Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com wrote: I know what you mean. I tried to automate STV with two tin cans and a string, and got nowhere at all. STV sucks. Jonathan, Don't know what you're trying to say. If you mean that a spreadsheet won't work to automatically count STV, then that just shows how nontransparent the STV counting process is that an ordinary citizen who doesn't do computer programming and have programming tools and training cannot with out huge effort and time check the accuracy of any STV election by simply checking the tally during the canvass period, even if all the individual ballot choices of every voter are publicly published. Other methods, such as Condorcet and certainly the easy range or approval are trivially easy to count with a spreadsheet. BTW, I am against using any method where voters can only cast one vote for filling two or more at-large seats because this takes away votes from the voter - especially when using a single STV vote method to fill two or more at-large seats where sometimes your second choice will never be counted, even though your first choice ends up losing and even though you would have, under the plurality method, been allowed to cast two votes to fill the two at-large seats as it should be. The more I've learned about STV and IRV, the more amazed I am that anyone would consider using such an unfair method in any election, especially to cast one vote for a multi-seat contest where your second choice may never even be counted. -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf 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 6:01 AM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: I think it would be possible but you would have to have to have a few columns for each round. A lot more than a few. Try to do it with even 1/2 or 1/3 of all the possible ballot ranking combinations and a few candidates in a way that a newbie could just plop in new results and get an answer. However, PR-STV is a sequential system, which is harder to implement with spreadsheets. Virtually impossible to automate in a way that novices could simply plug in the number for any STV election contest for any number of candidates and ballot orderings. Prove me wrong if you can, but I doubt that you'll be able to unless you use a programming language that is also opaque to most people. 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. Party list systems are (mostly) monotonic. Do not know what Party list systems are, but all plurality elections are monotonic. The only time your 2nd choice won't be looked at is if you vote for the last candidate to be eliminated as your first choice, Yes, so that can be a very large group of voters whose 2nd choices are never considered even though their 1st choice loses and is one of several inequities that causes IRV/STV to have such undesirable outcomes. In any case, in an N seat election, up to 1/(N+1) of the voters will not have a candidate who represents them. In a single seat More than that with IRV/STV election process unless you redefine the term voters to only include voters left standing in the final counting round - as most IRV/STV proponents do. BTW, the process you describe below is very unlike PR-STV because voters may revote based on prior voting rounds' outcomes, but it is also very unfair as it allows only some voters to revote. PR-STV is designed to be similar to a process you could follow in a town meeting like situation. 1) Each voter votes for 1 candidate 2) Work out the Droop quota 3) If any candidate exceeds the quota, that candidate is appointed to the committee -- Select some of the voters (equal to the surplus) who voted for the candidate and allow them to move their vote (This selection could be made at random, or by deweighting all of those people's votes) 4) If no candidate reached the quota, eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes -- Allow those voters to move their vote to other candidates -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
OK, to get references to how it is a problem of exponential difficulty to count an STV election I am told to Google Bartholdi STV and you'll come up with many citations. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
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 suppose district seats is a good alternative that tends to represent minority groups who live dispersed in different districts. 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. Thanks. Kathy Kathy 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 -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf 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 5:48 PM, Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au wrote: STV tries to simulate that in a regular way that is hopefully deterministic (as in most versions), and guarantees all voters Later-no-Harm and of course doesn't have the same possibilities of bluff and gamesmanship possible in the live version. I wonder if that 'live' system would end up tending towards condorcet winners. If one candidate had 55 votes and another had 45. Would the supporters of the 2nd candidate switch to the condorcet winner, in order to try to draw away support from the 55 vote candidate. OTOH, if a condorcet winner did end up with only 5% of the first choice votes, they may not even realise that he has a chance. 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 6:04 PM, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com wrote: OK, to get references to how it is a problem of exponential difficulty to count an STV election I am told to Google Bartholdi STV and you'll come up with many citations. I think the point here is that it is very hard to manipulate PR-STV. To work out the optimal strategic vote is NP-hard. (Bartholdi and Orlin, 1991) Manipulation of STV for electing a single winner is NP-complete. This doesn't mean that the election is NP complete to actually count. It means that people are less likely to be strategic (as it is almost impossible to actually work out the strategically optimal vote). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
OK. Either my source gave me the wrong sources or perhaps we misunderstood each other to begin with. All the same STV is incredibly complex to accurately count by hand or by computer or spreadsheet as compared to other alternative voting methods. Kathy On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com wrote: OK, to get references to how it is a problem of exponential difficulty to count an STV election I am told to Google Bartholdi STV and you'll come up with many citations. I think the point here is that it is very hard to manipulate PR-STV. To work out the optimal strategic vote is NP-hard. (Bartholdi and Orlin, 1991) Manipulation of STV for electing a single winner is NP-complete. This doesn't mean that the election is NP complete to actually count. It means that people are less likely to be strategic (as it is almost impossible to actually work out the strategically optimal vote). -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf 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
