmour.f2s.com/Percentage-Votes-for-Two-Largest-Parties-UK-GEs-1945-2010.pdf So far as Westminster elections are concerned, England has three significant parties, and as Bob has already pointed out, Scotland and Wales both have four. In the general election of 1997 there was a lot of local tactical voting (i.e. voting for a candidate of a party did not sincerely want to see elected) with the aim of getting the Conservatives out (or to prevent them from winning where they had been a close second in the previous election). That tactical voting was particularly successful in Scotland and Wales because the Tories did not win a single seat in either country despite having 17% and 20% of the votes respectively. That result was a great political victory (to give the Conservatives a bloody nose), but it was a travesty in terms of democratic representation of the voters. US members might be interested to know that more than two-thirds of the 649 MPs elected in the 2010 UK general election are minority members - elected with less than half of the votes in their individual constituencies (electoral districts). See: http://www.jamesgilmour.f2s.com/UK-MPs-GE-2010-Minority-Members-12Jan11.pdf AV+ or STV/MMP would have been better, but alas. STV-PR would certainly have been better than AV (= IRV) from every perspective. But AV+ would have been a disaster. Remember, AV+ was designed deliberately to distort the seats-to-votes so that one or other of the two largest parties would nearly always have an overall majority of seats for only a minority of the votes. I thought AV+ was just MMP with AV rather than FPTP as the base. MMP itself, as far as I know, keeps a number of direct election seats, then counts the wasted preferences and compensates by using list seats so that one's vote can count even if it doesn't elect the direct seat. If so, it shouldn't be biased in favor of the two largest parties unless the calculation itself is. No, AV+ is not simply MMP with AV in the single-member electoral districts instead of FPTP. The clue is in the name - it is AV with a (very) little bit added on rather than any real kind of proportional system. It would give more proportional results than FPTP, but it would still distort the overall votes so that one or other of the two main parties would have an overall majority of the seats for a minority of the votes in most elections. In Jenkins' AV+ there was no national tally of the votes. Instead the top-up correction was to be applied separately within each of the proposed 80 electoral regions. Each electoral region would have between 3 and 10 single-member electoral districts - mostly 5 to 9. BUT there would be only ONE or TWO top-up seats in each electoral region. So the proportionality correction would have been only 1 in 8 in some cases, but mostly 2 in the regions with 7, 8 or 9 districts. So the results would still have been horribly distorted in relation to the votes - but that was what was wanted!!! You must also remember that the MMP used to elect the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly is a regionalised version. There is no national tally of the list (party) votes. Instead the list votes are tallied within electoral regions. In Scotland there are 8 electoral regions, containing 8, 9 or 10 single-member electoral districts. Each electoral region returns 7 regional members. So the MMP proportionality here is worked out for regions returning 15, 16 or 17 MSPs. That's quite different from MMP in New Zealand or federal elections in Germany. Also, we have no overhang correction of any kind in Scotland, but we do have lots of overhang!! Full MMP would have been better in terms of party proportionality
Re: [EM] Why is wikipedia so biased pro-IRV?
Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 2:29 PM I'm not a UK politics expert, but it seems this is a minimal concession, of the sort one would see in negotiation. AV/IRV doesn't really lead to multiparty systems, if Australia is to be any judge. Instead, you get two large parties and one middle sized party (as in Australia's Labor and LibNats), which is an improvement from Plurality, and definitely so from the point of view of the Liberal Democrats (who could become the middle sized party). The UK already has a multi-party system - all under FPTP.- at least as measured by votes. Of course, not as measured by seats - but that's FPTP. US members might be interested to know that more than two-thirds of the 649 MPs elected in the 2010 UK general election are minority members - elected with less than half of the votes in their individual constituencies (electoral districts). See: http://www.jamesgilmour.f2s.com/UK-MPs-GE-2010-Minority-Members-12Jan11.pdf AV+ or STV/MMP would have been better, but alas. STV-PR would certainly have been better than AV (= IRV) from every perspective. But AV+ would have been a disaster. Remember, AV+ was designed deliberately to distort the seats-to-votes so that one or other of the two largest parties would nearly always have an overall majority of seats for only a minority of the votes. Full MMP would have been better in terms of party proportionality, but that is all. MMP, with two very different kinds of elected member, brings a raft of new problems which would be high price to pay for party PR. We have MMP in the Scottish Parliament (we call it AMS), but we want to change to STV-PR. James Gilmour - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1435/3469 - Release Date: 02/26/11 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] electing a variable number of seats
Charlie I see two problems here. 1. You do not give the conditions under which the constitution of this organisation allows the number of board members to be varied. 2. More importantly, someone needs to define the purpose of this election a great deal better. Who would have the power to add one extra winner with a view to improving representation and who would decide what improved representation might be? And just who exactly would have the power to reduce the number elected board members with a view to eliminating polarizing candidates and who would decide that the last winner was a polarizing candidate who should be excluded? The purpose of board elections in democratic organisations is usually to fill the current vacancies with the requisite number of candidates who best represent the members who vote in the election. It seems a bit strange, to say the VERY least, that someone (undefined) should have the power to vary that by adding a board member to improve representation or by excluding an otherwise elected board member who is considered polarizing. If the members of the organisation, using a fair and properly representative voting system, elect a polarizing candidate, it is surely not for anyone to have the power to over-ride that democratic decision. Or have I missed something? James Gilmour -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Charlie DeTar Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 3:39 AM To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: [EM] electing a variable number of seats 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 - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1435/3448 - Release Date: 02/16/11 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Thoughts on a nomination simulation
Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 9:58 AM In a parliamentary system, I imagine it would be possible for the party leadership to decide (in the manner that they decide a list under party list PR). How do parties in actual single-winner district parliamentary countries (like England or Canada) select their candidates? For a UK perspective, see: Candidate Selection The report of the Commission on Candidate Selection, by Peter Riddell. June 2005. ISBN 0 903291 24 X PDF at: http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/Candidate%20Report.pdf Since that report was written the Conservative Party has experimented with one (or two ?) open primary elections to select its candidate for the constituency - all postal voting open to all electors registered to vote in the relevant constituency. This was an expensive and pointless exercise as it failed completely to address any of the real problems afflicting the voting system used to elect MPs to the House of Commons at Westminster. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.829 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2945 - Release Date: 06/17/10 19:35:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] the intrinsic value of the metric of *strength* of personalpreference (was: Re: Compatibility)
robert bristow-johnson Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 6:29 PM BTW, Juho, I heard a BBC news story about your election tomorrow regarding the desirability of FPTP vs. proportional methods in electing Parliament. so it sounds like that the UK, with its new Lib- Dem party, is also being confronted by the same problems. I don't quite get it, though. aren't MPs elected out of geographic districts? are there more than one MP elected in any given district? if it's only one MP per district, how can a proportional method be used? how can the losing votes in one district be transferred to another district to help elect someone there? you would *have* to have more than one candidate elected per district with all candidates running at large, no? if it's one MP per district, it's a single- winner election (and then, of course, I would advocate for Condorcet, in a 3+ party context). This wasn't addressed to me, but as a UK voter and UK campaigner for voting reform for more than 45 years, I may be qualified to comment. The problem with the FPTP voting system in the UK it not new - it has been apparent since at least 1900. And there have been several attempts to reform it, with some very near misses along the way. MANY of us hope this 2010 general election will the last FPTP election for the UK Parliament at Westminster. (We use six different voting systems for public elections in the UK. Of these, three are PR voting systems.) The Liberal Democrat Party is not new. This party (or its immediate predecessors) has received significant support for many years. The UK has a multi-party Parliament, although the defective FPTP voting system has ensured that the voters wishes were so distorted that only two parties have been able to form governments, and nearly always with a substantial majority over all parties though no party has won even half of the votes in any general election since 1945. At present all 650 MPs are elected from single-member districts (here called constituencies). It is impossible to have a PR voting system that is based only on any voting system exclusively within singe-member districts. The main thrust for reform is for STV-PR with sensibly sized multi-member electoral districts. For example, Edinburgh presently elects 5 MPs from 5 single-member constituencies. The City of Edinburgh should be ONE 5-member STV-PR electoral district. Similarly, the City of Glasgow should be a 7-member electoral district. In rural areas the district magnitude could be less, with even one or two single-member districts reflecting remoteness and long-standing political realities. The outgoing government (Labour Party) offered a referendum on the Alternative Vote (= IRV) if it were re-elected, but this is a cynical political ploy as the Alternative Vote would be electoral reform that would not deliver PR and would tend to favour the Labour Party - at least, it would have done on the basis of polling returns before the election campaign started. There have been some significant changes in voting intention during the election campaign and AV (= IRV) could perhaps work very badly against the Labour Party. Serious reformers are opposed to the AV nonsense! The numbers of candidates standing in the present FPTP single-member districts varies widely; I think 14 may be the maximum this time. In the five Edinburgh single-member constituencies (where I live) the numbers of candidates are: 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. But if Edinburgh were one 5-member electoral district for STV-PR, the total number of candidates would likely be less that the present total of 31 because none of the four main parties would nominate 5 candidates. We already use STV-PR for public elections within the UK and it works very well. STV-PR should adopted for the UK Parliament as well. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.814 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2854 - Release Date: 05/04/10 19:27:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Proportional election method needed for the Czech Greenparty - Council elections
Peter Zbornik Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 12:07 PM On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Markus Schulze If I understand Peter Zbornik correctly, then he wants a ranking of the members of the council, so that it is clear who the 2nd vice president, the 3rd vice president, the 4th vice president, etc., is. Markus Schulze understands me correctly. If your party wants to elect a council that fairly (proportionately) represents the wishes of those party members who vote in its election, I would recommend that you use STV-PR for this purpose. Which version of STV-PR counting rules you use will make little difference to the outcome compared to the differences between using any version of STV-PR and using other voting systems. If your party then wants to identify from WITHIN that representative Council, a President (chair-person) and two or more Vice-Presidents, you should NOT use the order of election in the first STV-PR election for that purpose. Instead, you should conduct a series of STV-PR counts, using the same ballots, for diminishing numbers of places to produce a reverse-ordered list from among those already elected to the Council. The top positions can then be filled by those Council members who emerge as winners in the successive elections, for one place, for two places, etc. This procedure is described here: http://www.cix.co.uk/~rosenstiel/stv/orderstv.htm This approach will maintain the overall balance of the Council as determined by the members who vote and identify those elected members who should take the top posts. STV-PR has been used in this way by several different political parties in the UK when they are required to produce ordered lists of candidates for closed-list party-list PR elections. NB. I do NOT recommend anyone to adopt closed-list party-list PR voting systems for any elections (public or private), but such ordered-list voting systems have been imposed on us by UK governments and so the parties must produce the ordered lists if they wish to participate in these elections. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.814 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2851 - Release Date: 05/03/10 07:27:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] FW: Tasmanian Greens get 21% of first choice votes, 5 seats of 25
