[EM] Most elimination methods based on weighted positional systems are nonmonotone

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Consider an elimination method based on a weighted positional system. 
WLOG, when dealing with three candidates, the weighted positional system 
can be defined so that the candidate ranked first on a ballot gets one 
point, the candidate ranked second gets w points, and the candidate 
ranked last gets zero, where 0 <= w <= 1.


Furthermore, define that in the two candidate case, the weighted 
positional method reduces to Plurality - it elects the candidate which 
is ranked first most often, the candidate with a majority.


Then the following example should work to show nonmonotonicity for all 
values of w where 0 <= w <= 0.:


45: A>B>C
19: A>C>B
14: B>A>C
30: B>C>A
40: C>A>B
 9: C>B>A.

The outcome is that, first, B is eliminated and C wins, but when 14 
voters change their opinion from A>B>C to B>A>C (lowering A), C is 
eliminated and A wins.


Let's calculate this for the edge values (0 and 0.999). First, 0:

 Base situation:
A: 64
B: 44
C: 49

 So B is eliminated. Then:
A: 78
C: 79

 So C wins.

 Then, 14 voters lower A as mentioned above and:
A: 50
B: 58
C: 49

 So C is eliminated. Then:
A: 90
B: 67

 and A wins.


Second, 0.:

 Base situation:
A: 117.9950
B:  97.9946
C:  97.9951

 So B is eliminated. Then:
A: 78
C: 79

 So C wins.

 Then, 14 voters lower A as mentioned above and:
A: 117.9930
B:  97.9960
C:  97.9951

 So C is eliminated. Then:
A: 90
B: 67

 and A wins.

It seems that this example can be used on w = 1-eps as well, for 
arbitrarily small eps > 0, but I have not proved that. If that is true, 
then all we need to know is to show an example of Coombs failing 
monotonicity and all WPS-based loser elimination methods that reduce to 
"majority winner" in the two-candidate case will have been shown to fail 
monotonicity.


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Juho  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 would have most of the same problems that plurality has where you
need to vote for one of the top-2.

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Jonathan Lundell]

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

> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Juho  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.



Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Juho]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 5:34 PM, Raph Frank wrote:


On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Juho  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


In this case the VPs are elected in a proportional way but one of them  
could be from the same grouping as the P (not in line with the  
requirements that I assumed).




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


I understood that the P and VPs could be the leader of the party and  
her "deputies". I understood that the same method could be used also  
at lower layers.




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.


If I understood you correctly, I agree that use of the election order  
of the council members is not a good criterion when electing the VPs  
and/or P. Number of votes of each elected candidate at the end of the  
election would be one step better. There was also the problem of the  
distorting effect of the different quota in the P+VPs election and the  
council election.


Note btw that also use of CPO-STV may be possible in this kind of  
small elections.




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


Do you mean that voters would concentrate on the first rankings and  
strongest candidates? The used method should be such that this kind of  
behaviour will not be rational.


Juho






Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Juho  wrote:
> Do you mean that voters would concentrate on the first rankings and
> strongest candidates? The used method should be such that this kind of
> behaviour will not be rational.

Yes.  If the order of election matters, then your first rank is
effectively for the president's position .. and it is a plurality
election.

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/4/28 Raph Frank 

> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Juho  wrote:
> > Do you mean that voters would concentrate on the first rankings and
> > strongest candidates? The used method should be such that this kind of
> > behaviour will not be rational.
>
> Yes.  If the order of election matters, then your first rank is
> effectively for the president's position .. and it is a plurality
> election.
>
>
Minor note: I proposed using order-of-election for vice president, not for
president.

How about this: Elect the council with STV. Elect the president from the
council with Condorcet. Elect a two-member subset of that council with
PR-STV. Any members of that two-member council who aren't the president are
vice presidents.

It gives a variable number of vice presidents. However, it seems like a very
fair all-around system, and needs no innovative new methods.

Or, if you elected a 3-member subset, I suspect it would be very rare that
the president was not in that subset. If she wasn't, and if 3 VPs were too
many, you could then repeat the STV to choose two of those 3, or let the
board elect 2, or let the president pick 2, or eliminate the Condorcet loser
among those 3.