On Feb 1, 2009, at 12:26 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com wrote: I know what you mean. I tried to automate STV with two tin cans and a string, and got nowhere at all. STV sucks. Jonathan, Don't know what you're trying to say. If you mean that a spreadsheet won't work to automatically count STV, then that just shows how nontransparent the STV counting process is that an ordinary citizen who doesn't do computer programming and have programming tools and training cannot with out huge effort and time check the accuracy of any STV election by simply checking the tally during the canvass period, even if all the individual ballot choices of every voter are publicly published. Other methods, such as Condorcet and certainly the easy range or approval are trivially easy to count with a spreadsheet. If technology-avoidance is your goal, to the point of counting by ordinary citizens, I don't know why you want to bring spreadsheets into the picture. There are several forms of STV in use that are amenable to hand counting. However, the actual counting algorithm for any STV method (with a minor exception for a couple of proposed composite methods that are not in actual use) is quite straightforward, and it's not difficult to implement the count in a scripting language that ends up being considerably more readable than a complex spreadsheet. What's more important, it seems to me, is that the counting software be open to inspection, and/or that the ballots be available for independent counting. There are multiple open-source counters available that could be used for either purpose (primary counting or verification). I have seen spreadsheet-based STV counts, but spreadsheets simply don't express iterative algorithms very well. (For that matter, I wonder whether a complete Condorcet count by spreadsheet can fairly be called trivial, depending on the method employed to deal with cycles). This is all something of a red herring, though, isn't it? BTW, I am against using any method where voters can only cast one vote for filling two or more at-large seats because this takes away votes from the voter - especially when using a single STV vote method to fill two or more at-large seats where sometimes your second choice will never be counted, even though your first choice ends up losing and even though you would have, under the plurality method, been allowed to cast two votes to fill the two at-large seats as it should be. By that standard, at-large plurality disregards all votes save those cast for the winners, since everyone else is eliminated and their voters are left without representation. PR, including PR/STV, seeks to produce a body that is as fairly representative of the electorate as possible, a goal at which plurality at-large elections fail miserably. The more I've learned about STV and IRV, the more amazed I am that anyone would consider using such an unfair method in any election, especially to cast one vote for a multi-seat contest where your second choice may never even be counted. I'm more concerned that my vote actually contribute to the election of a candidate. STV significantly improves the chances of that. If you can't recognize the core flaw of plurality-take-all elections, I'm disinclined to attach much weight to your STV nit-picking. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
Kathy Dopp wrote: On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 6:01 AM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: Party list systems are (mostly) monotonic. Do not know what Party list systems are, but all plurality elections are monotonic. A party list system works like this. You have one vote. Vote for a party. The number of votes are counted, and then each party gets a share of the assembly proportional to the number of votes it got. Each party has a list, and if a party gets (say) four seats in the assembly, the first four candidates on the list are elected to the assembly. Here's an example: there are three parties, the assembly is of size ten. We'll use Webster's method, since it's most fair (possibly with the exception of Warren's dynamic method). The first party fields: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10. The same for the second and third parties, except their candidates start with B and C respectively. Run the election. Say the vote counts are: Party A: 847 votes = v_1 Party B: 300 votes = v_2 Party C: 640 votes = v_3 Now we need to pick x so that round(v_1 / x) + round(v_2 / x) + round(v_3 / x) = 10 (size of the assembly). It's rather easy to find x by just trying[1]. In this case, x = 160 works, and you get: Party A: round(847 / 160) = 5 seats Party B: round(300 / 160) = 1 seat Party C: round(640 / 160) = 4 seats which sums up as desired. To find out which candidates the parties got, just read off the list. There are five from the first party: A1 A2 A3 A4 A5; then there is one from the second party: B1; then there are four from the third party: C1 C2 C3 C4. The assembly is A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 B1 C1 C2 C3 C4. Open list PR works like this, but also lets the voters influence the order of the lists. When comparing STV to party list, I don't like party list PR that much (since it makes parties formally a part of the process), but party list *is* both simple and proportional, and the results are much better than those given by a two-party system. - [1] the function (size of assembly) - (round(v_1 / x) + round(v_2 / x) + round(v_3 / x)) crosses zero at the desired value of x, and it's also rather linear and certainly monotone, so we can use root finding with little trouble, or just try it manually. As an aside, it might be interesting to determine the asymptotic runtime of the fastest algorithm that finds x. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
James, You seem to have very much misunderstand every single statement I made when I told you that we are in agreement on this. On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 12:14 PM, James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk wrote: I am not familiar with that particular case, but the usual reason why STV-PR is defeated is because the partisan interests No. I believe that Cincinnati wants a fair equitable voting method that is publicly transparent and were smart enough to realize what an utter unfair mess the IRV/STV voting method is, and also recognized that STV/IRV methods tend to keep the top two parties in power by ensuring that minority parties cannot interfere unless the minority gets large enough to cause the elimination of the most popular two-party candidate, causing the least favorite two party candidate to win. 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 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. 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. Yes. That is exactly what I said. Cheers, Kathy 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 7:33 PM, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com wrote: No. I believe that Cincinnati wants a fair equitable voting method that is publicly transparent and were smart enough to realize what an utter unfair mess the IRV/STV voting method is, and also recognized that STV/IRV methods tend to keep the top two parties in power by ensuring that minority parties cannot interfere unless the minority gets large enough to cause the elimination of the most popular two-party candidate, causing the least favorite two party candidate to win. PR-STV with multi-seat constituencies is an extremely effective system at putting the voters in control. In Ireland, there are even complaints that it gives to much power to the voters. 