Elections in two Australian states have just been held. In Tasmania, the lower House of Assembly elected by PR-STV has 25 seats in 5 x 5-seat constituencies, so gives good proportional representation. See http://www.abc.net.au/elections/tas/2010/ and http://www.electoral.tas.gov.au In South Australia the lower house is elected by instant runoff aka the alternative vote, STV in single seat constituencies, so with 7.8% of first choice votes the Greens have no seats. It's no more proportional than our first-past-the-post. http://www.abc.net.au/elections/sa/2010 However, the situation in the SA upper house, the Legislative Council, is different. Half its 22 members are elected at a time, and the whole state is one PR-STV constituency. so with 6.5% of first choices the Greens have one seat. http://www.abc.net.au/elections/sa/2010/guide/lc-results.htm If you look at the details you see that the Australian Greens are able to run strong women candidates, and with PR-STV proportional representation, to elect them. Doug Woodard, St. Catharines, Ontario Fw by JG No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.791 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2769 - Release Date: 03/25/10 07:33:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
robert bristow-johnson wrote: It seems that what Fairvote want is PR-STV. The hope is presumably, that if they can get voters used to ranked ballots and eliminations with IRV, they can then argue that moving onto PR-STV is just changing to the multiseat version of IRV. Surely a major factor in determining the strategy for any campaign to reform voting systems in the USA must be the large number of single-office single-winner elections you have? This must make any US campaign more complex than the similar campaigns in the UK. In turn, the campaign strategy will be more complex. Until England decided to have a few (VERY few!!) directly elected city mayors, we had NO single-office single-winner public elections. This is why, since 1894, our focus has always been on PR. That simple focus on one objective makes campaigning simpler and make devising campaign strategy simpler. The prime PR target has yet to be achieved (UK Parliament at Westminster), but every other voting system reform in the UK during the past 15 years has been to introduce a PR voting system of one kind or another for various representative assemblies at different levels of government. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.791 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2767 - Release Date: 03/24/10 07:33:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Proportional Representation Systems I'd Support
Raph Frank Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 11:01 PM In relation to the Swiss Federal Parliament election system It is like a cumulative voting version of MMP, but there is no mechanism for a candidate to win without being a member of a party. No, it's not at all like MMP. In MMP half or more of the members are elected from single-member electoral districts (usually by FPTP). The additional members in MMP are elected by party-list (usually closed-list) taking into account the single-member seats already won by each party. That is quite different from the party-list voting system used for the Swiss Conseil National. JG No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.791 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2767 - Release Date: 03/24/10 07:33:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Proportional Representation Systems I'd Support
Raph Frank Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 5:31 PM Sorry, I wasn't clear at all. No, it certainly wasn't clear. I was thinking of the decoy list issue with MMP. I don't think this is at all a helpful way of looking at the Swiss CN voting system. What I meant was that it is like MMP in that the voters have a party vote and an additional vote using a different method. No, it is not at all like MMP in that. ALL the votes are party votes. All the votes are used to allocate seats to parties and then the votes within parties are used to decide which candidates should fill the allocated seats. Importantly, all the members are elected on an equal basis - quite unlike MMP. It is immune to decoy lists since it doesn't elect anyone directly. OK. The additional vote is purely used to decide which members of the party are elected. No, because for every cumulated vote you must strike out a corresponding vote. Of course, when it comes to the allocation of candidates to seats, the cumulated votes do have a separate effect. Also, it is single constituency based. This I do not follow. The country is divided into constituencies = electoral districts. The numbers of members elected from each electoral district ranges from one (very few) to 35. So there is a regionalised element in this system. Perhaps you meant that the country was treated as one constituency (electoral district) for the initial allocation of seats to parties? It does have the advantage that it is summable. Coming from a UK background, where all ballots are always taken to a counting centre irrespective of the voting system, this is irrelevant for far as I am concerned. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.791 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2767 - Release Date: 03/24/10 07:33:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Proportional Representation Systems I'd Support
Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 9:24 PM I think your more complex party list PR (with cross endorsement) could work while still passing all three criteria. It's certainly summable and proportional, so the only difficulty would be in making it monotone. Simply distributing excess turns it STV-like. Perhaps something similar to my divisor trick could be used, but I'm not sure how. This principle is well-known in electoral science where it described by the French term apparentenement. It has been used in party-list PR voting systems at different times in France, Italy and Switzerland. In France and Italy the apparentenement was determined by the parties. In the (much) more complicated Swiss system, the apparentenement is determined by each individual voter. The allocation of seats to parties is determined by applying either the d'Hondt formula or the Sainte-Laguë formula to the votes, summed over the apparentenement partner-parties as necessary. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.791 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2762 - Release Date: 03/21/10 19:33:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Voting systems theory and proportional representation vssimple representation.
Kathy Dopp Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 8:54 PM Abd ul, I agree with virtually all you say that I had time to read, but would prefer party list voting over asset voting simply because it forces the #1 elector, as you put it, to state in advance who he will nominate with any excess votes and also in some systems gives the voters a chance to vote for changes in the order of the list. This gives options to those voters who are well-informed that asset voting does not. But these party list voting systems fail to deliver proportionality WITHIN the respective parties. In some political situations, achieving the voters' desired proportionality WITHIN a party can be almost as important as achieving proportionality between or among the parties. It should also be noted that all party list voting systems reinforce the dominance of the political parties in the whole political system. In some political cultures voters already think the political parties are too dominant. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2743 - Release Date: 03/13/10 07:33:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Smith, FPP fails Minimal Defense and Clone-Winner
Raph Frank Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 12:13 AM I had a look at the 2008 House election results, and there are a reasonable number of districts where one candidate got more than 2/3, so maybe it isn't as big an issue as I thought. OTOH, maybe it was that in those districts, the minority knew that they had no chance, so didn't bother turning out. Maybe the minority in that district would be able to manage 1/3 of the votes. You should bear in mind that the results of such FPTP elections in the USA are anomalous in relation to FPTP elections elsewhere because the US elections are affected by successful incumbent gerrymandering and by the effect of primary elections. I suspect that if these two distorting effects were removed, you would see a very different picture, much like that from FPTP elections in Canada or in the UK. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2734 - Release Date: 03/10/10 07:33:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV ballot pile count (proof of closed form)
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 4:50 PM CUT Practically speaking, I'd assume, the precincts would be provided with a spreadsheet showing the possible combinations, and they would report the combinations using the spreadsheet, transmitting it. So some cells would be blank or zero. With 5 candidates on the ballot, the spreadsheet has gotten large, but it's still doable. What happens if preferential voting encourages more candidates to file, as it tends to do? 23 candidates in San Francisco? Even with three-rank RCV, it gets hairy. Respectfully, I would suggest this would NOT be a wise way to collect the data. As I pointed out in my e-mail that correctly listed the maximum possible number of preference profiles for various numbers of candidates, the actual number of preference profiles in any election (or any one precinct) with a significant number of candidates, will be limited by the number of voters. Further, because some (many) voters will choose the same profiles of preferences, the actual number of preference profiles will likely be even lower - as in the Dáil Éireann election I quoted. Thus a spreadsheet containing all possible preference profiles would be unnecessarily large and the probability of making mistakes in data entry would likely be greater than if each precinct recorded only the numbers for each profile actually found in that precinct. CUT There is a way to avoid such massive reporting, which is to report interactively, which is what is done in Australia. Only one set of totals is reported from a precinct at a time, the totals for the current round. (which can be just uncovered votes due to eliminations that have been reported to the precinct from central tabulation.) However, the problem with this is that a single error in a precinct can require, then, all precincts to have to retabulate. Yes, this distributed counting would work. But there is an even simpler solution - take all the ballots to one counting centre and then sort and count only the ballots that are necessary to determine the winner (or winners in an STV-PR election). That what has been done for public elections in Ireland and the UK for many decades and it works well without problems. But I do appreciate that is far too simple and practical a solution and it suffers from NMH. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2669 - Release Date: 02/05/10 07:35:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Professorial Office Picking
Raph Frank Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 2:17 PM Something like a CTT auction could be used here. Each bidder submits a sealed ballot containing the dollar value of each office. For all possible permutations work out the sum of all the bids. Assign the offices to the arrangement that gives the highest sum. Interesting. Maybe some parallels here with linear programming approaches to timetabling - maximising resource utilisation for rooms of different sizes, student classes of different sizes and lecturers with different commitments across the groups of students. (I do not have any details and I have never been involved in timetabling so I don't know how well these approaches work in practice.) James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.730 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2644 - Release Date: 01/25/10 07:36:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)
robert bristow-johnson Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:25 AM On Jan 21, 2010, at 7:05 PM, James Gilmour wrote: N Unique Preference Profiles 2 4 3 15 ... then your calculation is mistaken. the fact that you ostensibly need 4 piles when there are only two candidates should serve as a clue. If there are two candidates, A and B, then the possible unique preference profiles are: A B AB BA what, on a ballot, is the consequential difference in meaning between A and AB? what effect does a ballot marked AB have over one marked just A (or vise versa) in *any* election method that uses ranked ballots? In terms of preference profiles the question is completely irrelevant. A and AB are two different preference profiles. So the possible numbers of preference profiles for given numbers of candidates are, I think, correctly stated in the table in my earlier post. How the STV counting rules handle the two preference profiles A and AB is a different matter. Some STV counting rules handle these two profiles identically. But for some other STV counting rules the profiles A and AB are handled differently. This second set of rules are those that prescribe the transfer of votes to the bitter end, i.e. even after the winners have all been determined. Under this rule a ballot marked A would be treated differently from a ballot marked AB: at the last possible transfer, the A ballot would become 'non-transferable (exhausted)', but the AB ballot would be transferred to A. This second rule is, of course, a stupid rule but that does not mean it has not been implemented in some jurisdictions, including, sadly, Scotland. It is also a highly undesirable rule because it means that my vote could, in some circumstances, be transferred to the candidate I deliberately ranked last in the lowest possible place, e.g. 12th out of 12 candidates. Following on from the concept of 'Later No Harm' (which underpins the whole of contingency voting, as in IRV and STV-PR), it is very important to be able to give a voter the absolutely assurance that under no circumstances will her vote ever be transferred to the candidate she has ranked 12th out of 12. Sadly, the stupid transfer to the bitter end rule undermines this. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.730 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2637 - Release Date: 01/21/10 19:34:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)
