Re: [EM] Proportional election method needed for the Czech Green party - Council elections

[Juho]

On May 3, 2010, at 3:51 AM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

Dear all,
if the single-winner president or the proportionally elected VPs
sometimes are not a member of the set of proportionally elected
council members (which is likely),

Possible but maybe not very common.

then I would also like to ask you
for a proposal on the last "conservative" method, thus it would not be
optional, as I wrote below.  Thus, in all I ask you for three
proposals.

Motivation:
I can imagine that there could be a method, which elected the rest of
the council members after the the president and some or all vice
presidents have been elected using proportional ranking (see the
proposal of Markus Schulze for an example).

Word "after" sounds a bit dangerous because of strategic voting.  
Voters that have gotten their representatives as president and vice  
president may get a second set of representatives if the election of  
the rest of the council is independent of the election of the  
presidents. In order to maintain good proportionality in the full  
council one could reverse the order of the elections (council first)  
and limit the choice of the presidents to the council members, or use  
the same ballots to elect both presidents and the council. (I note  
that later on you seem to propose using the same ballots in both  
elections.)

If term "conservative" means "already widely used and tested in  
politics" then maybe proportional ranking based methods fall outside  
of this category. But if you allow some fresh winds then such  
"locking" methods could be used.

Since the first vice president seems to be a more important position  
than the second and later vice presidents similar locking could be  
used throughout the hierarchical chain of presidents. In my first  
proposal I locked only the president and let the vice presidents be  
equal. Proportional ranking (in methods that aim at electing good  
compromise candidates first) would do the same trick to all vice  
president positions. The other council seats are equal, so  
proportional ranking is not useful there. But since the distorting  
effect of such "compromise oriented proportional ranking" may be  
considered just noise in the last seats it is not impossible to use  
proportional ranking to elect all the presidents and council members  
at one go.

(What I mean by "distorting effect" is that if you have left, centre  
and right, and centre has less first place support than the other two,  
then a good approach may be to elect C if one elects only one  
representative. But if one elects two then one could pick L and R (to  
be proportional). This means that the proportional ranking (or  
locking) approach always makes a mistake, either in the case of one or  
two representatives. But in the case of electing the presidents it may  
be well justified to elect C as president (the most important job,  
expected to represent all sections of the party) and then elect either  
L or R as the first vice president. And the other one as third. Fair  
enough although the "team of two" is not proportional.)


Such an election method would sacrifice a proportionality in the
council in order to elect the president unambigously and to achieve
proportionality between the president and some of the vice presidents
(at least the 1st VP).

The election of the rest of the council members would be done to
maximize the proportionality of the elected council, maybe by using a
modified version of STV, where the pre-elected president and vice
presidents would be considered elected to the council at the start of
the STV election, using the same ballots as for the  proportional
ranking election. Less important VPs (like for instance a fourth VP),
would be elected from the council.

As noted above, and if you want to emphasize simplicity, using the  
serial / proportional ranking approach to elect also the council  
members would not be a big distortion in the proportionality of the  
whole council. Note also that already electing the president outside  
of the ("otherwise to be") council would mean a minor (and not  
probable) distortion to the proportionality of the full council. My  
thinking is thus that if we want to serialize the election of all the P 
+VPs anyway, then one alternative is to use that same basic method all  
the way (since the resulting additional distortion will be smaller  
towards the end of the chain).

This kind of a method provides a complete proportional ranking of the  
elected council members. This is quite unnecessary towards the end of  
the list, but what is interesting at the beginning of the list is that  
there is no need to define the exact number of vice presidents since  
one can just pick as many of them from the chain as needed.


Thus, the rest of the council members would be elected in such a way,
that the council would be as much proportional as possible given the
pre-elected P and VPs.

The advantage of this method is, that there would be no ambiguity
relating to the legitimacy of the elected president and the most
important VPs.

What methods would you recommend for this scenario?

Would there be a software that could be able to handle this problem
(possibly after some slight modification)?

I think the scenario above (i.e.first proportional ordering of P and
some VPs, then balancing election of the rest of the council to
achieve proportionality in the council and finally possibly electing
some less important VPs from the elected council) is the variant which
would come closest to the way the elections are done in our party
today, while attaining proportionality.