(I still like my RBV method, and would still be willing to code it
open-source if the Czech greens are interested. But I understand if they
want something more proven.)

Jameson Quinn

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 8:37 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> 2010/4/28 Raph Frank 
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Juho  wrote:
> > Do you mean that voters would concentrate on the first rankings and
> > strongest candidates? The used method should be such that this kind of
> > behaviour will not be rational.
> 
> Yes.  If the order of election matters, then your first rank is
> effectively for the president's position .. and it is a plurality
> election.
> 
> 
> Minor note: I proposed using order-of-election for vice president, not for 
> president.
> 
> How about this: Elect the council with STV. Elect the president from the 
> council with Condorcet. Elect a two-member subset of that council with 
> PR-STV. Any members of that two-member council who aren't the president are 
> vice presidents.
> 
> It gives a variable number of vice presidents. However, it seems like a very 
> fair all-around system, and needs no innovative new methods.
> 
> Or, if you elected a 3-member subset, I suspect it would be very rare that 
> the president was not in that subset. If she wasn't, and if 3 VPs were too 
> many, you could then repeat the STV to choose two of those 3, or let the 
> board elect 2, or let the president pick 2, or eliminate the Condorcet loser 
> among those 3.

This is, I think, a decent general solution to ordering a set of STV winners: 
re-count, with only the current winners eligible, for successively smaller 
numbers of seats. 

However, as Abd points out, to the extent that the role is internal (board 
chairman as opposed to external spokesman), it'd be better for the board to 
elect their own officers. And if the role is both, perhaps it should be split.

The more general point is that, whatever the role of President is, it's likely 
to have different voting criteria from board member, and trying to force the 
same election to do double duty in electing both is at best questionable policy.

> 
> (I still like my RBV method, and would still be willing to code it 
> open-source if the Czech greens are interested. But I understand if they want 
> something more proven.)



Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:37 AM 4/28/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:



2010/4/28 Raph Frank <raph...@gmail.com>
On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Juho 
<juho4...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Do you mean that voters would concentrate on the first rankings and
> strongest candidates? The used method should be such that this kind of
> behaviour will not be rational.

Yes.  If the order of election matters, then your first rank is
effectively for the president's position .. and it is a plurality
election.


Minor note: I proposed using order-of-election for vice president, 
not for president.


How about this: Elect the council with STV. Elect the president from 
the council with Condorcet. Elect a two-member subset of that 
council with PR-STV. Any members of that two-member council who 
aren't the president are vice presidents.


Actually, a council can use standard deliberative process, which is 
far simpler, to elect officers by majority. So the task becomes one 
of making sure that the council is truly representative.


It's up to the council to decide which is more important: that the 
officers represent the mainstream thinking within the organization, 
or that they reflect the diversity of the organization with some kind 
of power-sharing. They can also use any kind of polling method they 
like, they can look at election results from their own election, and 
analyze them in whatever way they want. If a range-type ballot is 
used, they can look at factional strength, they can look at how 
important preferences are, they can do condorcet analysis, all the rest.


Deliberative process is far more flexible and powerful than any 
single-ballot voting system, and that's why complex voting systems 
are *never* used for elections within deliberative bodies. Voting Yes 
or No on motions, repeated, can handle vast amounts of information, 
and can use polling, when appropriate, to develop the options more 
efficiently, without getting stuck in some unanticipated quirk of a 
voting system. 



Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Peter Zbornik]

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?
If I have understood the discussion correctly, you are still in draft phase.
When some of you feel you have a good proposal at hand in this discussion,
feel free to summarize and put forward a draft.

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.

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.
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.
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  wrote:
>
> On Apr 28, 2010, at 7:34 AM, Raph Frank wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Juho  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.
>
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Jonathan Lundell  wrote:
> This is, I think, a decent general solution to ordering a set of STV
> winners: re-count, with only the current winners eligible, for successively
> smaller numbers of seats.

Yeah, it is reasonable.

The fundamental problem is that if you use PR-STV to elect N
candidates from N+1 candidates, then one of the factions that was
represented ends up not represented at all.  This isn't so big an
issue when N is large, but it becomes a larger problem as N gets
smaller.