Kathy I think my post made clear that I was referring only to preference profiles. I was not dealing with the situation where some artificial, and highly undesirable, restriction had been placed on the numbers of rankings the voters could mark. I think my comments about the counting procedure adopted in Minneapolis should have indicated that I am well aware of the restrictions that can be imposed. But note that in Minneapolis the restriction was an artificial one imposed by the certified counting machines available for use in the precincts. There is nothing in the Minneapolis Election Ordinance that imposes such a restriction. So when Minneapolis can obtain certified counting machines that can deal with fully ranked ballots, there will be no such restriction in practice. James Behalf Of Kathy Dopp Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:43 AM Subject: Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy) James, Your formulas below are only correct in the case that voters are allowed to rank all the candidates who run for an election contest. That may be true in Australia, but is not true in the US where typically voters are allowed to rank up to only three candidates. I put the general formula that applies to *all* cases with n candidates and with r rankings allowed in my paper on IRV that I wrote a year or two ago: Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantR unoffVotingFlaws.pdf Because it's hard to write a summation, fraction formula, etc. here I'll let you look it up. It's on page 6 of the doc linked above. Cheers, Kathy From: James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk I do not intend to comment on your formula, but I calculate the numbers of possible unique preference profiles for increasing numbers of candidates (N) as follows: N Unique Preference Profiles 2 4 3 15 4 64 5 325 6 1,956 7 13,699 8 109,600 9 986,409 10 9,864,100 11 108,505,111 12 1,302,061,344 13 16,926,797,485 14 236,975,164,804 15 3,554,627,472,075 16 56,874,039,553,216 17 966,858,672,404,689 18 17,403,456,103,284,400 19 330,665,665,962,404,000 20 6,613,313,319,248,080,000 Where there are large numbers of candidates, the maximum possible number of unique preference profiles will be limited by the number of voters. Thus if there are 10,000 valid votes and 12 candidates, the maximum possible number of preference profiles would be 10,000 and not 1,302,061,344. In practice the actual number of preference profiles would be even lower, as significant numbers of voters would record identical patterns of preferences. Thus in the Meath constituency for the D?il ?ireann election in 2002 with 14 candidates (236,975,164,804 possibilities), there were 64,081 valid votes, but only 25,101 unique preference profiles. The Minneapolis STV (RCV) ballots were all hand sorted to unique preference profiles for each precinct and hand counted. This was unnecessary but feasible as the voters could not record more than three preferences (rankings), no matter the numbers of candidates. I understand the full preference profiles, probably at precinct level, will be published on the City website, but they are not there yet. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.730 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2637 - Release Date: 01/21/10 19:34:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)
Kathy Dopp Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 1:42 PM OK James. As I said before, I agree with you that you were giving the total number of profiles *if* voters were allowed to rank all candidates, which they were not allowed to do in Minneapolis or elsewhere in the US public elections if I am right. In STV elections (STV, IRV, RCV) there should be NO restrictions of any kind on the number of rankings each voter may mark, up to the limit of the number of candidates. The voters should be completely free to mark as many or as few rankings as each wishes. Further, I think that Robert is correct, that one could collapse the last N profiles into prior profiles if that is the system that is used (allowing ranking all candidates), although I do not think that gives any advantage, practically, to the counting process and may even complicate it. As I explained in my earlier post, whether or not you can do that depends on the version of the STV counting rules you have to use. My formula provides the more practical number of how many profiles are allowed to be cast by voters and how many profiles are needed if one wants to count the number of votes cast for each profile and make IRV precinct-summable for an actual election. But if you do not report the complete preference profiles, down the last preference position (whether or not it is relevant to the count), you reduce the transparency of the process. The full ballot data should be published as soon as possible after the election. To provide complete information in the smallest size, the STV ballot data should be published as preference profiles, i.e. COMPLETE preference profiles. The BLT format is convenient for this. The full ballot data from the 2007 STV-PR local government elections in the City of Glasgow (Scotland) were published on the City Council's website as very soon after the count closed on the day after polling. They are still all there for inspection. Obviously Condorcet counting methods are much simpler to make precinct-summable than IRV, requiring far fewer number of sums per precinct as the number of candidates increases. If you are going to do a manual sort of the ballots, then making three piles for each pair-wise comparison (AB, BA, neither ranked) would involve less work than sorting to complete preference profiles. But if you have sensible processing equipment that task is trivial and the difference irrelevant. I think one thing that some election methods experts sometimes fail to consider are the election administration practicalities that are crucial to whether or not a method is functionally practical to provide public oversight over. The practicalities of election administration are extremely important and as a returning officer for some elections, I am well aware of that. But electoral administration must not be allowed to put artificial or convenient limitations on the democratic process. I am fully aware that it is voting system technology, costs, and the increasing impracticality of manually auditing the election if the full range of preference profiles is allowed, if one is making an attempt to use paper ballots, that limits the number of choices a voter may fill out. I've studied this issue for 7 years now. We have absolutely no problems with any of this in our STV public elections in the UK. We always take all our paper ballots to one counting centre for each electoral district. In Northern Ireland, the ballots are sorted and counted manually, under scrutiny. In Scotland in 2007 we used optical scanning equipment and OCR to produce the vote vector for each ballot and the vote vectors were then consolidated into preference profiles for the STV counting program. All the ballot handling was done under scrutiny. There are always some who are unhappy with the results (defeated candidates and their supporters!), but the process has not been challenged. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.730 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2637 - Release Date: 01/21/10 19:34:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)
Kathy Dopp Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 4:54 PM James, you are using a straw man argument with me, setting up a false premise that I said something I never did, Kathy, I was not setting up any straw man argument with you or anyone else. I simply stated what a preference profile is and the possible numbers of such profiles. Anything else is not a preference profile and is irrelevant. Of course, no-one in their right mind (or not under legal restraint) would do a manual count of STV ballots by sorting to preference profiles. It is completely unnecessary and would extend time taken for the count very greatly. Sorting STV ballots to preference profiles makes sense only in computerised counting. To require, as you suggest that all election be administered in a way that allows all voters to fully rank all candidates may sounds nice No, Kathy it is not something that sounds nice - it is an essential requirement for the proper implementation of democratic choice. Any artificiality imposed constraint on that is a restriction of that democratic choice. But I am aware that factors of administrative convenience outweigh such considerations in some jurisdictions - it must be so, else they would never be tolerated. and would eliminate one of the problems with IRV, but with so many election contests on one ballot here in the US, it would be costly and possibly impractical unless you insist on using inauditable, easily hacked, electronic ballots and touchscreen devices rather than auditable voter marked paper ballots. No, Kathy, here in the UK we do NOT use any easily hacked, electronic ballots and touchscreen devices. We use good old-fashioned paper ballots which we mark with a stubby pencil secured to the polling booth by a short length of string! It is very old technology, but it works, and it is extremely flexible in that this voting method (paper and pencil) can be adapted to any voting system (and we use five different voting systems for public elections in Scotland). And of course, where electronic counting is employed, we always have the original paper ballots should anyone demand an audit. As I said earlier, if paper ballots are required, the length of the paper ballot must be unlimited if the number of candidates who can run for office is unlimited and you want voters to be able to fully rank (not that most voters would want to.) Length has not been a problem. Dealing with practical election administration issues seem to be very low down on the totem pole for most electoral methods people it seems. I cannot speak for any other EM member, but practical election administration is an important priority for me, especially as I am the returning officer for some elections and the supervising officer for some others. CUT Sorting ballots into piles and confusing subpiles only works for IRV and does not work for STV, except if there are no transferrable votes or you want to cut up pieces of ballots or xerox copies of ballots (what a confusing mess that would be.) If by STV you mean STV-PR (a multi-seat election), this statement is nonsense. IF you are sorting ballots into unique preference profiles, that is as easily done for STV-PR as it is for IRV. Of course, as I have already said, it makes no sense to do that in a manual count of any IRV or STV-PR election. And when it comes to the practical transfer of ballots in an STV-PR election there is no problem at all, whether you are dealing with whole vote transfers on an exclusion or fractional transfers of a surplus. The practicalities of election administration are extremely important and as a returning officer for some elections, I am well aware of that. But electoral administration must not be allowed to put artificial or convenient limitations on the democratic process. Except in the case of such methods as IRV when the method is not only wholly inconvenient and costly and virtually impossible to hand count understandably and quickly and is also unfair and produces awful outcomes. IRV and STV-PR are quite easy to count by hand and the procedures and the outcomes are widely understood. They have been doing just that in Ireland and Malta since 1920, and in Northern Ireland again since 1973. The multi-seat count may take longer than one plurality count, but that one multi-seat count replaces several plurality counts. And of course, there is no comparison at all in what is achieved in terms of fair and democratic representation of the voters - which should always be the deciding factor. A simpler method to administer is always preferable, other things being equal, to a complex costly method such as IRV, But of course, other thing are not equal. And there are higher priorities in achieving democratic representation than cost and complexity. but IRV does not even provide any reason to use it since it fails more fairness criteria
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 5:53 PM At 03:57 AM 1/22/2010, James Gilmour wrote: This second set of rules are those that prescribe the transfer of votes to the bitter end, i.e. even after the winners have all been determined. Under this rule a ballot marked A would be treated differently from a ballot marked AB: at the last possible transfer, the A ballot would become 'non-transferable (exhausted)', but the AB ballot would be transferred to A. You mean transferred to B, of course. Apologies - my example was incomplete. To illustrate this stupid rule properly, I should have posited two candidates, A and B, (or just two left after all others have been eliminated), with A the winner. Then consider two ballots, one marked B and the other marked BA. In the last round of a count under the to the bitter end transfer rule, the ballot marked B would be 'non-transferrable (exhausted)', but the vote on the BA ballot would be transferred to A. It is illogical to treat these ballots differently in an STV (contingency choice) election and it offends the underlying concepts of 'Later No Harm' to transfer the BA ballot to A. This second rule is, of course, a stupid rule but that does not mean it has not been implemented in some jurisdictions, including, sadly, Scotland. Not stupid, precisely because of the difference between AB and A. The former is an acceptance of the last listed preference, the latter is not. It makes a difference if a majority is required. Not if it is not, though it might make a difference with some methods. But not IRV. But my comments were exclusively in the context of STV elections (IRV, STV-PR, RCV). It is also a highly undesirable rule because it means that my vote could, in some circumstances, be transferred to the candidate I deliberately ranked last in the lowest possible place, e.g. 12th out of 12 candidates. Basically, if there are as many ranks as candidates, don't vote for that last one! That's your choice, unless full ranking is required, in which case you *can't* vote the truncated vote and it is irrelevant if it's counted or not. That's why when running an STV election where we can use write in boxes for all preferences, I always provide one fewer preference box than the number of candidates (as I see you recommended in a later part of your post). But all of our ballots for public elections have the candidates names printed on them. Following on from the concept of 'Later No Harm' (which underpins the whole of contingency voting, as in IRV and STV-PR), it is very important to be able to give a voter the absolutely assurance that under no circumstances will her vote ever be transferred to the candidate she has ranked 12th out of 12. Sadly, the stupid transfer to the bitter end rule undermines this. Only because of voter ignorance, an ignorance which has sometimes been encouraged by activists. No, not at all. This is a piece of nonsense that some have introduced into STV counting, especially since electronic counting became available. It does not feature in any of the long-established versions of STV counting rules promoted in the UK. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.730 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2637 - Release Date: 01/21/10 19:34:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)
robert bristow-johnson Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 6:49 AM
but breaking it down to piles regarding every conceivable permutation
of candidate preference is *still* breaking it down to a finite
number of piles. for 3 candidates, that number is 9. if you or
Kathy say it's 15, then you're wrong (and it's your slip that's
showing). for 4 candidates the number of necessary piles is
40.
