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

[Peter Zbornik]

Hi,

I am a member of the Czech Green party, and we are giving our statutes
an overhaul.
We are a small parliamentary party with only some 2000 members.
Lately we have had quite some problems infighting due to the
winner-takes-it-all election methods used within the party.
I am sitting in the working-group for the new party statutes, and
would like introduce proportional elections instead.
So I thought I might find some help in this forum in formulating my proposal.

There are several practical different types of elections in the party,
which need to be addressed:
1. election of council members
2. election of delegates to regional and national rallies, where the
regional and national council members are elected
3. election of candidates to the ballot - primary elections

In this letter, I would like to ask you to propose good proportional
election system for the election of the council members.
A council exists at all levels in the party organization: national,
regional and local.

SCENARIO 1: COUNCIL ELECTIONS
We have to elect the following:
1. Election of the party president
2. Election of one or more vice-presidents in order of importance,
i.e. first vice president, second, third etc.
3. Election of the rest of the council members
Normally the council has five or seven members.

CURRENT SYSTEM:
Currently the president and the vice presidents are elected in several
two-round run-off elections
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system).
The rest of the board members are elected by block-voting
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality-at-large_voting) in the
following way:
1. A candidate who gets 50% of the vote is elected
2. In the second round, candidates with less than 25% of the votes are
eliminated
3. In the third round, candidates with less than 30% of the votes are
eliminated. Now only 40% of the votes is enough for election.
4. New elections are arranged for the rest of the mandates, where
candidates who got at least 20% of the votes in the previous election
rounds can run as candidates in new elections:


DELIVERABLES FOR IMPLEMENTATION:
In the end, if proportional elections are to make their way into the
party statutesm, then I have to deliver the following:
1. a proposal of a text to the statutes, describing the election rules
and procedures
2. a motivation of the proposal which shows why it is better than the
present one.
3. a vote counting computer program which works
4. preferably a ballot scanning program
5. preferably some good examples that the system works in real life.

CRITERIA:
I am looking for a approximately proportional election scheme, which is
(i) simple for the party members to understand - this is the main
criterion. A complex system like Schulze-STV has no chance of getting
required political support
(ii) simple to use, i.e. where it is quick to vote and vote counting
is also quick (max 400 votes cast)
(iii) gives results which leave most party members reasonably
satisfied with the result
(iv) votes are cast "secretly" on paper ballots, alternatively on some
smart electronic voting system that is as secure as paper ballot
voting.
(v) asset voting is excluded due to lack of political support

ASSUMPTIONS:
There are several types of board elections in the party, where several
types of assumptions apply:
1] 70-90% of the voters are "dishonest" - i.e. they vote strategically
as they are told by leaders, who want to maximize the number of
"their" people on the board - this is the case for the election of the
national party board
2] 30-60% of the voters are "dishonest" - the roughly regional election case
3] 20% of the voters are "dishonest" - this is roughly the local election case

Currently I am considering Re-weighted range voting and range voting,
since it fulfills the criteria above, but other simple-to-understand
methods could be used.
Maybe the RRV system will have be reduced to approval voting for the
high dishonesty scenario.
This would lower its attractivity.
A contender to the RRV-range voting system is the STV-IRV system used
by the green party of the USA, since it evidently works, but is more
difficult to understand than RRV: see
http://www.gp.org/documents/rules.shtml#section7

QUESTIONS:
Please propose a voting system fulfilling the criteria above with the
given assumptions, and answer the following questions:

1. if the proposed election system is as simple to understand as RRV
and range voting,
name what advantages and disadvantages it has to RRV and range voting.
Alternatively, which specific variant of RRV and range voting do you
recommend for the elections described above (normalization of voter
scores, number of categories, given that 70-90% of the voters vote
strategically)?
To clarify: Asset voting is excluded for this election type, since we
have problems with transparency and political support.

2. In which order should the election of the board members be
performed in order to insure that all the voters will be reasonably
satisfied with.
a] how should t

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

[Juho]

(Second try. It seems that the first message didn't get through.)




Here are some comments to multiple mails in this stream.


On Apr 27, 2010, at 2:45 AM, I wrote:


Draft of a method:

- collect ranked votes
- use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a  
compromise candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
and VPs will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)


One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect  
them from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the  
process would be similar.


If one needs to elect new members to the board to replace old ones  
one could use the old ballots + special rules that will not  
eliminate any of the sitting board members.




On Apr 27, 2010, at 9:19 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:


Why not:
- ranked votes
- STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first and  
second, one of them will be VP.
- Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use  
original ballots or have the council revote.)
- VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second  
councilmember.


This method picks P and VP among the candidates that would be elected  
as council/board members.






You assume that there is only one VP. We could have also two and keep  
track of which members are elected first, second and third.


The election of the VPs differs from my draft where the quota for  
council election is different from the quota for electing P+VPs. This  
may lead e.g. to electing VPs in a non-proportional way from some  
small groups that have only one candidate (while the larger groupings  
distribute their first preference votes to several candidates).