For example, if the voters were arranged as a circle, and each
candidate represents a 120 degree sector, then picking any 2 of them
is not ideal.

Something like CPO-STV might help, but the problem seems fundamental.

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 7:19 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:
> Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.

Not sure if they have been used in politics.  However, they have been
used by various open source organisations.

Schulze's method seems reasonably popular.

> Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?

I would recommend approval voting.

For every candidate, the voter says approve or disapprove.  The
candidate with the most approvals wins.

However, it would require a separate ballot for the President.  The
reason for picking condorcet was to allow the same ballots to be used
for both counts.

Approval should mostly give the same result as a condorcet method, but
you just need to count how many approvals were received for each
candidate.

I am not sure if it is used much in politics either.  A variant is
used for election of the general secretary in the UN.

The main single seat method is plurality, but that isn't a good method.

> The president has to be elected by the delegates as is the case today, if
> the proposal should have a chance to pass.
> 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.

What about

Each voter submits 2 ballots
-- approval ballot
-- ranked ballot

The most approved candidate becomes President automatically, as a
separate election.

The ranked ballots are used to elect 6 other councillors using PR-STV.

The most approved councillor becomes 1st VP, the next 2nd VP and so on.

The gives reasonable PR and has VPs as councillors.

In fact, if there was 2 wing within the party with 51% and 49% of the
members, then it would give them 3 seats each and the President would
be elected from the 51% wing.

Also, hopefully, a party wouldn't have such partisan sub-parties.

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Terry Bouricius]

Ralph and Peter,

About the use of Approval... Ralph wrote...


The only recent use of Approval voting in governmental elections (I 
believe) was in the waning days of the Soviet Union, where voters were 
instructed to cross out the names of DIS-approved candidates, leaving each 
ballot with approved choices from each voter. None of the countries that 
emerged from the broken up Soviet Union kept that system, however.

A feature of Approval to be aware of  is the readily apparent strategy of 
disapproving closely competitive contenders to one's favored choice, with 
the potential that it may revert to de-facto plurality voting in some 
implementations. Because strategy is so much less obvious under Condorcet, 
and the fact that a single ballot can be used to elect both a president 
and the broader body (using single-seat Condorcet tally for the one and 
STV PR for the others) this is probably easier and better. However, unlike 
a society election (where citizens can't "quit"), elections within a party 
may have different goals in terms of proportional representation.

Terry Bouricius



Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 2:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:


Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.


Condorcet has not yet been used in a *government* general election.   
that does not mean it hasn't been used in politics.  it has been used  
in organization elections for a single winner.  i might consider the  
Czech Green Party to be an "organization".  you can choose to use  
whatever method you like without having to get a law passed as you  
would in a general election.



Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?


Condorcet *does* tend to favor centrist candidates because Condorcet  
makes good use of 2nd-choice rankings and people on the two extreme  
wings are likely to choose the centrist for their 2nd choice over the  
extremist on the other side.


but that is not a good reason to use Condorcet.  there are many  
reasons to use Condorcet but the main reason is simply majority rule:


If a majority of voters agree that Candidate A
is a better choice than Candidate B, then
Candidate B should not be elected.

that's really it.  that's why Condorcet is the correct method over IRV- 
STV, Plurality, Borda, Bucklin, Range, Approval or whatever else they  
come up with.  it's simple, transparent, and directly compatible with  
the goals of majority rule.


despite Kathy Dopp's knee-jerk reaction against STV, it probably  
remains to be the simplest fair method to get proportional  
representation for the multi-winner Council seats.  IRV proponents  
like to extend STV to single-winner, but it's pretty well established  
that it's inferior to Condorcet.  sometimes they elect the same winner  
and sometimes they don't.  the problem is when IRV fails to elect the  
Condorcet winner - when that happens, a majority of voters agreed that  
Candidate A is a better choice than Candidate B, yet Candidate B was  
elected.


--

r b-j  r...@audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."





Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 11:29 AM, Raph Frank wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Jonathan Lundell  wrote:
>> This is, I think, a decent general solution to ordering a set of STV
>> winners: re-count, with only the current winners eligible, for successively
>> smaller numbers of seats.
> 
> Yeah, it is reasonable.
> 
> The fundamental problem is that if you use PR-STV to elect N
> candidates from N+1 candidates, then one of the factions that was
> represented ends up not represented at all.  This isn't so big an
> issue when N is large, but it becomes a larger problem as N gets
> smaller.
> 
> For example, if the voters were arranged as a circle, and each
> candidate represents a 120 degree sector, then picking any 2 of them
> is not ideal.
> 
> Something like CPO-STV might help, but the problem seems fundamental.

Whether it's a problem depends on what the ordering is intended for. There's no 
guarantee in any group that you'll find a majority choice. It's just that 
successive counting is in some sense a defensible ordering, while order of 
election is IMO not.

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Peter Zbornik]

OK, thanks.
Please go on to propose the condorcet, if you think it is the best.

Approval voting was used in the French presidential election, first round,
where far-right nationalist Le Pen got to the second round.
Le Pen was hardly a centrist.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting#Effect_on_elections
Quote:"one study [16] showed that approval voting would not have chosen the
same two winners as plurality voting (Chirac and Le Pen) in France's
presidential election of 2002 (first round) - it instead would have chosen
Chirac and Jospin. To some, this seemed a more reasonable result[citation
needed] since Le Pen was a radical who lost to Chirac by an enormous margin
in the second round."

Peter




On 4/28/10, robert bristow-johnson  wrote:
>
>
> On Apr 28, 2010, at 2:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
> Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.
>>
>
> Condorcet has not yet been used in a *government* general election.  that
> does not mean it hasn't been used in politics.  it has been used in
> organization elections for a single winner.  i might consider the Czech
> Green Party to be an "organization".  you can choose to use whatever method
> you like without having to get a law passed as you would in a general
> election.
>
> Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?
>>
>
> Condorcet *does* tend to favor centrist candidates because Condorcet makes
> good use of 2nd-choice rankings and people on the two extreme wings are
> likely to choose the centrist for their 2nd choice over the extremist on the
> other side.
>
> but that is not a good reason to use Condorcet.  there are many reasons to
> use Condorcet but the main reason is simply majority rule:
>
>If a majority of voters agree that Candidate A
>is a better choice than Candidate B, then
>Candidate B should not be elected.
>
> that's really it.  that's why Condorcet is the correct method over IRV-STV,
> Plurality, Borda, Bucklin, Range, Approval or whatever else they come up
> with.  it's simple, transparent, and directly compatible with the goals of
> majority rule.
>
> despite Kathy Dopp's knee-jerk reaction against STV, it probably remains to
> be the simplest fair method to get proportional representation for the
> multi-winner Council seats.  IRV proponents like to extend STV to
> single-winner, but it's pretty well established that it's inferior to
> Condorcet.  sometimes they elect the same winner and sometimes they don't.
>  the problem is when IRV fails to elect the Condorcet winner - when that
> happens, a majority of voters agreed that Candidate A is a better choice
> than Candidate B, yet Candidate B was elected.
>
> --
>
> r b-j  r...@audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
>
>
>
>

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

[EM] VoteFair representation ranking recommended for Czech Green Party

[VoteFair]

To Peter Zbornik, per your request for a proportional election method for
the Czech Green party:

I recommend that you use VoteFair representation ranking to achieve your
goal of fairness in electing your Green Party's council members.

VoteFair representation ranking has these characteristics:

* It is relatively easy to explain and understand.  (It is explained below.)

* Reliable software to do the calculations (and optionally the balloting) is
available for free at VoteFair.org.

* Drafts of statutes to implement it already exist, and I can modify those
for your situation.

* It has been successfully used in a similarly adversarial election of
directors.

* Most importantly, it produces fair results when a group is split into a
few different sub-groups.

Here is a testimonial from Allan Barber who coordinated the use of VoteFair
representation ranking for electing directors of the San Francisco Bay Area
Curling Club:

"Our club is extremely pleased with multiple aspects of the VoteFair system.
The ability to vote online meant an extremely high voter turnout,
approximately 70-75%!  Equally as important are the concepts underlying the
VoteFair system.  Using a comparison system instead of the more common
method of voting for a single candidate we came out knowing that we had
voted in the candidates our club members preferred to have in the seats.
Not only were there a number of good candidates, which could have split a
conventional vote to the point of electing a non-preferred candidate, but
our club is essentially split between 2 facilities and some candidates were
known better in one or other of the facilities.  VoteFair [ranking] gave us
the ability to balance that out transparently.  Thanks!"