for N candidates, the number of piles necessary, P(N) is
N-1
P(N) = SUM{ N!/n! }
n=1
not
N-1
P(N) = SUM{ N!/n! }
n=0
I do not intend to comment on your formula, but I calculate the numbers of
possible unique preference profiles for increasing
numbers of candidates (N) as follows:
N Unique Preference Profiles
2 4
3 15
4 64
5 325
6 1,956
7 13,699
8 109,600
9 986,409
10 9,864,100
11 108,505,111
12 1,302,061,344
13 16,926,797,485
14 236,975,164,804
15 3,554,627,472,075
16 56,874,039,553,216
17 966,858,672,404,689
18 17,403,456,103,284,400
19 330,665,665,962,404,000
20 6,613,313,319,248,080,000
Where there are large numbers of candidates, the maximum possible number of
unique preference profiles will be limited by the number
of voters. Thus if there are 10,000 valid votes and 12 candidates, the maximum
possible number of preference profiles would be
10,000 and not 1,302,061,344.
In practice the actual number of preference profiles would be even lower, as
significant numbers of voters would record identical
patterns of preferences. Thus in the Meath constituency for the Dáil Éireann
election in 2002 with 14 candidates (236,975,164,804
possibilities), there were 64,081 valid votes, but only 25,101 unique
preference profiles.
The Minneapolis STV (RCV) ballots were all hand sorted to unique preference
profiles for each precinct and hand counted. This was
unnecessary but feasible as the voters could not record more than three
preferences (rankings), no matter the numbers of candidates.
I understand the full preference profiles, probably at precinct level, will be
published on the City website, but they are not there
yet.
James Gilmour
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Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (back to the pile count controversy)
N Unique Preference Profiles 2 4 3 15 ... then your calculation is mistaken. the fact that you ostensibly need 4 piles when there are only two candidates should serve as a clue. If there are two candidates, A and B, then the possible unique preference profiles are: A B A B B A Anything that does not conform to this is an incorrect use of the term preference profile. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.730 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2636 - Release Date: 01/21/10 07:34:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Anyone got a good analysis on limitations of approval andrange voting?
Robert Bristow-Johnson wrote (9 Nov 2009): Of course IRV, Condorcet, and Borda use different methods to tabulate the votes and select the winner and my opinion is that IRV (asset voting, I might call it commodity voting: your vote is a commodity that you transfer according to your preferences) is a kabuki dance of transferred votes. and there is an *arbitrary* evaluation in the elimination of candidates in the IRV rounds: 2nd- choice votes don't count for shit in deciding who to eliminate (who decided that? 2nd-choice votes are as good as last-choice? under what meaningful and consistent philosophy was that decided?), then when your candidate is eliminated your 2nd-choice vote counts as much as your 1st-choice. These statements suggest a misunderstanding of how STV voting works and what preferences (US rankings) mean in the STV voting system. In all STV elections, the preferences are contingency choices. Your vote is transferred to your second choice only in the event that your first choice cannot secure election or does not need you support to secure election. This is most easily seen in single-winner STV elections (US = IRV), where the sequence of rounds is exactly analogous to the sequence of rounds in an exhaustive ballot (eliminating one candidate at a time in successive ballots). The only difference is that in an STV (IRV) election you don't know what all the other voters did in Round 1 when you come to give your second choice. So the preferences (= contingency choices) marked on an STV ballot are quite different from the preferences marked on, for example, a Borda ballot where some attempt will be made to use all of the information simultaneously. The same applies to STV multi-winner elections (STV-PR), though the connection is not so obvious in versions of STV that use fractional transfer values to remove the otherwise unavoidable element of chance. However, the contingency choice nature of the STV-PR preferences is obvious in those versions of STV-PR that use whole vote transfers, e.g. Cambridge MA and the Dáil Éireann. It is even more obvious in Thomas Hill's original application of STV-PR when the boys formed lines in the schoolyard to show their support for the various candidates. These STV preferences are all quite clearly contingency choices and they should not be interpreted in any other way. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.86/2533 - Release Date: 11/28/09 19:34:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV is best method meeting 'later no harm'?
sepp...@alumni.caltech.edu wrote: By the way, if my understanding is correct, IRV is not Single Transferable Vote (STV), the single-winner voting method used in Australia Ireland. IRV severely limits the number of candidates each voter can rank (to 3, if my understanding is correct) whereas STV allows (or requires) each voter to rank every candidate. STV satisfies LNH, and many people may consider it to be somewhat better than IRV. (STV facilitates greater competition and less spoiling, especially if candidates are permitted to withdraw after the votes are cast.) Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 10:15 PM IRV is STV(1,n), i.e. single winner IRV. What you describe sounds like FairVote's RCV, which was limited to three ranks to make it work on SF's machinery. This second statement is also wrong. RCV = Ranked Choice Voting, which is exactly the same as STV = Single Transferable Vote. Both RCV and STV can be used in single-winner and multiple-winner elections. It has become common in the USA (note, in the USA) to use the term IRV (= Instant Runoff Voting) when the RCV=STV voting system is applied to a single-winner election. In none of these voting systems, under any of these names, is there any restriction on the number of preferences (= rankings in the USA) that a voter can mark. In some RCV=STV or IRV elections in the USA there have, however, been limitations imposed by the voting METHOD that has been used. For example, in the recent RCV elections in Minneapolis (mostly single-winner, two multiple-winner), there was a requirement to use mark-sense ballots (fill in the oval) which were designed to record only the first three rankings because the certified machines that had to be used to provide the close-of-poll precinct counts could not count more than three rankings (three columns). This artificial (and undesirable) restriction is not implicit in the voting system, nor is there any such restriction in the Minneapolis City Ordinance that prescribes the RCV=STV rules for these elections. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.81/2524 - Release Date: 11/24/09 19:37:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not
Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 3:27 PM Juho wrote: If one really wants a two-party system and doesn't want voters to change that fact then one could ban third parties and accept only two. That would solve the spoiler problem :-). Who is this one? Since that one is at odds with the voters, that's not very democratic, is it? I guess that one democratic way of doing it would be to have the question itself posed to the voters, but with a suitable low-pass filter (e.g. supermajority required to change it, or a majority over a long time); though then I think it'd be better just to have the filter on the decision process itself. Why in any country that would merit the description democracy would you want to impose a two-party system when the votes of the voters showed that was not what they wanted? James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.47/2478 - Release Date: 11/03/09 07:36:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not
Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:34 PM James Gilmour wrote: Why in any country that would merit the description democracy would you want to impose a two-party system when the votes of the voters showed that was not what they wanted? That is my question, too. Maybe what the two-party advocates really want is guaranteed single-party majority government. If that IS what they want, there is a VERY simple and effective electoral solution. If no party wins an absolute majority of the votes and seats, give 55% of the seats to the party that wins the largest number of votes and divide the remaining seats among the other parties in proportion to the their shares of the votes. It has been done and it works. Importantly, it's honest. It sets out clearly what is considered to be the over-riding electoral criterion and it fulfils it. In the UK we suffer from a lot of nonsense about the desirability of single-party majority government and even worse nonsense about the importance of FPTP in securing that. In fact, in two of the most critical elections since 1945, when the government of the day (one Labour, one Conservative) was seeking a renewed mandate for the continuation of its policies, FPTP elected the wrong government. In both cases the outgoing government won the referendum on its policies (votes) and lost the election (seats). James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.47/2478 - Release Date: 11/03/09 07:36:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not
Kathy Dopp Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 1:20 PM Vote-splitting does mean less proportional representation using STV if more candidates run relative to some groups' constituency share compared to other groups. Must be some misunderstanding here. Because the surplus votes of elected candidates and the votes of eliminated candidates are transferable, the votes will progressively concentrate onto the appropriate number of candidates to represent each group proportionately. That and all STV's other extreme flaws is why any of the other better proportional systems are more proportional and also better in a host of other ways. Proportionality is dependent solely on district magnitude. For the same district magnitude, STV-PR is as proportional as any other PR voting system - no more, but no less. Extreme flaws and better both require definition and exposition. For many voters, the ability to rank all the candidates freely on any basis whatsoever makes STV-PR better than any other PR voting system. One reason why these voters consider that better is the effects it can have on the relationships between the elected members and the local voters, between the elected members and their parties, and between the elected assembly and the executive, especially where the executive is based within the assembly (as in parliamentary system). These political effects (beyond simple PR) are important considerations, especially from the voters' perspective. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.42/2473 - Release Date: 10/31/09 21:14:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject) STV transfer rules
robert bristow-johnson Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 5:44 PM whose *ballot* gets their vote transferred? it shouldn't matter in which order the counting is. if my ballot is needed to give the candidate what he needs, and your ballot isn't needed, then you got to influence the election of your next choice, but I did not. that can't be fair. Opinions differ on the importance of this feature - as can be seen from the continued acceptance in some jurisdictions of STV rules that treat ballots differently in this way. But if this feature is important in your assessment of fairness, then you could use either the WIGM (Weighted inclusive Gregory Method) version of STV-PR as implemented for the Scottish Local Government elections or Meek STV. In both of these STV-PR versions ALL of the candidate's ballots are transferred when any transfer of votes has to be made. Then there is no discrimination of the kind you describe between these voters. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.42/2473 - Release Date: 10/31/09 21:14:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not
Raph Frank Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 9:41 PM To harp on California again: we have 53 Congressional districts, all (of course) single-seat FPTP. The distribution of Democratic and Republican seats is surprisingly close to representing state party registration. Yes, FPTP in single-seat districts is statistically proportional, but of course it very strongly favours large parties. This is thus proportional in some sense but doesn't fit well in my definition above since deviation from full proportionality (that would allow also smaller groups to survive) is much larger than what would be necessary. That is a surprising election result. Did they intentionally gerrymander it to work that way? Normally, with impartial districting, the result isn't actually proportional. Normally, the larger party will get more seats than it is entitled to. As I have written several times previously, the results of FPTP elections in the USA are the ones that are anomalous because the US results are much more proportional and there are fewer minority members than for FPTP elections in most other countries that use FPTP (e.g. UK, Canada). Successful incumbent gerrymandering in the US is probably the main factor in producing these anomalous results. The holding primary elections may also be a contributing factor. If you have 60% of the votes, and your supporters are spread randomly, then it is pretty sure than you will have, say 55-65% of the votes in every district. Not necessarily so. In many countries there are clear urban-rural differences in support for different political parties. In many cities there are similar clear differences between poorer inner city areas and more prosperous suburbs. In these circumstances (e.g. UK), FPTP produces electoral deserts where one party or another appears to have no support at all because it wins no seats. But the votes tell a different story. These distortions of representation have dangerous political effects on government policy as the .government party has little or no representation from one area or the other. This amplification like effect leads to more stable governments (which is argued to be a good thing for parliamentary systems). Such governments are stable only in that they have a large overall majority as a result of the defective FPTP voting system. There is no real stability because at the next election the distortion may go the other way. Then you have reversal of policy and no stability at all. Look at the political history of the UK from 1945 for a prime example of such instability with severely detrimental effects on the country in almost every branch of policy: economic, social, educational, health, etc, etc. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.44/2475 - Release Date: 11/01/09 19:39:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