Right now the scenario above seems to be the optimal solution, which I
would like propose to the party.

Based on my discussion above I propose to consider both approaches,  
locking the presidents one by one and then using some proportional  
method to determine the rest of the council (using the same ballots)  
as you propose, and using one proportional serial method to elect all  
members of the council.

If the requirement of conservative / already used methods (like STV)  
is not strict, then one could well use some Condorcet method as a  
basis in the serialization. This would also remove some the STV  
elimination process related problems. Markus Schulze proposed a  
Schulze method based proportional ranking approach for some uses. Also  
others like Ranked Pairs based are possible. I'm interested also in  
use of minmax(margins) due to its simplicity, explainability and good  
behaviour with sincere votes. But on this question I might be in the  
minority on this list, so also others than minmax(margins) must be  
ok :-).

I ask the members of this list to comment if the benefits of using one  
serial proportional method to elect both P + VPs + council members  
outweigh the problems of using that approach. (This may mean also use  
of and problems of "serial proportional Condorcet" vs. STV vs. "full  
proportional Condorcet" (e.g. CPO-STV) in different parts of the  
method.)



Some further notes.

I note that the criteria (of individual voters) to elect the council  
member vs. criteria to elect the presidents and vice presidents may be  
somewhat different. Maybe this difference is so small that there is no  
big problem to use the same ballots for both purposes. If that is a  
problem, then maybe election of the presidents among the council  
members after electing the council would do.

The serial proportional approach that locks the choices one by one  
(starting from the most important one and then continuing downwards)  
suits very well the need to elect the presidents. I note that the  
requirements are somewhat different if this approach is used in the  
primary elections to elect the candidates for the actual election. I  
understood that in the parliamentary elections the used election  
method is closed list based but has also some open list  
characteristics (http://electionresources.org/cz/). For the closed  
list part the order of the candidates needs to be determined. A serial  
proportional approach (proportional ranking) yields one such order. As  
noted above (in the L-C-R example) the serial approach and  
proportionality are in conflict. But the open list method forces us to  
use one. The list could be optimized so that it gives the ideal result  
with the number of representatives that the party expects to get. One  
would thus ideally not start the locking process from the first  
candidate but by first determining the set of the expected number of  
candidates and then work out the the shorter and longer lists. I  
believe the Czech Green Party is trying to get its first seat, so in  
this case the optimization could start from one representative, but in  
the future things might be different. The problem is that if one  
expects to get two representatives, then the two first candidates on  
the list should maybe be L and R and not C and A. If the numbers of  
representatives is higher these problems will mostly fade away.

I hope the number of candidates is within reasonable limits, so that  
the approach of ranking all (or all relevant) candidates is not too  
tedious to the voters. There are different ballot formats with  
different properties (and different possibilities to read the ballots  
by computers).

You mentioned also the possibility of additional requirements (in the  
P.S. mail). It is possible e.g. to elect certain minimum number of  
males and females. In the serial approach that was discussed above one  
simple approach would be to just eliminate all remaining male or  
female candidates at some appropriate in the serial process when all  
the remaining representatives must be of same sex. That approach would  
maintain proportionality is all dimensions quite well. Note that many  
political elections implement also regional proportionality in  
addition to political proportionality. Also within the party one could  
require that all regions are represented well enough. One could in  
principle follow the same approach as with males and females, but if  
one adds too many such rules then the election of last representatives  
may have some problems like some not having any northern young females  
left. But that is already another topic that we might discuss later.


It wasn't easy to arrive to the model above, but now I think the
problem is well-defined.

Best regards
Peter Zbornik

Thanks for sending more information on your preferences (and expected  
preferences of the Czech Green Party). This helps at least me in  
balancing the different requirements. For example the importance of  
the first vice president position and the fact that use of one ballot  
is possible influenced my text above. Now I'm wondering how to balance  
the requirements of simplicity and ease of understanding of the method  
vs. use of conservative methods.

Juho



2010/4/29, Peter Zbornik <pzbor...@gmail.com>:
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Juho <juho4...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

 On Apr 28, 2010, at 9:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

Hello,

I have some catching up to do here.
I need to think more about some of the different methods and the
proposals
I have gotten.
Some of the methods are new to me.
As I am a layman it takes time to understand them.

Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.
Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?


The most common single-winner methods (plurality, top-two runoff,  
IRV)
are
known not to be "centrist oriented". For example in the quite common
set-up
where we have two extremists and one centrist with slightly less  
support
they all elect one of the "extremists".

Approval and Condorcet are more centrist oriented. They are both  
also old
and well tested methods although they have not been widely used in  
public
political elections.

One problem with Approval (that was not mentioned yet) is the  
limited
expressive power of the Approval vote and resulting problems in  
choosing
the
right strategy, e.g. when there are three leading candidates and one
should
approve either one or two of them. That is problematic e.g when  
left wing
has 2 candidates and is is bigger than right wing that has 1  
candidate.
(In
Approval voters are generally assumed to vote strategically and  
not just
sincerely list candidates that they consider "approvable".)

If I have understood the discussion correctly, you are still in  
draft
phase.


Many of the presented drafts can be quickly made into concrete and  
exact
proposals. Some of the used components are more mature / well  
tested than
others. There are some details left to decide, e.g. which STV  
variant (/
which proportional method) or which Condorcet variant (/ which
single-winner
method) to use.

When some of you feel you have a good proposal at hand in this
discussion, feel free to summarize and put forward a draft.


I'm trying t listen to you to understand which one of the  
proposals would
be the best for your needs :-). Now my understanding is that you  
still
want
all the listed requirements to be met and you want to use as "well
tested"
(and simple/explainable) methods as possible.

Yes, the requirements are set.
People have to understand what they are voting about, if they are to
support
the method.
The people who like the majoritarian system can be expected to  
spread FUD
(fear uncertainty doubt).
It has at least to be a method in use in some organizations.
Maybe I shouldn't have excluded Schulze STV right away, since it is  
in use
at some places.


Are you btw ok with the idea of limiting the choice of P+VPs to the
(already elected of simultaneously elected) council members?

Yes as one variant



Using the same ballots with different vote counting techniques  
seems like
quite an elegant and interesting solution.
I never thought of that possibility.
If more than one ballot is to be used, then I prefer to having the  
P and
VP elected before the councilmembers.


There is a small problem here. If one elects the P and VPs first,  
then
the
voters may not give the already elected P+VPs any votes in the  
second
(council) round for strategic reasons (or maybe they are not even
candidates
there any more but considered "already elected"), and as a result
the groupings of P and VPs would be over-represented in the  
council. This
is
not ok if you want the council (that includes P+VPs) to be  
proportional.
(For this reason my first draft used the same ballots for all  
elections
and
the second draft elected the council first and P+VPs among the  
council
members only after that.)


Just to avoid misunderstandings:
The president is the party leader as in most political parties  
around the
world.
He is the main guy simply, the person appearing on television  
etc., the
one
people know best in the streets.
The president also chairs the meetings of the national council  
(sometimes
I
have used the term "board", the meaning is the same in this  
context).
Think Gordon Brown or Angela Merkel, small scale :o)
We have discussed splitting the external and internal funcions of  
the
president, but it is not politically feasible to do.


Two separate jobs then, and someone might be competent for one job  
and
someone else for the other. This would make the election process  
more
complex. The simplest approach would be to elect these two persons  
among
the
council members in two separate elections and forget  
proportionality with
respect to these two jobs. VPs could still be elected  
proportionally (but
they could be close to the two Ps => the set of Ps+VPs is not fully
proportional).

It is neither feasible to change the role of the president to be a
stricly internal guy or to have him elected by the council.
The president has to be elected by the delegates as is the case  
today, if
the proposal should have a chance to pass.


This should be ok. (No limitations on who can vote although in some
scenarios the set of candidates must be limited to the already  
elected
(or
simultaneously elected) council members.)


There was some discussion on if it is ok to elect a variable  
number of
VPs
(exact number not known beforehand) or if it is more acceptable to  
modify
the traditional methods a bit (an "innovative" addition).

Well normally, the VPs are variable and are not regulated by the  
party
stautes, thus not regulated by any method which should be specified  
in the
statutes.


The option of allowing some deviation from full proportionality in  
the
Ps+VPs set (while the council would still be fully proportional)  
is one
more
alternative to consider (this would keep the methods bit

 more traditional / less "innovative").