Verbally I was told that everyone in the club -- except the people who did
not get re-elected -- liked the results.

Before explaining the method, please consider that the reason your group's
voters are "dishonest" is that the current voting rules allow a voter to
vote strategically in a way that gives that voter (or that voter's subgroup)
increased (compared to other voters) influence over the results.  A
well-designed voting method does not allow the results to be influenced by
strategic voting.  In other words, widespread strategic voting reveals that
the voting method, not the voters, are flawed.

Regarding strategic voting, range voting is vulnerable to strategic voting
by using an approval-like approach where the approved candidates are given
the highest score and the disapproved candidates are given the lowest score.
(I presume the re-weighted version has the same basic weakness.)  IRV and
(all versions of) STV also are well-known to be vulnerable to strategic
voting.  These reasons alone are enough to disqualify them for use in your
situation.  The fact that they do not necessarily elect a Condorcet winner
is yet another flaw.

As you recognize, the Condorcet criteria is important for electing your
president.  You want to ensure that he/she is pairwise preferred over each
of the other candidates.

To achieve the Condorcet portion (but not yet the proportional portion) of
the outcome, I recommend using the Condorcet-Kemeny method.  For a simple
description of the method, here is the first paragraph of its description in
the "Condorcet method" Wikipedia article 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method#Kemeny-Young_method):

"[This] method considers every possible sequence of choices in terms of
which choice might be most popular, which choice might be second-most
popular, and so on down to which choice might be least popular. Each such
sequence is associated with a Kemeny score that is equal to the sum of the
pairwise counts that apply to the specified sequence. The sequence with the
highest score is identified as the overall ranking, from most popular to
least popular."

Of course you would have to add a description of pairwise counting, but
Wikipedia and other sources (indicated below) provide simple and clear
descriptions of pairwise counting.

The second paragraph provides a visual way to think of the Condorcet-Kemeny
method:

"When the pairwise counts are arranged in a matrix in which the choices
appear in sequence from most popular (top and left) to least popular (bottom
and right), the winning Kemeny score equals the sum of the counts in the
upper-right, triangular half of the matrix (shown here in bold on a green
background)."

A disadvantage of the Condorcet-Kemeny method (emphasized by Markus Schulze)
is that it is difficult to write software to calculate the results quickly,
and it is difficult to write the code that handles cases of circular
ambiguity and multiple highest Kemeny scores.  Yet this software-writing
disadvantage disappears by using the software at VoteFair.org; I've already
resolved those software-writing challenges.  Anyone can use that
server-based software for free.  During the last 10 years it has been used
for hundreds of real-life polls and surveys and dozens of (non

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

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

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.


The Pirate Party of Sweden used Schulze (Cloneproof SSD, Beatpath, etc), 
which is a Condorcet method, for its primaries. While that is not an 
ideal application of the Schulze method, it is nevertheless a political 
precedent; while the method has not been used in a political election, 
it has thus been used for internal purposes within a political party.


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:00 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:
> Approval voting was used in the French presidential election, first round,
> where far-right nationalist Le Pen got to the second round.
> Le Pen was hardly a centrist.
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting#Effect_on_elections

No, they use top-2 runoff.

The point being made was that approval would have picked 2 other candidates.

> Quote:"one study [16] showed that approval voting would not have chosen the
> same two winners as plurality voting (Chirac and Le Pen) in France's
> presidential election of 2002 (first round) - it instead would have chosen
> Chirac and Jospin. To some, this seemed a more reasonable result[citation
> needed] since Le Pen was a radical who lost to Chirac by an enormous margin
> in the second round."

I am not sure if Jospin was more centerist than Le Pen.

In any case, I think that approval and condorcet are both very good
methods for finding candidates that are central within the party,
rather than once who represent only one wing.

You should pick whichever method of the 2 you think is more likely to
be accepted.

Also, condorcet has the advantage of only a single ballot being
required.  OTOH, it is potentially harder to hand count.