Anthony O'Neal Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2009 7:12 AM I don't necessarily think that STV is better than an open party list system. I think STV-PR is better than open-list party-list PR in three ways. Firstly, STV-PR can be used in all public elections, including those that are non-partisan. Secondly, STV-PR can deliver proportionality within individual political parties, where most open-list party-list systems will not. Thirdly, and rather more politically, STV-PR can shift the balance of power away from the parties to the voters, IF the voters decide to make than happen. But I'm a political realist, and I think that STV is the system that would be easiest to implement in America. With our loose coalition Democrat and Republican parties, and our large base of independents, people are too used to voting for the person and not the party to widely accept a system that forces voting for a party. Even if they do have a large say in said party. There are two other reasons why STV-PR might be the easiest to implement in situations where voters are used to voting in single-member districts (the appalling British legacy!). First is the simple practically of devising suitable STV multi-member electoral districts based on existing, recognised communities. Second is the voters' desire for a realistic element of local representation as well as for broad proportionality. STV is proportional if people vote by party. It is also proportional if people vote by eye color. Yes, and need not be either or - it can be both and. The voters can rank by party and then by eye colour. Or the voters can rank by eye colour and then by party. With STV-PR the voters are free to base their rankings of the candidates on as many dimensions as each voter wishes. It's main problem is that it's complicated as hell to explain, and the opposition at the BC-STV referendum exploited this mercilessly. Yes, a great deal can be made of this, and was by the opponents of reform in BC, but it need not be so. To obtain proportional representation we must elect several members together; each voter must have only one vote; and that vote must be transferable. The STV-PR counting procedure involves five basic steps: 1. Once the total number of valid ballots has been counted, the minimum number of votes a candidate needs to be elected is calculated - the 'threshold' or 'quota'. (This threshold is equivalent to the 'absolute majority' in a single-member electoral district.) 2. The ballots are sorted according to the first choices (rank #1) marked by the voters and the total number of first choice votes for each candidate is counted. 3. Any candidate whose vote equals or exceeds the threshold is elected. If any candidate has more votes than the threshold, that surplus above the threshold is transferred to remaining candidates in accordance with the second and later choices on the elected candidate's ballots. 4. If after the surpluses have been transferred some seats remain to be filled, the candidate with fewest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are transferred in accordance with the second and later choices marked on the ballots. 5. The transfers of votes continue, round by round, until all seats have been filled. Of course, the detailed instructions for the Returning Officer are a little more complex than that, but again can be set out quite simply, depending on the version of STV-PR adopted. One merit of the version of STV-PR used for the local government elections in Scotland in 2007 was the very simple principles. All surpluses must be transferred, largest first. Candidates with fewest votes must be eliminated one at a time. When any votes are to be transferred, all of the candidate's ballots must be transferred. These three principles greatly simplified the procedure, the regulations, the description and the explanation. It all becomes considerably more complicated when you have to make provision for deferring the transfer of small surpluses or for batch eliminations of several candidates together or electing by sub-stages during eliminations. So the only real solution for proportional advocates seems to be to either find a billionaire willing to support the cause of STV, or to wait 100 years until Americas increasing polarization makes partisan voting seems not seem so obscene. I wouldn't be so pessimistic. The more immediate targets should be those city councils and local boards that are very obviously unrepresentative, especially those already elected at large. Some State legislatures might also provide realistic prospects for reform. Although elected by FPTP from single-member districts, the US House of Representatives is not as unrepresentative as most assemblies elected in this way around the world (e.g. UK, Canada). That's probably why Federal electoral reform is not higher up the public agenda in the USA. James Gilmour
Re: [EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not
(PR makes sense in general but I wouldn't deny people the right to achieve the political balance using two-party systems if they so want.) How would this decision be made? Majority rule? It's not hard to imagine a referendum with that kind of effect. I don't see how you can get away from majority rule; even if we elect a body using PR-STV to vote on the party system, that's still majority rule (or a super-majority rule with a possibility of no outcome), it's just different people voting in the end. If you genuinely have a two party system, you have no problem. The problems arise when significant numbers of voters do not vote for either of the two largest parties, but the politicians of the two largest parties want the political system to function as if there were only two parties and a guaranteed single-party majority after every election. If you believe in representative democracy and believe that the representative assemblies in such a democracy (city councils, state legislatures) should be fairly representative of those who vote, then you must be prepared to accept the representation the voters say they want. If the voters fall into two main categories, so be it. But if the voters are divided among three, four or five significant groups, so be it, too - that's what the voters say they want. One of the advantages of STV-PR is that it is party-neutral and it allows the voters to have a direct influence on party behaviour. For example, for the first 40 years of STV-PR in Malta the voters elected members of 3, 4 or 5 parties to their parliament. But for the past 40 years of STV-PR all the members of the Maltese parliament have elected from only two parties. That change was brought about by the voters because more than two parties still contest the elections. So the representation in the parliament could be different IF the voters wanted that. PR-STV was used in quite a few US cities in the first half of the 20C. Mostly, it got repealed when the local majority party realized that they could benefit from majority-take-all voting, and could avoid sharing power by repealing PR. Big party politics, big business and big media combined in some VERY dirty campaigns to dump fair representation of ordinary voters! One can imagine establishing a culture of PR where even members of the majority support the idea that others should be represented; this seems to be the case in various places outside the US, and for whatever reason in Cambridge MA. But this has certainly not been the rule in the US. It may come as shock to many in the USA, but most countries in Europe elect their national, regional and local assemblies by some system of proportional representation. Rarely are the voters divided into only two blocks, so single-party majorities are rare. In Europe, it is the UK that is the exception, where despite having a genuine multi-party system political system we cling to the discredited FPTP voting system with single-member districts that artificially (and wrongly) manufactures single-party majority government against the voters' wishes. Sometimes our governments have obscenely large majorities despite having only minority support among these who voted - currently a majority of 66 seats (out of 646) with only 35% of the votes. But that's party politics! James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.39/2469 - Release Date: 10/30/09 07:52:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not
of proportional representation must be precinct-summable in a reasonable fashion It is well-known that you attach great importance to this, but it is not a feature or requirement of public elections in many countries. NO public elections in the UK are ever counted at precinct level. All the ballots are taken to the relevant counting centre before the ballot boxes are opened. And it has been like that for many, many decades. And it is not a source of any problem or concern. 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. STV-PR does, in fact, treat all voters and all voters' votes equally. The purpose of the vote being transferable subject only to limit of the number of candidates or any lower limit imposed by the individual voter, is to obtain PR. Of course, if any political party or interest group underestimates its likely support among the voters, and so nominates too few candidates, it has only itself to blame. If you do not nominate the candidates, you cannot win the seats. 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. STV-PR does give PR, of whatever the voters want. 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. Here you again fail to recognise the essential difference between the party list approach and STV-PR. The two groups of voting systems have fundamentally different objectives. They also have different political effects. All party-list systems will, or will tend to, strengthen the position of the party machines, whereas STV-PR will shift the balance of power away from the party machines and give it to the voters, to whom it belongs. If all you want politically is PR of registered political parties, a party-list PR voting system will give you that. But if you have a different, better vision of politics and the police system, you will want to empower the voters, and that's what STV-PR could do. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.39/2469 - Release Date: 10/30/09 07:52:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Holding byelections with PR-STV
On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:19 PM, James Gilmour wrote: The 'count back' procedure with STV-PR provides an alternative approach to the principle of preserving the proportionality determined at the previous main election. Then the voters would get the proportionality they would have got at the main election had the member who caused the casual vacancy not stood at the main election. Where the elections are partisan, this approach would provide an incentive for the political parties to nominate more candidates that the numbers of seats they expected to win, so that they would have one or more spares. In Malta the main parties take this to extremes, as they both have sometimes nominated 12 candidates in some 5-member districts. Raph Frank Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 5:22 PM I think, in the end, this is probably the best plan. The spares give an added bonus that voters get more choice. Yes, this would be a very good side-effect of adopting the 'count back' procedure - and it's one (hidden) reason why some of us are keen to see it introduced in Scotland. Under Meek, would this just be a matter of setting the resigning candidate's keep value to zero? Depending on the program you use, you don't even need to do that. OpenSTV and some of the private UK versions of Meek STV have a provision for withdrawn candidates. You just set the number code for the 'withdrawn' candidate to its negative value (e.g. 2 becomes -2) in the second row of the BLT file and the program does the rest, passing over that candidate as though s/he had never stood, I presume by setting a zero keep value at the beginning. (see Ballots Menu in OpenSTV Manual at http://www.openstv.org/manual) New Zealand is, so far as I know, the only country that uses Meek STV for public elections. They do not appear to have any provision for 'withdrawn candidates'. They do allow multiple candidacies for specified hierarchies of elections, e.g. mayor (first), territory (second), community (third). So if a candidate is elected as mayor and also as a territory council member, they declare an exceptional vacancy for the territory council and fill it separately. They don't seem to use the 'withdrawn' feature - maybe it isn't programmed into their version of Meek STV. In UK public elections candidates are not allowed to withdraw once the deadline for nominations has passed. If a candidate dies after the close of nominations but before the formal declaration of the result, the whole election for that constituency or ward is declared void and a new election must be held within a specified number of days. Setting a candidate's keep value to zero should only increase the vote totals of all the other candidates. Thus, all elected candidates would stay elected and Meek's method never changes the keep values to eliminate an elected candidate. The first statement seems logical, but I don't know about the second statement. I don't understand how an elected candidate could be eliminated - sounds like a contradiction of terms. The problem would be that setting an eliminated candidate's keep value back to 1 could bring an elected candidate below the quota. One option would be to set all running candidates at the highest possible keep value such that all elected candidates have more than a quota worth of votes. I don't know what any of this means as I am not sufficiently familiar with the inner workings of Meek STV. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.96/2369 - Release Date: 09/14/09 17:52:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Holding byelections with PR-STV