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. Yes. That is exactly what I said. But you are recommending that minority representation is dependent on gerrymandering? 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 12:58 PM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: But you are recommending that minority representation is dependent on gerrymandering? Apparently you completely misunderstood what I said not once, but twice. Please reread what I said. Thanks. Kathy -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf 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 7:56 PM, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com wrote: Again you misconstrue my position. Like virtually all computer scientists who do not profit from selling or certifying computerized voting systems (and even some who do), I believe that there should be methods that average non-programming citizens can use to independently check the accuracy of vote counts. Virtually all computer scientists? You on the other hand seem to desire to push for voting methods that would not allow ordinary citizens to check the accuracy of election results unless they hired a trusted computer programmer or unless a 100% hand count was done of every IRV/STV election and the ordinary citizens are allowed to and have time to observe. Voters are always going to have to trust someone. It's not like everyone gets to hand count the ballots themselves. If the ballots were published, it would be pretty easy to convert them into a result. Lots of programmers would probably do it for free. Again, I care much more about the public being able to have an understandable method of verifying the accuracy of election results than you do since you are promoting virtually the only voting method that makes it virtually impossible for an ordinary member of society to verify the accuracy of results. PR-STV does allow that verification, you can make sure that the number of ballots in each sub-pile is correct and that each ballot is in the correct sub-pile. Yes, well the PR/STV counting method fails even more miserably at this goal of fair representation than does plurality, in ways that treat voters unequally and unfairly and do not allow a voter to even know how to vote to help his favorite or second favorite candidate have a better chance to win. Rank the candidates in order of your choice is a perfectly reasonable strategy. Some parties use 'vote management' which can slightly increase their number of seats that they win. Btw, I think you need to differentiate between PR-STV and IRV. The issues with IRV are considerably lessened with the switch to multi-seat elections. 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 8:00 PM, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: But you are recommending that minority representation is dependent on gerrymandering? Apparently you completely misunderstood what I said not once, but twice. Please reread what I said. I assume you mean: 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. Ok, so that is single non transferable vote. Each voter votes for 1 candidate and the N candidates with the most votes win the N seats? This has serious strategy issues. For example, lets say that there are 3 parties and 5 seats A1: 25 A2: 20 A3: 10 B1: 15 B2: 12 C1: 18 The winners are A1, A2, C1, B1, B2 The A party obtained 55% of the votes but only obtained 2 of the seats. PR-STV would have allowed transfers from A1 and A2 to A3 in order that A3 would win a seat too. For parties to win a proportional number of seats, they have to coordinate their votes. If the A party recommended that some voters switch their support to A3, then the result might have been A1: 20 A2: 19 A3: 16 B1: 15 B2: 12 C1: 18 The trick is to split your votes evenly between candidates. However, if you overdo it, you might end up not winning any seats. This means that the party leadership has to keep a tight reign on their candidates. Also, voters have to follow instructions in order to optimise their votes. The effect of this is to shift power from voters to the party leadership. PR-STV handles the transfers automatically. If you vote for a candidate who turns out not to win, you vote is reassigned to another candidate who has a chance of winning. Likewise, if to many voters vote for a candidate, then excess/surplus votes are reassigned. 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 1:07 PM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: Virtually all computer scientists? Yes. Google on the topic or look at the ACM.org web site, the largest association of computing professionals in the world and see their list of tens of thousands of computer scientists who've signed on to their position, or read the work of the Technical Guidelines Development Cmte of the US Election Assistance Cmsn or the position of NSF funded project ACCURATE (voting system project) or the position of the National Institute of Science and Technology or the US Government Accountability Office, etc etc.. If you followed the field of election integrity at all or you would know this already. In fact to say virtually all is probably an understatement. It is probably all, although I leave room for there being one computer scientist who disagrees. Voters are always going to have to trust someone. It's not like everyone gets to hand count the ballots themselves. That is your opinion which is very different than the beliefs of the founding fathers of the United States who tried to set up a system of checks and balances whereby the public had to trust no one. Blind trust is not a principle that is conducive to good democracy. If the ballots were published, it would be pretty easy to convert them into a result. Not for the average citizen, who you do not want to be able to double check election results since you are pushing for IRV/STV the most difficult counting method that anyone is seriousy proposing to verify to my knowledge. PR-STV does allow that verification, you can make sure that the number of ballots in each sub-pile is correct and that each ballot is in the correct sub-pile. So you agree with what I said, to verify the integrity of an STV election an ordinary citizen would have to be able to observe a publicly held 100% hand count. Rank the candidates in order of your choice is a perfectly reasonable strategy. False - not if you want to avoid having your vote sometimes cause your 1st choice to lose and not if you want to avoid having your last choice candidate (who may also be the last choice of a majority of voters) sometimes win because not all voters' second, ... choices were counted in an equal and timely way. Really, don't you actually read the examples that are readily available that are posted on the Net or that people on this list have provided? The issues with IRV are considerably lessened with the switch to multi-seat elections. 100% FALSE statement. Just read some of the information that is available to you. STV exacerbates the problems of IRV because it is IRV but applied with even more complexity and inequity. Cheers, -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