If you plan to convert the ballots into a computer file with a list of
all the rankings for processing, then this is less of an issue.

You just run the condorcet program on the same ballots as the PR-STV
program is run.

You can probably find open source programs to do both.

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/4/28 Peter Zbornik 

> OK, thanks.
> Please go on to propose the condorcet, if you think it is the best.
>
> Approval voting was used in the French presidential election, first round,
> where far-right nationalist Le Pen got to the second round.
> Le Pen was hardly a centrist.
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting#Effect_on_elections
> Quote:"one study [16] showed that approval voting would not have chosen the
> same two winners as plurality voting (Chirac and Le Pen) in France's
> presidential election of 2002 (first round) - it instead would have chosen
> Chirac and Jospin. To some, this seemed a more reasonable result[citation
> needed] since Le Pen was a radical who lost to Chirac by an enormous margin
> in the second round."
>
> Peter
>
>
I think you're misreading Wikipedia there. Approval was not used; the
passage simply says that some suggest that if it HAD been used, the results
would have been better.

JQ

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Juho]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 6:37 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:


2010/4/28 Raph Frank 
On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Juho  wrote:
> Do you mean that voters would concentrate on the first rankings and
> strongest candidates? The used method should be such that this  
kind of

> behaviour will not be rational.

Yes.  If the order of election matters, then your first rank is
effectively for the president's position .. and it is a plurality
election.


Minor note: I proposed using order-of-election for vice president,  
not for president.


How about this: Elect the council with STV. Elect the president from  
the council with Condorcet. Elect a two-member subset of that  
council with PR-STV. Any members of that two-member council who  
aren't the president are vice presidents.


It gives a variable number of vice presidents. However, it seems  
like a very fair all-around system, and needs no innovative new  
methods.


If one uses the same votes in all three elections or in the latter two  
then the result could be quite proportional and quite free of  
strategic incentives. This method doesn't have the burden of keeping  
the president included in the elected "P+VPs" set (that is an  
"innovative new method"). But as a result the number of VPs may vary.  
If the president is not included in the VP set then the president is  
probably a compromise candidate from a small grouping. That causes  
some distortion in proportionality of the P+VPs set, but on the other  
hand I understood that there is also a strong interest to elect a  
centrist president and therefore this solution may be preferred to  
full proportionality. (Also the method where the president was forced  
to be included in the (fixed size) P+VPs set has this property.) We  
may thus not want full proportionality in the P+VPs set if we can find  
a good president "outside of the few leading groupings".




Or, if you elected a 3-member subset, I suspect it would be very  
rare that the president was not in that subset. If she wasn't, and  
if 3 VPs were too many, you could then repeat the STV to choose two  
of those 3, or let the board elect 2, or let the president pick 2,  
or eliminate the Condorcet loser among those 3.


We are now sliding back to the world of "innovative new methods". I  
think none of the solutions is perfect (the first one is maybe the  
best of them). But if one wants an exact number of VPs then something  
must be done to reduce their number by one (or add by one). One more  
approach would be to use STV to pick either two of all the candidates  
depending on if the president is included in the set of three or not  
(one needs however an additional rule on what to do in the rare case  
that the president is included in the two but not in the three).




(I still like my RBV method, and would still be willing to code it  
open-source if the Czech greens are interested. But I understand if  
they want something more proven.)


I didn't form yet any strong opinions on the RBV method. Is  
monotonicity the target that makes you like it more than STV?


Juho





Jameson Quinn




Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Dave Ketchum]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 5:26 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

2010/4/28 Peter Zbornik 
OK, thanks.
Please go on to propose the condorcet, if you think it is the best.

Approval voting was used in the French presidential election, first  
round, where far-right nationalist Le Pen got to the second round.

Le Pen was hardly a centrist.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting#Effect_on_elections
Quote:"one study [16] showed that approval voting would not have  
chosen the same two winners as plurality voting (Chirac and Le Pen)  
in France's presidential election of 2002 (first round) - it instead  
would have chosen Chirac and Jospin. To some, this seemed a more  
reasonable result[citation needed] since Le Pen was a radical who  
lost to Chirac by an enormous margin in the second round."