-party control in local government. This illogical application of the by-election approach to filling casual vacancies has delighted the SNP but sent shockwaves through the Labour Party. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.94/2367 - Release Date: 09/14/09 05:51:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 62, Issue 10 - Explaining PR-STV
I have changed the subject to make it clear and to link it again to the related posts - apologies for not doing that on my previous post. What you describe below is not a feature of the SNTV voting system but the careful strategic and tactical manipulation of the voting system to obtain a PR outcome. But even then, it is only PR of the registered political parties. Iif the voters expressed their true wishes about the candidates, PR of the parties would probably not be obtained. So I think my statement was a fair one. James Kristofer Munsterhjelm Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 7:17 AM James Gilmour wrote: It is extremely important to refer to STV as the SINGLE Transferable Vote, because each voter must have only one vote to ensure PR. This distinguishes STV from all multiple vote systems, like Multi-Member-FPTP or the Cumulative Vote. It is also important to emphasise the Single TRANSFERABLE Vote, because PR cannot be obtained (except by chance) if that single vote is not transferable (as in the Single Non-Transferable Vote). That's not completely true. Some methods that don't use transferable votes have a strategy equilibrium where there's PR. Consider, for instance, SNTV (you get one vote, the n best wins), under party control. If a given party fields too many candidates, their votes are spread too thin and they lose. If the party fields too few candidates, they miss some seats they could otherwise have acquired. Thus each party fields a number of candidates proportional to that party's support, and instructs the people to vote randomly for one of the party' candidates (so as to spread the votes evenly). You may argue that the random part of the allocation constitutes chance, but it doesn't have to. When Taiwan was using the SNTV, one of the parties instructed the voters to decide which candidate to vote for according to the voter's birthday. That's uniform but it's not random (since the birthday remains the same). No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.72/2337 - Release Date: 08/31/09 05:50:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting, now with racial demographics
If one of the requirements is to secure representation within a state for the significant (racial) minorities within that state, would it not make much more sense to start with a voting system that had such an objective rather than engage in deliberate distortion of district boundaries in an attempt to overcome the deficiencies of a voting system designed for a completely different purpose? James Gilmour Brian Olson Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 2:39 PM As this isn't something I really want it's going to be hard to get motivated to work it out. That said I think the way to go about it is to make unbiased districts by my current district, then pick one district with the highest proportion of the desired minority to elevate and adjust all the districts until that one has a majority of the desired minority. Repeat one district at a time until there are enough (some states require two or three I think). On Jul 16, 2009, at 6:46 PM, Raph Frank wrote: Are you considering updating the algorithm to include majority minority districts? This would potentially decrease the legal issues with using it for districting. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.19/2245 - Release Date: 07/18/09 05:57:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Forced strictly-dishonest strategy is common inSchulze-beatpaths voting
Jan Kok Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 12:50 AM Warren wrote: I have news for you. The concept of strategic voting is entirely about caring more about vanishingly small gains in utility than about honesty. It's not vanishingly small if you think about it from a team perspective. If you are not referring to any particular voting system, spectacular support for Jan's view is available from the 1997 UK General Election (FPTP in SMDs). Large numbers of supporters of several parties voted insincerely to make sure that Conservative MPs were unseated throughout Scotland and Wales. Despite having significant voting support in both countries, the Conservatives did not win a single seat in either Scotland or Wales. That was the direct result of well organised, and very effective, cross-party Tory-free Scotland and Tory-free Wales tactical voting campaigns. Incidentally, we call this tactical voting, when the voter votes insincerely in response to the local political situation. We use strategic voting for situations where they vote insincerely in response to some feature of the voting system itself. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.364 / Virus Database: 270.12.68/2175 - Release Date: 06/14/09 05:53:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] simple definition of Schulze method?
2009/6/4 James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk Markus, UK electors have no hope of understanding that question at all after any campaign, never mind not instantly. And of those who would vote, large numbers would go to vote with very little prior information. Just two weeks before polling day for the 2007 elections to the Scottish Parliament ONLY ONE-THIRD of electors were able to say correctly which political parties had ministers in the Scottish Executive that had been running the country for the previous four years. 19% said they did not know, and the rest gave wrong answers. The level of political knowledge among the electors must not be over-estimated - it is almost certainly a lot lower than most of us would like to think. And I suspect Scotland and the UK are not unique in that. -Original Message- From: Árpád Magosányi [mailto:mag...@rabic.org] This is the people are dumb reasoning, which I believe is false. Irish voters needed a year of brainwash to came close to change their opinion on EU constitution. We cannot be grateful to them enough for that no. After that you can tell me anything, I will know that they know what they are doing. As Chomsky said, most of us are able to speak fluently, so we should be able to understand anything. Our political system is built in a way which discourages people to pay attention? People are feed with bullshit instead of the real questions? These are the problems, not the people. I am sorry but you cannot dismiss the facts in this way. We are constantly told that purpose of any election is to give the voters the opportunity to Kick the rascals out. In political-science-speak, the most salient feature of any election is which party or parties form the current government. Then the voters can decide whether they want to keep that government or kick that government out. But if you are going to do that in any sensible way when you cast your vote, you first need to know which party or parties form the current government. In Scotland in the middle of April 2007, just two weeks before polling day, after three weeks of the intensive election campaign, and after many months of less intensive campaigning (as our elections are held on fixed dates), only ONE-THIRD of electors could correctly identify the parties in the government. Even if they knew nothing else about politics, surely they would know that - the most salient feature of the election? But NO, the hard evidence is that they did not, and to a staggering extent. Of course, the challenge is to those who have a message they want to get across. But in devising ways to get the message across, I say again, do not over-estimate the political knowledge or understanding of the electors. Do not take my word for that - look at the evidence quoted from the SES survey of 1,871 electors (a very large survey by all normal standards). And similarly, do not over-estimate the average reading age - even in literate countries the average reading age is much lower then you might think or like to think. Harsh, unpleasant realities, but realities nonetheless. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.53/2154 - Release Date: 06/04/09 05:53:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Good news - BC voters reject STV
Anthony O'Neal Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 7:04 PM This is sad news, no matter what the anti-STV fanatics say. STV had flaws, it's still a far better system than FPP. The anti-STV campaign put out a huge misinformation campaign which did nothing but say Hey look at how complicated STV is? AN ALGORITHM FOR VOTING! WHY EVEN HAVE VOTERS! Anthony, it was far worse than that - lots of newspaper articles, editorials and letters contained outright LIES. Like for example, STV would transfer my vote to someone whose election I oppose. That can never happen with STV, but it didn't stop the lies being spread. It was stupid, and generations later BC is going to regret what they passed up. Yes, indeed, and BC is going to regret it for the next two decades until they get the chance to consider electoral reform again. For many decades, the election results from Canada and its Provinces have shown everything that is wrong with FPTP in single-member districts. Along with the lies, there was some misinformation from the misinformed. And sadly, some who should know better, just do not begin to understand how a contingency voting system like STV really works. Or maybe they had a political agenda for opposing reform and just wanted to hide behind their misrepresentations of STV. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.329 / Virus Database: 270.12.30/2115 - Release Date: 05/14/09 17:54:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] British Colombia considering change to STV
Apologies if you have already seen this message, but it appears to have got the website but has not been posted out - at least it never came to me, nor did Kristofer's message that followed it on a completely different topic. JG Graham Bignell Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 4:10 PM This is one of the more amusing editorials about the proposal... http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/05/07/national-post-editorial-board-first-egghead-past-the-post-wi ns-b-c-s-referendum.aspx One sign that a society is running out of real problems is that bored upper-middle-class types start inventing phony ones. Thus do we periodically get initiatives aimed at replacing our perfectly functional first-past-the-post electoral system with some hybrid alternative that few understand or support. In Ontario, this alternative - soundly rejected at the polls in 2007 - was called mixed-member proportional representation. In British Columbia, it's called the Single Transferable Vote. It may be amusing to those not directly involved, but the sneering intellectual who wrote that editorial could hardly have got it more wrong. Far from being a phony problem, reform of a defective voting system is fundamental to the health of representative democracy. The voting system defines and determines the relationship between the voters and the elected representatives. That in turn, determines the relationship between the elected members and their parties, and it also determines the relationship between the elected members in the assembly (city council, state legislature, parliament) and the executive (government). The voting system determines the balance of power and accountability of the elected members as between the voters and the political parties that nominate most of the candidates. Some voting systems make the elected members much more accountable to their parties than to their voters. Some other voting systems shift that balance, to a greater or lesser extent, in favour of the voters. Correcting that balance is a real problem for society, not a phony one. Those who pretend otherwise have often got partisan reasons for opposing reform and trying to obscure this reality. If it were not so serious, it would certainly be amusing to see first-past-the-post described as perfectly functional. I can only presume that the writer of that editorial had not looked at the results of the FPTP elections in British Columbia or Canada over the years. BC, the other Canadian Provinces and Canada federally, all operate what is supposed to be (claimed to be) a representative democracy. So the first requirement of the voting system is to ensure that the various elected assemblies are properly representative of those who voted. On that, FPTP signally fails to deliver. And of course, in partisan elections, FPTP also makes the elected members much more accountable to their parties than to the local voters. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] British Colombia considering change to STV