Will take a look. That seems pretty paranoid. That is your opinion which is very different than the beliefs of the founding fathers of the United States who tried to set up a system of checks and balances whereby the public had to trust no one. Blind trust is not a principle that is conducive to good democracy. I am not suggesting blind trust. However, assuming that every programmer who could convert the ballot list into a result would just let it slide is completely unreasonable. If the government tried to faked it, a large number of programmers would code up their own counting algorithm just to see if it was true. I would be more concerned that the ballot data was faked/inaccurate. However, the integrity of that data has little to do with the counting method. So you agree with what I said, to verify the integrity of an STV election an ordinary citizen would have to be able to observe a publicly held 100% hand count. I am not entirely sure your point. In plurality, they would have to observe the count too. In any case, I like Abd Lomax's ballot imaging proposal for verification. Images of all the ballots would be published on the internet and people could then process them as desired. Each candidate + others present at the counting station would use digital cameras to image the ballots. In any case, I think that once there is an agreed ballot list/file, then the actually algorithm to process the ballots into a result is not as important. If the government tries to fake the results, every independent person who checked the ballots would complain ... loudly. False - not if you want to avoid having your vote sometimes cause your 1st choice to lose and not if you want to avoid having your last choice candidate (who may also be the last choice of a majority of voters) sometimes win because not all voters' second, ... choices were counted in an equal and timely way. Reasonable doesn't mean perfect. Some people vote on the basis of party and some people vote on the basis of how they like different candidates. PR-STV allows both types of votes (and all in between) to participate in the same election, while still maintaining a PR result. The issues with IRV are considerably lessened with the switch to multi-seat elections. 100% FALSE statement. Just read some of the information that is available to you. STV exacerbates the problems of IRV because it is IRV but applied with even more complexity and inequity. It is more complex. However, it is still equal. You vote is allowed to move around in accordance with your instructions (as given in your ranking). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
Ralph other IRV/STV proponents, I have already replied and clarified what I meant. Please go back and reread cause I'm not going to keep retyping the same, and I cannot prevent you from misconstruing my meaning if you insist. To clarify one last time, I clearly said (first sentence in my email) that I stand corrected that am not against FAIR, EQUITABLE, MONOTONIC PR methods. I.e. a multiple at-large contest with one ranked or rated ballot as long as that ballot is counted in a fair, equitable, monotonic way (I.e. NOT by IRV/STV methods). There. I hope that helps you understand my position and I'm going to from now on ignore any mischaracterizations of my positions and do more productive activities for the rest of today. Thanks. Kathy On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Raph Frank But you are recommending that minority representation is dependent on gerrymandering? Apparently you completely misunderstood what I said not once, but twice. Please reread what I said. I assume you mean: 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. Ok, so that is single non transferable vote. Each voter votes for 1 candidate and the N candidates with the most votes win the N seats? This has serious strategy issues. For example, lets say that there are 3 parties and 5 seats A1: 25 A2: 20 A3: 10 B1: 15 B2: 12 C1: 18 The winners are A1, A2, C1, B1, B2 The A party obtained 55% of the votes but only obtained 2 of the seats. PR-STV would have allowed transfers from A1 and A2 to A3 in order that A3 would win a seat too. For parties to win a proportional number of seats, they have to coordinate their votes. If the A party recommended that some voters switch their support to A3, then the result might have been A1: 20 A2: 19 A3: 16 B1: 15 B2: 12 C1: 18 The trick is to split your votes evenly between candidates. However, if you overdo it, you might end up not winning any seats. This means that the party leadership has to keep a tight reign on their candidates. Also, voters have to follow instructions in order to optimise their votes. The effect of this is to shift power from voters to the party leadership. PR-STV handles the transfers automatically. If you vote for a candidate who turns out not to win, you vote is reassigned to another candidate who has a chance of winning. Likewise, if to many voters vote for a candidate, then excess/surplus votes are reassigned. -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf 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
[EM] Some chance for consensus revisited: Most simple solution
Dear folks, I want to describe the most simple solution to the problem of how to make sure option C is elected in the following situation: a% having true utilities A(100) C(alpha) B(0), b% having true utilities B(100) C(beta) A(0). with a+b=100 and a*alpha + b*beta max(a,b)*100. (The latter condition means C has the largest total utility.) The ultimately most simple solution to this problem seems to be this method: Simple Efficient Consensus (SEC): = 1. Each voter casts two plurality-style ballots: A consensus ballot which she puts into the consensus urn, and a favourite ballot put into the favourites urn. 2. If all ballots in the consensus urn have the same option ticked, that option wins. 3. Otherwise, a ballot drawn at random from the favourites urn decides. Please share your thoughts on this! Yours, Jobst Jobst Heitzig schrieb: Hello folks, I know I have to write another concise exposition to the recent non-deterministic methods I promote, in particular FAWRB and D2MAC. Let me do this from another angle than before: from the angly of reaching consensus. We will see how chance processes can help overcome the flaws of consensus decision making. I will sketch a number of methods, give some pros and cons, starting with consensus decision making. Contents: 1. Consensus decision making 2. Consensus or Random Ballot 3. Approved-by-all or Random Ballot 4. Favourite or Approval Winner Random Ballot: 2-ballot-FAWRB 5. Calibrated FAWRB 6. 4-slot-FAWRB 7. 