The rule of electing a compromise president may in some cases  
distort the
proportionality a bit anyway ->(in all scenarios), but the most  
common case
(if we allow extra deviation) would probably be one where >one of  
the VPs
would be close to the P, giving that section double-representation  
in the
P+VPs set (but >not in the council). You may have to pick one of  
these
problems :-), a varying number of VPs, some >innovativeness in one  
of the
methods, some (more) distortion in the P+VPs set proportionality,  
or maybe
some other new (slightly problematic) solution.

It is indeed appropriate, that at least the first VP is from the  
"opposite
side".
This gives the party peace and quiet in the party and appropriate
"balance/division of powers".
Maybe one might argue, that an election method without this  
"balance of
power" is not truly proportional, since not all council members are  
equal.
I would personally prefer complete proportionality, but I am not  
sure how
it
would be greeted.

On the other hand, a representative council would be a vast  
improvement
even
with non-proportionality in the P an VP.

Just to comment on the competitiveness in the party. I would say it  
is
pretty high. That is why we have the infighting going on. I am not  
able to
quantify hovever :o)

So I guess we would have two-three proposals in play:
1. optimal with proportionally elected P and VPs after council  
elections,
2. "traditional" (without proportionality in the P. and VPs. set)  
elected
after council elections.
3. (optional) "conservative" (preserving the order of election today)
- elect the P. and the VPs (either one-by one or together or first  
P and
VPs
together), Then elect the rest of the council members - using a  
method
which
is not overly complicated, while possibly sacrificing proportionality

I think it is good to have several variants, in order to check them  
with
some other members before proposing one specific model.

This might already get too complex, so maybe your proposal to  
propose some
complete solutions to >the problem (and list their benefits and  
problems)
after this discussion (that hopefully clarifies the >requirements)  
could be
the simplest way forward.
I aggree, lets not make it overly complex and let us round up the
discussion
with some specific proposals.
A brand new method, however promising, would first need to be  
tested and
evaluated using some real-life ballots, so I couldn't propose it to  
be sent
right into the statutes.
I guess that is standard when introducing any new "technology", to
have alpha and beta tests.
Those of you, who have sent me recommendations of methods only in  
private,
please send your specific proposals publicly.

I don't know if there is a "standard public database" of real  
ranked-order
or range ballots on which the different methods could be tested.
Such a database exists in the data-mining field:
http://www.kdnuggets.com/datasets/
Maybe that could be something to consider for benchmark purposes.

Maybe we could test some of the more "innovative" methods in the  
party on
real ballots.
This would allow us to evaluate.
Such a test would need to be consulted with the party first and it  
would
take some time.

A motivation why PR systems are better to use in organizations than
majority
systems, might be of help.

I am overwhelmed of the interest in this request.
I quite didn't expect such response, so thanks.
Please do not have too high hopes on me, it might as well end up  
that in
the
end, it will be decided to leave things as they are.



Juho



The vice president's are ordered first and second and third. The  
number
of VP chan vary. The VP are the ones who stand in for the  
president or
party
leader (in that order).
The president and the vice presidents are all member of the board,  
which
currently has seven members.

Best regards
Peter Zborník

On 4/28/10, Jonathan Lundell <jlund...@pobox.com> wrote:

On Apr 28, 2010, at 7:34 AM, Raph Frank wrote:

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Juho <juho4...@yahoo.co.uk>  
wrote:
You assume that there is only one VP.

Well, if more than 1 VP is possible, then the election could be

- Elect council with PR-STV
- The condorcet winner (only including the councillors) is  
President
- Elect 2 of the councilors as VPs using PR-STV

However, there is still the question of what exactly the VPs and
President is supposed to do.

If they are to chair council meetings, then it is better to just  
elect
them.

We could have also two and keep track
of which members are elected first, second and third.

I still disagree with using order of election in a PR-STV  
election.
It provides an additional incentive for dishonest rankings.

It also encourages strategic nominations. The whole idea of using
order-of-election in STV for *anything* should be drowned in a  
bathtub
ASAP.


It would have most of the same problems that plurality has where  
you
need to vote for one of the top-2.


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