Graham Bignell Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 4:10 PM This is one of the more amusing editorials about the proposal... http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/05/07/national-post-editorial-board-first-egghead-past-the-post-wi ns-b-c-s-referendum.aspx One sign that a society is running out of real problems is that bored upper-middle-class types start inventing phony ones. Thus do we periodically get initiatives aimed at replacing our perfectly functional first-past-the-post electoral system with some hybrid alternative that few understand or support. In Ontario, this alternative — soundly rejected at the polls in 2007 — was called mixed-member proportional representation. In British Columbia, it’s called the “Single Transferable Vote.” It may be amusing to those not directly involved, but the sneering intellectual who wrote that editorial could hardly have got it more wrong. Far from being a phony problem, reform of a defective voting system is fundamental to the health of representative democracy. The voting system defines and determines the relationship between the voters and the elected representatives. That in turn, determines the relationship between the elected members and their parties, and it also determines the relationship between the elected members in the assembly (city council, state legislature, parliament) and the executive (government). The voting system determines the balance of power and accountability of the elected members as between the voters and the political parties that nominate most of the candidates. Some voting systems make the elected members much more accountable to their parties than to their voters. Some other voting systems shift that balance, to a greater or lesser extent, in favour of the voters. Correcting that balance is a real problem for society, not a phony one. Those who pretend otherwise have often got partisan reasons for opposing reform and trying to obscure this reality. If it were not so serious, it would certainly be amusing to see first-past-the-post described as perfectly functional. I can only presume that the writer of that editorial had not looked at the results of the FPTP elections in British Columbia or Canada over the years. BC, the other Canadian Provinces and Canada federally, all operate what is supposed to be (claimed to be) a representative democracy. So the first requirement of the voting system is to ensure that the various elected assemblies are properly representative of those who voted. On that, FPTP signally fails to deliver. And of course, in partisan elections, FPTP also makes the elected members much more accountable to their parties than to the local voters. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.325 / Virus Database: 270.12.22/2105 - Release Date: 05/08/09 11:43:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] British Colombia considering change to STV
Raph Frank Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 1:51 AM I think a candidate list system is better though as it allows more general inheritance ordering. Ofc, it is always going to be a tradeoff between precision and complexity (both for the count and for the voter). Closed party list Open party list Tree based lists Candidate list PR-STV All, except PR-STV could be handled at the national level. Party list would allow a much smaller ballot. The 3 middle options would use the same pick one candidate ballot. This analysis is simplistic and completely ignores the fundamental philosophical divide between voting systems designed to deliver PR of registered political PARTIES and voting systems designed to deliver PR of what the VOTERS want (as expressed by the voters' responses to the candidates who have offered themselves for election). This is a matter of fundamental political philosophy - which route you take determines the relationships between the elected members and the voters, between the elected members and their parties, and between the elected members in the parliament and the executive (government). Where should power lie - in the parties or with the voters? To whom should the elected members be really accountable - to the their parties or to their voters? In some political cultures, having the political system centred around the political parties is not an issue (or does not appear to be an issue) and party list PR systems are common such countries. But other political cultures do not want the political system centred on the political parties, although the parties are an essential part of the political system. Some such countries do not like party list PR (even if an unrepresentative government has forced it on them!!). So the questions that must be answered first are not about the degree of proportionality or the complexity of the ballot, or even the size of the districts, but about what the voting system is intended to achieve in terms of representation. Some will be happy to go the party list route, but many others are not. Lumping all the multi-member voting system together as though there were all just different flavours of ice-cream is a flawed approach and it is unhelpful in the debate about how best to go forward in different political cultures. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.287 / Virus Database: 270.12.15/2093 - Release Date: 05/02/09 14:23:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] British Colombia considering change to STV
Juho Laatu Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 11:33 PM In Ireland, the constitution requires at least 3 per constituency and over time the average number of seats per constituency is being reduced. It is currently illegal (by statutory law) for constituencies to have more than 5 seats. For the upcoming EU elections, Ireland's 12 seats are being returned from all 3 seat constituencies. It practice that seems to set the limits to max 4 and min 2 parties/groupings per constituency represented in the Dáil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_30th_D%C3%A1il When the Dáil was created, Ireland elected 120 members from 26 constituencies (electoral districts) returning from 4 to 8 (YES, 8) members (average district magnitude was 4.62). Ireland's politicians divided the larger constituencies (especially in 1973) because they thought it would favour their re-election, so that the Dáil now has 166 members elected form 42 constituencies (average DM = 3.95). One could also develop rules that would make the system more proportional at the country level I think care needs to be taken here, as votes for a candidate are not necessarily the same as votes for a party. (The tree system can resolve this). This issue has been raised again in Malta, and there was an interesting paper on possible solutions in the January 2009 issue of Voting matters: http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE26/I26P1.pdf Yes. One could try to limit the number of candidates to keep voting easy from the voter point of view and to keep the size of the ballots sheets manageable. But be aware that in Malta, where they fill casual vacancies by counting the original ballots again, it is not uncommon for the two main parties to nominate up to 12 candidates for some of the 5-member electoral districts. Another feature of election law in Malta that results in longer lists of candidates is that they allow one person to be nominated in several electoral districts. If elected in more than one district, that candidate can decide which district to represent, when there would be an instant by-election to fill the casual vacancy so caused (when the ballots would be counted again). I think a mix of 5+ seater PR-STV seats and a quality national level system (say candidate list or tree list) might be a good compromise. See also the article in Voting matters, linked above. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.287 / Virus Database: 270.12.13/2091 - Release Date: 05/01/09 17:52:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] PR-STV with approval based elimination
Raph Frank Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 6:33 PM Also, I think later no harm basically means won't compromise. I am not sure that it is even a desirable criterion for a method to have and think that the fact that a method that doesn't meet later no harm is a not major issue. I don't think support for Later No Harm means won't compromise. If you impose a social choice interpretation on the rankings on a ballot, you would probably consider LNH to be undesirable, but of course, the rankings on an STV ballot are not social choice scores and should not be interpreted in that way. One problem with abandoning LNH is that it opens the way for strategic voting, that is, when a voter ranks the candidates in some order other than the sincere 'first to last' order of preference because the voter knows that some feature of the voting system will enhance the changes of the real high preferences being elected if the rankings marked on the ballot are distorted in a particular way. It is my experience when explaining voting systems to ordinary electors that they do consider LNH to be important. They not want a voting system in which marking their second choice would count against the election of their first choice. And of course, STV ensures that that cannot happen. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.287 / Virus Database: 270.12.12/2090 - Release Date: 05/01/09 06:17:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV proponents figure out how to make IRV precinct-summable
Raph Frank Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 12:56 PM Adb's ballot imaging idea takes this to the extreme. With pattern recognition software, you could support virtually any voting method. The counting process would just produce a list of numbers corresponding to each ballot. In its most simple form, you would just need a pattern recognition program that can recognise the numbers 0 to 9 and maybe also the letter X (for place an X next to your favourite candidate). As long as the ballots are designed to make this easy, it shouldn't be that difficult a task. There would be a box provided for each number that the voter fills in. I wrote some software that is a basic attempt at this. However, it only gives 70% ish accuracy. See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RangeVoting/files/Ballot%20image/ The circles are used to align the image and the black rectangle at the top is used to work out where the top of the ballot is. I think if there was demand, it should be possible to make this software much more accurate, since it doesn't have to worry about most of the complexities of handwriting recognition. It wouldn't have to separate out letters as each 'box' would only contain one number and there are only 10 possibilities. Also, since each box would be in a known position on the page, it would be able to figure out where each letter is located. I'm afraid there is a little more involved that your description would suggest because real voters do things you might never expect. But it has all already been done for public elections. Just one example of which I have some knowledge. In May 2007 in Scotland two different elections were held on the same day. In the MMP elections (Scottish Parliament) the two votes were recorded by Xs in separate columns on a combined ballot sheet. In the STV-PR elections (local government - 32 councils) the preferential votes were recorded by 1, 2, 3 etc in one column, for as many or as few candidates as each voter wished. The paper ballots from both elections were scanned to produce numerical vote files of the kind you suggest. But the compliance levels for character recognition were set very high, so many images were queued for evaluation under scrutiny. Those that were disputed or still uncertain were then queued for adjudication by a Returning Officer, again under full scrutiny. Only then were the completed numerical files passed to the relevant counting program. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.238 / Virus Database: 270.11.18/2008 - Release Date: 03/17/09 16:25:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV proponents figure out how to make IRV precinct-summable
Raph Frank Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:20 PM Well, as the software improves, this would be less of a problem. I'm afraid you have misunderstood (or maybe I didn't explain it clearly). It is not a software issue - it is a compliance issue. No matter what software you use to read the images, the Returning Officers will always have to decide the level of compliance for automatic acceptance. Many more ballot paper images could be processed completely automatically if the compliance level were reduced, even a little. But such is the distrust of black boxes that the ROs in Scotland asked for the compliance levels to be set quite high. Hence the symbol correction queue. The adjudication queue is quite separate and will always exist. Also, I think one of the issues in Scotland was poor ballot design which overloaded the ballot. There's lots I could write about this, but I don't have time right now. The real problem was with the MMP elections. The large processing queues and delays resulted from the need for adjudication on anything that did not conform, including a ballot sheet with only one vote recorded on it instead of the expected two. If you want to know more about this, see: Rejected Ballot Papers in the Scottish Elections 2007 http://www.epop07.com/papers/Gilmour-Pre-Conf-Paper-31Aug07.pdf A better layout might have been two separate ballots for each person, so it is obvious that they are separate. Separate ballot papers were used for the two MMP votes in the elections in 1999 and 2003. The combined ballot sheet (following New Zealand) was introduced in 2007 to address some very large problems in voter understanding of how MMP really works. For more on that, see the report of the Arbuthnott Commission: http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/Final%20version%20of%20report.pdf Abd's proposal is that lots of people would take images of the ballots and each ballot would have an ID number added (after it is taken out of the ballot box) for easy reference. All ballot papers in the UK have a unique number printed on the back. For electronic processing, they also have a unique barcode on the back that goes with the scanned image. The system is designed, both paper and electronic, so that no-one can see, at the same time, both the face and reverse of a ballot paper or an image of a ballot paper. You need a Court Order for authority to look at both the face and reverse of the ballot papers, and that will be granted only in cases where there is good evidence for fraud to be suspected. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.238 / Virus Database: 270.11.18/2008 - Release Date: 03/17/09 16:25:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV proponents figure out how to make IRV precinct-summable