5-slot-FAWRB 1. Consensus decision making The group gathers together and tries to find an option which everyone can agree with. If they fail (within some given timeframe, say), the status quo option prevails. Pros: Ideally, this method takes everybody's preferences into account, whether the person is in a majority or a minority. Cons: (a) In practice, those who favour the status quo have 100% power since they can simply block any consensus. (b) Also, there are problems with different degrees of eloquence and with all kinds of group-think. (c) Finally, the method is time-consuming, and hardly applicable in large groups or when secrecy is desired. Let us address problem (a) first by replacing the status quo with a Random Ballot lottery: 2. Consensus or Random Ballot - Everybody writes her favourite option on a ballot and gives it into an urn. The ballots are counted and put back into the urn. The number of ballots for each option is written onto a board. The group then tries to find an option which everyone can agree with. If they fail within some given timeframe, one ballot is drawn at random from the urn and the option on that ballot wins. Pros: Since the status quo has no longer a special meanining in the process, its supporters cannot get it by simply blocking any consensus - they would only get the Random Ballot result then. If there is exactly one compromise which everybody likes better than the Random Ballot lottery, they will all agree to that option and thus reach a good consensus. Cons: Problems (b) and (c) from above remain. (d) Moreover, it is not clear whether the group will reach a consensus when there are more than one compromise options which everybody likes better than the Random Ballot lottery. (e) A single voter can still block the consensus, so the method is not very stable yet. Next, we will address issues (b), (c) and (d) by introducing an approval component: 3. Approved-by-all or Random Ballot --- Each voter marks one option as favourite and any number of options as also approved on her ballot. If some option is marked either favourite or also approved on all ballots, that option is considered the consensus and wins. Otherwise, one ballot is drawn at random and the option marked favourite on that ballot wins. Pros: This is quick, secret, scales well, and reduces problems related to group-think. A voter has still full control over an equal share of the winning probability by bullet-voting (=not mark any options as also approved). Cons: (b') Because of group-think, some voters might abstain from using their bullet-vote power and also approve of options they consider well-supported even when they personally don't like them better than the Random Ballot lottery. Also, (e) from above remains a problem, in particular it is not very likely in larger groups that some options is really approved by everyone. Now comes the hardest part: Solving problems (b') and (e) by no longer requiring full approval in order to make it possible to reach almost unanimous consensus when full consensus is not possible. In doing so, we must make sure not to give a subgroup of the electorate full power, so that they can simply overrule the rest. Instead, we must make the modification so
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
On Feb 1, 2009, at 12:07 PM, Raph Frank wrote: If the ballots were published, it would be pretty easy to convert them into a result. Lots of programmers would probably do it for free. Lots of programmers already do it for free, myself included. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
On Feb 1, 2009, at 12:37 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: To clarify one last time, I clearly said (first sentence in my email) that I stand corrected that am not against FAIR, EQUITABLE, MONOTONIC PR methods. I.e. a multiple at-large contest with one ranked or rated ballot as long as that ballot is counted in a fair, equitable, monotonic way (I.e. NOT by IRV/STV methods). I think it's a fair characterization of proponents of PR/STV to say that we would also favor fair, equitable and monotonic methods, but that we've come to the conclusion that a) we can't have all three, and b) if we have to give one of them up, we'll give up monotonic, and that it's not a close decision. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
On Feb 1, 2009, at 11:56 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Again you misconstrue my position. Like virtually all computer scientists who do not profit from selling or certifying computerized voting systems (and even some who do), I believe that there should be methods that average non-programming citizens can use to independently check the accuracy of vote counts. You on the other hand seem to desire to push for voting methods that would not allow ordinary citizens to check the accuracy of election results unless they hired a trusted computer programmer or unless a 100% hand count was done of every IRV/STV election and the ordinary citizens are allowed to and have time to observe. Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that as an ordinary citizen I don't trust the presidential count last November in California. If my only recourse is to observe a hand recount of every ballot, then there's not a lot of point in talking about verification by ordinary citizens. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Some chance for consensus revisited: Most simple solution
You're absolutely right, Juho -- I modified the condition a number of times and didn't realize the last version did not imply both factions prefer C to Random Ballot. The correct set of situations for which SEC is a solution is characterized by both factions prefering C to Random Ballot. The latter is in particular true when alpha=beta and C has the largest total utility. Sorry for the mistake, Jobst Juho Laatu schrieb: Makes sense but doesn't this allow also 50: A(100) C(40) B(0) 50: B(100) C(70) A(0) where 50*40 + 50*70 max(50,50)*100 but the A supporters may prefer random ballot from the favourites urn to the possible consensus result (C) and therefore vote (e.g.) for A in their consensus ballot. Juho --- On Sun, 1/2/09, Jobst Heitzig heitzi...@web.de wrote: From: Jobst Heitzig heitzi...@web.de Subject: [EM] Some chance for consensus revisited: Most simple solution To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Date: Sunday, 1 February, 2009, 11:02 PM Dear folks, I want to describe the most simple solution to the problem of how to make sure option C is elected in the following situation: a% having true utilities A(100) C(alpha) B(0), b% having true utilities B(100) C(beta) A(0). with a+b=100 and a*alpha + b*beta max(a,b)*100. (The latter condition means C has the largest total utility.) The ultimately most simple solution to this problem seems to be this method: Simple Efficient Consensus (SEC): = 1. Each voter casts two plurality-style ballots: A consensus ballot which she puts into the consensus urn, and a favourite ballot put into the favourites urn. 2. If all ballots in the consensus urn have the same option ticked, that option wins. 3. Otherwise, a ballot drawn at random from the favourites urn decides. Please share your thoughts on this! Yours, Jobst Jobst Heitzig schrieb: Hello folks, I know I have to write another concise exposition to the recent non-deterministic methods I promote, in particular FAWRB and D2MAC. Let me do this from another angle than before: from the angly of reaching consensus. We will see how chance processes can help overcome the flaws of consensus decision making. I will sketch a number of methods, give some pros and cons, starting with consensus decision making. Contents: 1. Consensus decision making 2. Consensus or Random Ballot 3. Approved-by-all or Random Ballot 4. Favourite or Approval Winner Random Ballot: 2-ballot-FAWRB 5. Calibrated FAWRB 6. 