On Apr 27, 2010, at 11:36 AM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

I would prefer to have the P. elected by the same people electing  
the board. The P. is indeed the person most often representing the  
party on the outside.


Ok, to be included in the requirements.


On Apr 27, 2010, at 2:55 PM, Raph Frank wrote:


On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 1:54 AM, Juho  wrote:
A fully separate P election would make the board less proportional  
- unless
the elected P would have voting power only if he/she is already a  
member of

the board.


I think if there are a reasonable number of members, then the
non-proportionality will only be slight.


In a competitive political environment often also one member makes a  
big difference, and more so if the size of the board / council is  
small. This election is however within a party and I have understood  
that there are no clearly defined segments within the party, so the  
competitiveness is probably not as heavy as in an environment with  
clear border lines between parties. (I leave it to the Czech Green  
party to decide how accurate proportionality they want.)



I think both the President and VP should be centerists.  The President
should definitely be a centerist, so making the VP a non-centerist
gives that faction more power.


I think this is not in line with the targets that Peter Zbornik gave.  
The set of P+VPs should be proportional. I proposed to elect a  
centrist P but complement that by electing the VPs so that the whole  
team becomes proportional (as much as possible after possibly electing  
a P from a small but widely approved grouping).



Each voter casts a ranked ballot

1) The condorcet winner becomes President
2) The runner-up becomes Vice-President
3) Use PR-STV to elect the remainder of the council

This is simple and doesn't does require special rules to protect from
elimination.  The same ballots are just processed three times.


This method has the benefit of simplicity but P+VPs and the council  
are not proportional. (The council is to some extent proportional but  
not fully, depending on the size of the council and the number of P 
+VPs.)



On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:01 PM, Raph Frank wrote:

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Jameson Quinn > wrote:

Why not:
- ranked votes
- STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first  
and second,

one of them will be VP.
- Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use  
original

ballots or have the council revote.)
- VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second  
councilmember.


The order of election with PR-STV shouldn't be used to determine VP,
all seats are equal.

However, I think your idea to run condorcet after the PR-STV election
is a good idea.

I would change it to:

- ranked ballots
- PR-STV elects the council
- Excluding non-elected candidates
-- Condorcet winner is President
-- Condorcet runner-up is Vice President


Here the set of P+VPs is not proportional

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

[fsimmons]

Three slot Bucklin is also known as MCA (Majority Choice Approval): if no
alternative is "preferred" on more than fifty percent of the ballots, then the
approval cutoff is lowered to include the middle slot.

Compare this with three slot WMA (Weighted Median Approval) based on the same
ballots:

(1) The random ballot probabilities are computed from the submitted ballots.

(2) For each ballot b, if the total probability of the preferred candidates on
ballot b is no more than fifty percent, then the approval cutoff is lowered to
include the middle slot on ballot b.

In the three candidate case WMA and MCA give identical approvals.  But when
there are four or more alternatives, WMA is less of a blunt instrument compared
to MCA.  When there is no majority preferred alternative, under WMA the approval
cutoff is only lowered on the ballots where there is not a good chance that the
winner will come from among the preferred alternatives on those ballots.

As Chris Benham pointed out, this version of WMA satisfies the Participation
Criterion, whereas MCA does not.  On the other hand, MCA is efficiently summable
by precinct, whereas WMA is not.  

Both methods satisfy Monotonicity, and both methods are as clone free as three
slot Range is, based on the idea that the truer the clones, the more likely they
will be rated the same, and when not rated the same they will be rated 
adjacently.

Both methods satisfy Independence from Pareto Dominated Alternatives, provided
that ties are broken by random ballot or by random ballot probabilities
conditioned on the tied alternatives.

MCA satisfies the FBC (Favorite Betrayal Criterion).   I'm not sure if WMA
satisfies the FBC.  In other words, could raising one's true favorite from the
middle slot to preferred status change the winner from someone else (compromise)
with preferred status to a third alternative besides the recently raised 
favorite?

Thanks,

Forest

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

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

[Andrew Myers]

Peter,

Thanks for your comments. I'll address them inline.

On 7/22/64 2:59 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
> Dear Andrew Myers,
>
> this method looks interesting, as it is proportional, Condorcet and non
> STV-like.
> You write on your web-page, that: "the correctness of the algorithm
> depends on a currently unproved conjecture: that if improvement of a
> committee is possible, it can be done by replacing one member at a time".
> It would be very difficult to gain support for a method, which relies on
> an unproven conjecture.
> I see this as the biggest problem in your proposed method.

We should probably distinguish between the method and the currently 
implemented algorithm. The question is whether the algorithm correctly 
implements the method -- this is what the conjecture rests on. The 
current implementation gives the ability to compare any pair of 
committees directly, so it is possible to sanity-check the algorithmic 
result.


> I guess that from the presentation every voter votes for M candidates,
> where M is the number of seats, and that the voter uses range-like
> voting for each of the candidates voted for on the ballot.
> I don't understand the two modes - combined weights and best candidate
> and why two modes are needed.