Raph Frank Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 5:54 PM 2009/3/18 James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk: I'm afraid you have misunderstood (or maybe I didn't explain it clearly). It is not a software issue - it is a compliance issue. No matter what software you use to read the images, the Returning Officers will always have to decide the level of compliance for automatic acceptance. By compliance, do you mean the confidence level that the software outputs? I do not know how the DRS software works, so I cannot answer the question as asked. But as I understand, some form of intelligent OCR is used to read the image to produce the vote vector for each ballot paper. The system can be set to accept or reject various forms of the same vote mark. This is, for example, an unbelievably large number of ways of marking a 1 in a square in the voting column!! What angle away from vertical is acceptable? What degree of curl in the pencil stroke is acceptable? Does it have an up-stroke so that it might confused with a 7? etc, etc, etc. You have to see the images (hundreds of them) to appreciate the variation in what is actually done by voters. For the 2007 elections, an image was queued for evaluation if even the tiniest part of a vote mark (X or a number, depending on the election) went over the border into the next box. Also queued for evaluation were all ballot papers that had ANY additional marks at all anywhere on the face of the paper. As I understand it, there are settable parameters in the system that could be set to accept or reject all of the variations described above, and many more. The compliance requirements were set high because when I and many others looked at the symbol images queued for evaluation, we said it was obvious which most of them were. But they had been queued because, in some way, they did not comply with the parameters set and agreed by the Returning Officers. Multiple independent images, processed by different people help with this issue. You would only need to check ballots where there is disagreement. I am not sure what you meant here, but if there was any disagreement about the symbol correction at the evaluation stage, the image was queued for adjudication by a Returning Officer. There were comparatively few queued for that reason. But there were very large numbers queued for adjudication for other reasons, so that the candidates and their agents would be happy with the decisions. The system used in 2007 was non-heuristic, but there was a heuristic version available that would learn from the symbol corrections at the evaluation stage and so progressively queue fewer and fewer images for evaluation. But that would have been a black box step too far, at least on that occasion which was the first time any of the countries in the UK had used electronic counting for ALL its elections. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.238 / Virus Database: 270.11.18/2008 - Release Date: 03/17/09 16:25:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] language/framing quibble
Fred Gohlke Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 1:24 PM The essence of democracy is not what you want, it is what the people of Owego want. The only way we can find out who the people of Owego want to be their mayor is to ask them. Our present electoral methods do not ask the people who they want, they tell the people what choices they have. Campaigning is not asking, it is telling. The failure of our political system is that it is not an asking mechanism, it is a telling mechanism. In spite of the advances in transportation, communication and data processing over the past 200-odd years, we have not yet devised a means of asking the people to make their own political decisions. We have the means, but not the method. My purpose is to devise a practical method of asking the people of Owego who they want as their mayor. Fred, there are two fundamental flaws in your approach. The person they want may well not want the job. So the choice has to be narrowed to those who would be prepared to take on the job. If that were not the case, everyone in Owego could offer themselves for the post, but that doesn't happen. The second flaw is that the reality is that not everyone wants make their own political decisions, and the proportion in that category is a surprisingly (and disappointingly ?) large. You may say that is the result of decades or centuries of conditioning and of being denied the opportunity to make their own political decisions. But I don't see any evidence of a groundswell of popular opinion or activity that suggest that is going to change any time soon, at least, not here in the UK. Indeed, I see (and experience) evidence that well-informed people surprisingly do not want to participate in decision-making, even when it affects them personally and very directly. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.8/1984 - Release Date: 03/04/09 19:17:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 6:44 PM OK James. I stand corrected. Although I think that Cincinnati OH defeated an STV plan for just such a reason - that the STV plan reduced the number of votes that each voter could cast for at-large seats. I am not familiar with that particular case, but the usual reason why STV-PR is defeated is because the partisan interests realise that they would loose power if they won seats in proportion to their support among the voters. The larger parties in particular do not want the voters to be represented fairly, that is, for the parties to win seats proportionately, in accordance with the wishes of the voters. Those parties want to keep a voting system that consistently distorts the voters' wishes in favour of their parties. I suppose district seats is a good alternative that tends to represent minority groups who live dispersed in different districts. No, this would NOT be good alternative, because the largest minority could win every one of the single-member district seats and so leave a majority of the voters without representation. NO voting system based on single-member districts can ensure fair and balanced representation of the voters. To achieve fair representation it is necessary to elect several members together - the more elected together, the more proportional the outcome will be. Electing more together also increases the diversity of views that can be represented directly (by one of their own kind), if the voters so wish. But you're right that a single ranked or rated vote method if a fair method (unlike IRV/STV) would better allow for a geographically dispersed minority group to obtain representation if they came out and voted in numbers proportionate to their population for candidates who represented their position and if their proportion of the population were at least 1/N where N is the number of seats being decided. I am afraid you have confused me here. The best way to provide representation for a geographically dispersed minority is to elect as many embers as possible at large (e.g. the whole city council). It is then up to that minority to make sure they all vote for the candidate(s) who best represents their views. If that minority is large enough to secure 1/Nth of the votes (or 1/(N+1)th of the votes in STV-PR), then that minority will obtain one seat, or more in due proportion to their votes. James On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:24 AM, James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk wrote: Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 6:03 PM Are you opposed to any kind of PR system? Only if you believe that all PR systems only allow voters to cast one ranked or rated ballot for casting a vote for a multi-seat at-large contest. Voters should always be able to fill out as many separate votes as the number of candidates that they are allowed to vote into office. If two at-large seats, then two separate votes, ranked, rated, or plurality. This statement shows that the writer has no understanding of the basic requirements of a voting system that will elect a properly representative assembly. A properly representative assembly is one in which the proportions of seats won by candidates supported by different opinion groups among the voters broadly reflect the relative sizes of those opinion groups among the voters. (In partisan elections, for opinion groups read political parties.) If N candidates are to be elected at large and each voter has N separate votes, then the assembly will be properly representative only by chance, no matter how the N separate votes are counted (ranked, rated or plurality.) In fact, multiple-plurality (at large) is one of the worst voting systems ever devised. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.16/1928 - Release Date: 31/01/2009 20:03 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 7:33 PM Obviously I did not express myself clearly enough for you. When a minority group lives concentrated in particular geographic districts then single-member districts give them good representation. In fact, the BEST method of ensuring fair representation for ALL minorities, including those concentrated in particular localities, is to elect all the members at large. If the voting support for any particular minority is large enough to justify one seat on the city council, then that's what they will win. No single-member district system can ever ensure that. What we see with single-member district systems around the world is that the boundaries of the single-member districts are persistently gerrymandered, either to obtain representation for some minority or to ensure that a minority that should be represented is denied that representation. Even when the drawing of the boundaries is in the hands of an independent Boundary Commission, the requirement to draw boundaries around single-member districts can, unintentionally, have either or both of these effects. The ONLY way to ensure fair (proportional) representation for ALL minorities (those geographically concentrated and those dispersed) and all majorities, is to elect all the members of the assembly together (at large), or at least, if it is a large assembly (e.g. state legislature), to elect the members from as few multi-member districts as is practical. But that is not enough - you also need a sensitive voting system that will give fair representation of the voters' expressed wishes, and that's where STV-PR comes in, with one single vote per voter. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.16/1928 - Release Date: 31/01/2009 20:03 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:43 PM, James Gilmour wrote: In fact, the BEST method of ensuring fair representation for ALL minorities, including those concentrated in particular localities, is to elect all the members at large. If the voting support for any particular minority is large enough to justify one seat on the city council, then that's what they will win. No single-member district system can ever ensure that. Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 10:30 PM Gee. I wonder why in practice that never seems to work in locales where STV methods have been implemented. Please provide references to the evidence for this statement with regard to STV-PR. (NB My comments related assemblies elected by STV-PR, not to IRV elections.) Simple correct mathematics say that your claim is wrong as far as single-member district systems. Here are the results of the 2005 UK General Election (UK House of Commons at Westminster, London) for the 59 single-member electoral districts in Scotland in which the winner is determined by plurality. Only four political parties contested all districts and only candidates of those four parties won seats. The fifth party contested 58 of the 59 districts. Party %votes %seats Labour 39.569.5 Lib Dem 22.618.6 SNP 17.710.2 Conservative15.8 1.7 SSP 1.9 16 other parties 2.5 That doesn't present a picture of fair (proportional) representation to me. NB These results are fairly typical of single-member plurality elections in the UK. In that election 39 of the 59 MPs (66%) were elected without a majority of the votes in the respective single-member districts. The lowest level of support for a winner was 31.4% of the votes in that single-member electoral district. 54% of those who voted in that election (1,265,097 voters) elected no-one and have no representative in the UK House of Commons, the most powerful House in our Parliamentary system. If these 59 MPs had been elected at large by STV-PR the results of that election would have been VERY different. NB I do not advocate electing 59 MPs at large - it is not necessary to elect so many in each multi-member district to obtain the advantages STV-PR would give in fair representation. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.16/1928 - Release Date: 31/01/2009 20:03 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
Kathy Dopp Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 8:08 PM I see that what you are suggesting as a change to STV such as using the Borda method does seem to be a *lot* better than current implementations of STV, Now THAT really would be an improvement. Borda can fail to elect the majority winner even when that winner has an absolute majority of first preference votes. Don't take my word for it - see the examples in Robert Newland's book Comparative Electoral Systems (published 1982, ISBN 0 903278 07 3). [Robert A Newland was a senior lecturer in Mathematics at the City University, London, England.] James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.14/1920 - Release Date: 27/01/2009 18:15 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Why the concept of sincere votes in Range is flawed.
I had written: I do not even think about putting all the remaining options into any order of preference, much less attempt it. Juho Laatu Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 7:24 PM Same with me. It is however probably not a big problem for you to pick some other product if your favourite brand is out of stock. Maybe, Juho, but that is VERY different from having to put ALL the other options into an order of preference - which is what was being demanded by some others here. As I have said before, I am totally opposed to compulsory voting and I am totally opposed to having to rank every candidate when I genuinely do not have any preferences among some of them. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.14/1918 - Release Date: 27/01/2009 07:26 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