4-slot-FAWRB 7. 5-slot-FAWRB 1. Consensus decision making The group gathers together and tries to find an option which everyone can agree with. If they fail (within some given timeframe, say), the status quo option prevails. Pros: Ideally, this method takes everybody's preferences into account, whether the person is in a majority or a minority. Cons: (a) In practice, those who favour the status quo have 100% power since they can simply block any consensus. (b) Also, there are problems with different degrees of eloquence and with all kinds of group-think. (c) Finally, the method is time-consuming, and hardly applicable in large groups or when secrecy is desired. Let us address problem (a) first by replacing the status quo with a Random Ballot lottery: 2. Consensus or Random Ballot - Everybody writes her favourite option on a ballot and gives it into an urn. The ballots are counted and put back into the urn. The number of ballots for each option is written onto a board. The group then tries to find an option which everyone can agree with. If they fail within some given timeframe, one ballot is drawn at random from the urn and the option on that ballot wins. Pros: Since the status quo has no longer a special meanining in the process, its supporters cannot get it by simply blocking any consensus - they would only get the Random Ballot result then. If there is exactly one compromise which everybody likes better than the Random Ballot lottery, they will all agree to that option and thus reach a good consensus. Cons: Problems (b) and (c) from above remain. (d) Moreover, it is not clear whether the group will reach a consensus when there are more than one compromise options which everybody likes better than the Random Ballot lottery. (e) A single voter can still block the consensus, so the method is not very stable yet. Next, we will address issues (b), (c) and (d) by introducing an approval component: 3. Approved-by-all or Random Ballot --- Each voter marks one option as favourite and any number of options as also approved on her ballot. If some option is marked either favourite or also approved on all ballots, that option is considered the consensus and wins. Otherwise, one ballot is drawn at random
Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:43 PM, James Gilmour jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk 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. Gee. I wonder why in practice that never seems to work in locales where STV methods have been implemented. Simple correct mathematics say that your claim is wrong as far as single-member district systems. 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 10:27 PM, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com wrote: OK, well if you consider people who require transparent checks and balances paranoid' then I will honestly tell you that I consider people who blindly trust that all computer programmers are 100% honest and infallible is stupid and gullible then and possibly hasn't studied computer science himself. Not 100% of programmers are trustworthy. However, there would be a flood of people pointing out that there is a problem with the count if the government counted them up incorrectly. (assuming they release the ballot data). PLEASE go get an education on how trivially easy it is for ONE (1) programmer to arrange to fraudulently count votes for an entire county or state. There are so many reputable web sites of engineers and computer scientists where you could start that it is far far too numerous to list. I don't support electronic voting machines. IMO, voting should be done with paper ballots. We do PR-STV using paper ballots in Ireland. The counting is done in public. Representatives from the media, political parties and other groups are all present watching the counters do the manual counting. Misleading statement at best. In plurality voting methods a randomly selected partial count will give any desired probability of accurate election outcomes because plurality is precinct summable. In STV/IRV only a 100% manual count or an extremely extremely complex audit that virtually no auditors could understand would do. So, you mean take 5% of the ballots at random and just recount those ones. It may be a reasonable method for determining if a recount needs to happen, but I am not sure that it is a good way to do a recount. Also, I am not so sure that wouldn't work for PR-STV. A representative sample should give the same result as counting all the ballots subject to random variation. In any case, I like Abd Lomax's ballot imaging proposal for verification. Images of all the ballots would be published on the internet and people could then process them as desired. Duh. And then have you forgotten what we already discussed just this a.m. already? There is no method that a normal voter could use to easily count those. Well, you could check a random few ballot images and make sure the official rankings associated with those ballots are correct. Prove me wrong if you think you can by creating a SS that can automate counting for STV for an example... I don't think spreadsheets are the be all and end all of programming simplicity. In plurality, how do you see voters actually making sure the count is correct? It's not like they would actually handle the ballots themselves. 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] language/framing quibble
--- On Sat, 31/1/09, Fred Gohlke fredgoh...@verizon.net wrote: Good Morning, Juho re: People are not always good at reason based free discussions. How could they be? What, in our political systems, encourages reason based discussions? The method I've outlined cultivates such discussion among the electorate. Not the pseudo-discussion of campaign-based politics, but real discussion among real humans; the 'people' you malign. In theory many systems are supposed to support sincere discussions and wise decision making (e.g. single-party systems). In practice they easily get corrupted, or people find ways around the good principles. Continuous effort is needed to 1) think if the principles of the current system could be improved, 2) monitor the current system to keep it on the planned track, 3) develop new ideas that could then be carefully considered and tested and adopted, 4) react to changes in the environment and in the society itself. The value of an open, discussion-based system that embraces the entire electorate can be seen in the political philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre of Notre Dame University, as cited in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Dr. Edward Clayton of Central Michigan University. (Available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/p-macint.htm) To convey a tiny hint of the significance of MacIntyre's work, here are a few passages from Clayton's essay: When everyone is allowed access to the political decision- making process, The matters to be discussed and decided on will not be limited as they are now; Sounds a bit pessimistic concerning the current state and a bit optimistic concerning the planned future state. Good principle though. they will extend to questions about what the good life is for the community and those who make it up. The benefits of a practice