Recently, in his "grand compromise" proposal, Jobst suggested k-consistency as a valuable criterion.

In the multiwinner context,

            a method is k-consistent

                      iff

            a candidate set S winning
        in each of its k candidate supersets

                implies that

             S is the winning set.

For example, Proportional Approval Voting (PAV) is k-consistent for all k greater than or equal to twice the number of seats.

This follows from the fact that under PAV the winning set S is the set that gets the over all highest "sum of discounted redundant layers of representation" from the ballots, and that this kind of sum depends only on which candidates are in the set, not on how many are excluded. Here we assume (as usual) that the approval ballots are not altered for scoring different subsets.

It isn't possible in general for a PR method to be k-consistent when k is between the number of seats and twice that number, as the following two seat example shows:


25 A=C 25 A=D 25 B=D 24 B=C 1 B

Any decent PR method must seat the set {A,B}.

However the set S={C,D} will come out winner in any of its three candidate supersets, since it doesn't have to compete directly with {A,B}.

Of course {A,B} will also win in any of its three candidate supersets.

PAV satisfies the stronger property that the winning set of candidates always wins in any of its supersets.

Does anybody know of any other PR method that satisfies k-consistency for any k greater than twice the number of seats? Perhaps some version of List PR would meet this criterion.

STV doesn't satisfy k-consistency for even one value of k greater than the number of seats, not even in the case of single winner elections.

I would be extremely surprised if CPO-STV satisfied k-consistency for some value of k greater than the number of seats when that number is greater than one.

Also PAV is the only method of which I am aware that satisfies the other kind of consistency (relative to subsets of voters rather than subsets of candidates): if the ballot set is partitioned into subsets, and the candidate set S wins according to each of those subsets of ballots, then S will win according to the entire ballot set.

Perhaps some list PR method also satisfies this kind of consistency.

How about a version of Candidate Proxy that satisfies both?


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