Peter

I think you're misreading Wikipedia there. Approval was not used;  
the passage simply says that some suggest that if it HAD been used,  
the results would have been better.


JQ


Read the quote carefully.  A bunch of centrist candidates split up the  
centrist Plurality vote, allowing for the two non-centrist winners to  
inspire all kinds of threats from unhappy centrist voters.  While  
Approval would have helped some centrists do better, Condorcet  
promises to hear the voters better.
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 05:26 PM 4/28/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:



2010/4/28 Peter Zbornik <pzbor...@gmail.com>
OK, thanks.
Please go on to propose the condorcet, if you think it is the best.

Approval voting was used in the French presidential election, first 
round, where far-right nationalist Le Pen got to the second round.

Le Pen was hardly a centrist.
See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting#Effect_on_elections
Quote:"one study [16] showed that approval voting would not have 
chosen the same two winners as plurality voting (Chirac and Le Pen) 
in France's presidential election of 2002 (first round) - it instead 
would have chosen Chirac and Jospin. To some, this seemed a more 
reasonable result[citation needed] since Le Pen was a radical who 
lost to Chirac by an enormous margin in the second round."


Peter


I think you're misreading Wikipedia there. Approval was not used; 
the passage simply says that some suggest that if it HAD been used, 
the results would have been better.


The study was of a test election conducted "in parallel," using 
actual voters who voted in the real election. 
http://rangevoting.org/FrenchStudy.html. This page on rangevoting.org 
describes the test, and does link to the original paper. The 
Wikipedia article links to the Wayback machine, and it wasn't 
responding. I edited the Wikipedia article a bit.


The rangevoting.org paper considers the use of approval as the first 
round in a two-round election, and suggests that this would have 
chosen Chirac and Le Pen to go into the runoff. The landslide for 
Chirac in the runoff, with increased turnout, shows that Chirac vs. 
Le Pen was not a good runoff choice. The problem was massive 
vote-splitting in the primary. Any advanced method in the primary 
would have produced a better result, probably. Approval alone in the 
primary, if used to finish the election, would likely have chosen 
Chirac as well, based on the French study, but there was serious 
majority failure, and thus a runoff would really be important. 
(Trying to decide elections with *many* candidates using a single 
ballot is difficult. Doing it with plurality in a primary and a 
runoff is known to fail in exactly this way, this was not the only 
well-known election to show this effect.)


Le Pen had very high "core strength," i.e., his supporters were very 
exercised to elect him. But that was it; while overall turnout 
increased in the runoff, Le Pen only gained a small number of votes, 
whereas all other votes were turned to him, so this was the heaviest 
landslide ever seen in a French Presidential election. Had it been 
Chirac vs. Jospin, it would have been close. My guess is that turnout 
would have been substantially lower, and that Jospin would have won. 
But the proof would be in the pudding.


Bucklin in the primary, and with that many candidates, more Bucklin 
ranks, possibly, though 4 ranks (3-rank traditional plus the default 
No vote of a blank) in Bucklin-ER can handle a lot of candidates. 
Would encourage a certain increase in the addition of approvals over 
standard approval voting, which doesn't allow the specification of a 
preference among approved candidates. In Bucklin-ER, one can 
categorize candidates in up to three ranks, with standard 3-rank 
Bucklin, and these are all approved ranks. Standard Bucklin had only 
one unapproved rank, one placed a candidate here by simply not voting 
for the candidate.


But a range ballot could be used to feed Bucklin just as well as a 
ranked ballot. That ballot, if it has enough ranks, could allow 
complete ranking; if voters simply rank all the candidates in 
sequence of preference, the ballot becomes a Borda ballot, which is 
often a good approximation of a Range ballot.


I believe that using Bucklin in a primary, with Range ballot input, 
but only using the approved categories to determine a winner by a 
majority, if that exists, and then using the ranking and rating 
information to make better choices of runoff candidates, allowing up 
to three, would handle a wide variety of election situations with a 
voting method that is still very easy to count, it is just the sum of 
votes in each rank or rating that is needed, it is precinct summable.





Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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

[Juho]

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




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). The  
option of allowing some deviation from full proportionality in the Ps 
+VPs set (while the c