would then flow to those who participated in politics -- in fact, certain important benefits could only be achieved by political participation -- and politics would make people more virtuous rather than less virtuous as it now does. When we have made the changes MacIntyre wants to see, politics will no longer be civil war by other means: 'the politics of such communities is not a politics of competing interests in the way in which the politics of the modern state is'. It is instead a shared project, and one that is shared by all adults, rather than being limited to a few elites who have gained power through manipulation and use that power to gain the goods of effectiveness for themselves. I'd be happier to hear opinions like the current system (Democracy and all the related details) has the correct principles but it does not work well enough in some places and on some topics. One can not eliminate competing interests but one can build systems that can handle them better than today. The project should be a shared project already now (democracy ~= we decide). Politics will be understood and lived as a practice, and it will be about the pursuit of internal goods/goods of excellence rather than external goods/goods of effectiveness. It is only because and when a certain range of moral commitments is shared, as it must be within a community structured by networks of giving and receiving, that not only shared deliberation, but shared critical enquiry concerning that deliberation and the way of life of which it is a part, becomes possible Would that I had the wit and wisdom to enthuse others to make our political infrastructures more democratic ... and more amenable to the dynamics MacIntyre describes. We would all benefit. re: I think all political debates easily become confrontational, both free discussion based and fixed position (e.g. party) based. That is certainly true of party-based discussions. It need not be true of free discussion, though. Free discussion can concern itself with problem-solving rather than ideological posturing, and, as MacIntyre suggests, will tend to do so, naturally. I think it is possible to establish discussion fora that are relatively conflict free and have open discussions. The problems tend to come when the system is involved with real decision making, when it offers people parts to climb the ladders of hierarchy in the society etc. In that situation we just need to be clever and plan the system so that it will work in the intended way despite of all the varying altruistic and selfish interests. re: I don't think parties are necessary. You could have fooled me. I may defend parties when you refer to them as no-good entities. That doesn't mean that I would have a black or white approach to them. There are various shades of gray as well as colours (that are more positive by nature :-). re: Few species kill each others as eagerly and as intentionally ... as we do. As long as our
Re: [EM] Time of trouble? Or put a lid on it?
--- On Sun, 1/2/09, Michael Allan m...@zelea.com wrote: Juho Laatu wrote: (I hope the role of public image doesn't get so strong that people would start thinking that their whitened teeth and wide smile are what they are, more than their internal thoughts. :-) All of us shaking hands and kissing babies. :) Yes, usually that comes from the heart, which is just a sign of health. :-) I guess we're just bantering. Yes. (I had also some interest in confirming that by default the sincere preferences of people can be said to be a key driver behind their external behaviour. Politicians may use an external mask intentionally. Also citizens without any such public position often have a mask on. But hopefully their life is not too much bound by that mask (and internal thoughts not forced to reflect the image given by the mask).) If we were being serious, I'd say the necessity of the whitened teeth and wide smile dates from the advent of TV in politics. (Wasn't it Richard Nixon who first learned about that, back in the 60's or 70's?) So the systematic of image making is more on the side of mass media and mass voting - a problem in the status quo. And granted all is not problematic there, much is healthy too. I respect our arrangements. The problematic I would like to discuss, without quite knowing how, or with whom, is more on the social side. The proposed voting method itself has no systematic flaws, none we've been able to uncover to date (and maybe we need to wait for empirical data). But I can easily forsee social problems that may be released as an indirect consequence of it. We have tensions in our societies that are held in a frozen suspension by our political arrangements, not least by our voting methods. I tend to think that all systems easily get frozen spots for various reasons. No set of rules is perfect enough to keep the system viable and flexible forever. One has to monitor and take care and make also small improvements to the system to keep it fresh and to respond to changes in the environment. There will be also many attempts to go around, twist, change and forget the rules. Better watch out and keep one's mind and discussions open. Some in this list who may ordinarilly be comfortable with discussing the social side of voting, may nevertheless be uncomfortable with discussing these particular tensions. Like Madison or Jefferson, who feared an unmoderated, unrestrained democracy, they might rather keep a lid on such issues. Yet, although it is simple enough to moderate and restrain discussion here in the list, it may no longer be possible to keep a lid on these issues in reality. I guess there is a balance between total freedom and control of the society as a whole. One could characterize large part of the features of our societies as an evolution story from the laws of jungle towards systems that we consider to give better results to us as a society and as individuals. The democratic societies even try to allow all the members of the society to decide the best direction of evolution themselves. Such systems require freedom and discipline/control/rules to be in good balance. The main axis of tension is probably the gross disparity in wealth, freedom and other goods that extends both locally (inter-class) and globally (inter-national). Yes, this is one of the key problems. Too large gaps tend to lead e.g. to revolutions and also various other forms of violence. What will happen when that disparity is thematized in formal voting and discussion, and floated in political action? Locally, will people continue to accept the degree of inequality that our economic system seems to require, in order to keep on functioning and producing goods? I'm not sure that inequality would be a requirement. Full equality in terms of wealth and power is impossible to achieve, but we can approximate that at some agreed/suitable level (e.g. by balancing the differences a bit where needed) - and still keep the natural competitive forces alive as the forward driving force in the society (and its economy). Juho And globally, if we open democracy to all the world's people, are we also prepared to open our borders to them? -- Michael Allan Toronto, 647-436-4521 http://zelea.com/ 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] Time of trouble? Or put a lid on it?
Juho Laatu wrote: I'm not sure that inequality would be a requirement. Full equality in terms of wealth and power is impossible to achieve, but we can approximate that at some agreed/suitable level (e.g. by balancing the differences a bit where needed) - and still keep the natural competitive forces alive as the forward driving force in the society (and its economy). So the realm of possiblity may contain mechanisms to correct the gross inequalities of opportunity etc. that divide class from class, and nation from nation. You and I can discuss this possiblity in abstract terms, like cultured gentleman.^[1] But what is the path from possiblity to actuality? And what are the danger points along the way? 1. A voting system is instituted in the public sphere, thus lifting the lid of the pot. People are free to express themselves on issues of gross disparity, to be heard, and to build consensus. The inter-class and inter-national tensions that were formerly suppressed and suspended are thus thematized in discussion and floated for political action. What shall the action be? Everyone is talking, voting... 2. Stuff happens. 3. Eventually reason prevails. The dwellers in the favelas and the peasents in the villages (despite long suppressed bitterness and anger) enter into a more-or-less rational discussion with the weathly entrepreneurs and landowners. 4. A promising disparity correction mechanism is discovered, and talked about. 5. A rough consensus emerges that, yes, this is the very mechanism we want. 6. Political action follows. The mechanism is emplaced. 7. It fails. 8. Stuff happens. Steps 2 and 8 are problematic. What kind of stuff can happen? [1] In Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, in the chapter on Aristotle's Politics, the last few paragraphs frame a broad context for discussing the extremes of democracy, reaction and counter-reaction. http://books.google.ca/books?id=Ey94E3sOMA0Cpg=PA187#PPA187,M1 That's p. 187, which contains the text Aristotle's fundamental assumptions... the rise of industrialism... Both for good and evil, therefore, the day of the cultured gentleman is past. -- Michael Allan Toronto, 647-436-4521 http://zelea.com/ 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 4:30 PM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote: Not 100% of programmers are trustworthy. However, there would be a flood of people pointing out that there is a problem with the count ... (assuming they release the ballot data). Yes. Let's hope there would be sufficient capable knowledgable programmers to check. However, most jurisdictions do not release the ballot data in the US. In some states unbelievably they even keep the machine counts secret from the public and refuse to release them. And in Utah they even mak the precinct-level counts hard to obtain. Either obtain them from all counties individually if you can (no requirement for the counties to give them to you) or pay $25 and wait two weeks until after the election outcome is certified and only then will they mail you a CD with the precinct vote counts on them!! Many states in the U.S. are entirely susceptible to undetectable outcome-changing vote miscount. I don't support electronic voting machines. IMO, voting should be done with paper ballots. Even when paper ballots are used, the counts are virtually always electronic done by trade secret software compiled into machine language in the US and in most states the publicly reported counts are never checked for accuracy after the election. We do PR-STV using paper ballots in Ireland. The counting is done in public. Representatives from the media, political parties and other groups are all present watching the counters do the manual counting. That is far superior a method to that used in most US states where ballots are secretly counted by private companies and the counts never checked at a level that would assure accurate election outcomes, or at all in most states. So, you mean take 5% of the ballots at random and just recount those ones. No, not ballots, because randomly selecting ballots and recounting them with a machine and manually does nothing to assure that the prior election counts were accurately reported. One must randomly select publicly reported vote counts that tally to the total results and manually count 100% of the ballots for each randomly selected vote count and compare it to the reported election results count. It may be a reasonable method for determining if a recount needs to happen, but I am not sure that it is a good way to do a recount. It isn't a recount and Yes, if the sample size is adequate and the procedures are valid, then such a manual audit does determine whether to certify the election or to expand the manual audit, perhaps to a full recount. Also, I am not so sure that wouldn't work for PR-STV. A representative sample should give the same result as counting all the ballots subject to random variation. Well randomly selecting ballots is problematic. Obviously there are no publicly reported vote counts to select so with IRV it has to be ballots. To do that you'd need entirely different voting systems that would print humanly readable unique random numbers on the ballots after voters cast them to preserve anonymity and prevent vote buying, publish all the ballots and their identifying numbers and then make the random selections and then rifle through all the ballots to find the selected sample to compare with the published results which again only programmers could show add up to the reported outcomes. For a method that is fundamentally unfair, going through all the expense and hoops and buying the new election equipment necessary to audit like this is not worth it, even if someone wanted to go through all the expense, time and trouble. Hence it is more practical just to do 100% manual recounts as a method of checking STV vote counts. Why not use a fairer voting method that is easier to check the machine counts since most methods are precinct summable? Well, you could check a random few ballot images and make sure the official rankings associated with those ballots are correct. That doesn't tell you that the total is correct though, so it requires that anyone who wants to know if totals are correct has a programmer he or she trusts. 100% manual counts are the only reasonably understandable way for the public to know that the counts are correct with STV, unlike with other precinct-summable methods. I don't think spreadsheets are the be all and end all of programming simplicity. Yes. well it is interesting that STV can not be automated in a spreadsheet that you could give to election officials or others to use to count it, whereas other voting methods can be. Many more people can use spreadsheets than check a complex program that could count an STV election and make sure that the executable was really of the correct source code, etc. In plurality, how do you see voters actually making sure the count is correct? It's not like they would actually handle the ballots themselves. No, but they can add up all the precinct totals and see that they add up correctly and then manually audit