In practice, "best candidate" seems to be the mode most people want. It 
supports only ordinal ranking of the choices. The combined-weights mode 
is more range-like, but -- crucially, from my perspective -- the 
ratings/weights assigned by one voter are NEVER compared to the ratings 
f another voter. That, to me, makes range voting a nonstarter.


> You write on your web page, that: "The factor (/k/+1) may be surprising
> in the condition for proportional validity, but it actually agrees with
> proportional representation election methods developed elsewhere; it is
> analogous to the Droop quota
>  used by many STV
> election methods"
> It could be nice, if you could show a proof on how the method achieves
> proportionality, what advantages it has to standard STV and how it
> tackles strategic-voting/vote management (for instance - give zero
> weight to the strongest competitors).
> I assume it is not used for elections anywhere, so some alpha testing
> could be appropriate.

I agree that more results about this method would be helpful. I haven't 
had time to push much on that. But actually, proportional mode has been 
used quite a few times for elections in CIVS. At last count, there have 
been 292 proportional-mode elections, and none of them have to my 
knowledge yielded the wrong result.


As one example, there is a gardening group that runs monthly 
proportional polls to pick which plants should be considered "plants of 
the month". My impression is that the use of proportional mode is 
periodically important for this kind of poll, to prevent, say, the 
orchid fanatics from taking over.


-- Andrew

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

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Peter Zbornik wrote:

Hi,

I am a member of the Czech Green party, and we are giving our statutes
an overhaul.
We are a small parliamentary party with only some 2000 members.
Lately we have had quite some problems infighting due to the
winner-takes-it-all election methods used within the party.
I am sitting in the working-group for the new party statutes, and
would like introduce proportional elections instead.
So I thought I might find some help in this forum in formulating my proposal.

There are several practical different types of elections in the party,
which need to be addressed:
1. election of council members
2. election of delegates to regional and national rallies, where the
regional and national council members are elected
3. election of candidates to the ballot - primary elections

In this letter, I would like to ask you to propose good proportional
election system for the election of the council members.
A council exists at all levels in the party organization: national,
regional and local.

SCENARIO 1: COUNCIL ELECTIONS
We have to elect the following:
1. Election of the party president
2. Election of one or more vice-presidents in order of importance,
i.e. first vice president, second, third etc.
3. Election of the rest of the council members
Normally the council has five or seven members.


Elect the president and VPs by a good single-winner method. I would 
recommend Schulze or MAM - the former is used elsewhere so you can use 
organizational precedence as an argument, whereas the latter is quite 
easy to explain. The vice president/s would just be the second, third, 
etc on the ordering provided (i.e. if you want to elect president and 
VP, whoever finishes second becomes VP).


Elect the rest of the council by STV. With a size of five or seven, you 
could reasonably do that election by Schulze STV (with a computer 
count), but you don't want that complexity, so I suppose that is out; 
thus use ordinary STV. You can use OpenSTV to determine the winner: 
http://www.openstv.org


If lack of precedence is not a problem, you might use QPQ instead. This 
method provides results similar to Meek STV, yet without the iteration 
required by Meek. QPQ is also supported by OpenSTV.


I prefer STV and QPQ to RRV because the former two satisfy a 
proportionality by bloc criterion that RRV doesn't: if a group of at 
least k Droop quotas worth rank the same set of r candidates above the 
rest (not necessarily in the same order), then the outcome will contain 
at least a number of candidates equal to the minimum of r and k from 
that set.


If you need the single-winner method and the multiwinner method to be 
fundamentally the same, patch your version of STV to, when eliminating 
in an n-seat election, eliminate the loser of an (n+1)-way Plurality 
contest among the lowest ranked candidates (all other candidates removed 
from that count). For IRV, n=1, so this means that the "loser runoff" is 
for the bottom two so that the one that is ranked above the other most 
often is spared from elimination, thus ensuring the Condorcet winner is 
never eliminated. Using a proper Condorcet method is better, but if you 
must, it's better to have a somewhat Condorcet method than one that 
isn't at all.



DELIVERABLES FOR IMPLEMENTATION:
In the end, if proportional elections are to make their way into the
party statutesm, then I have to deliver the following:
1. a proposal of a text to the statutes, describing the election rules
and procedures
There's an unfinished statute concept for the Schulze method here: 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Condorcet/message/645 . The text is 
missing a definition of weakest defeat, which is the defeat of one 
candidate by another where that defeat is closest to not being one at 
all, i.e. a tie. See 
http://www.telematicsfreedom.org/en/project/15/ssd-and-cssd-condorcet 
for an example.



2. a motivation of the proposal which shows why it is better than the
present one.


The single-winner methods are better because they don't polarize as much 
as top-two runoff. Condorcet methods tend to find centrists with wide 
support, which should help moderate the infighting you speak of.


Using STV (or QPQ) rather than bloc vote is better because bloc 
vote/SNTV is only proportional under strategy (and considerable 
coordination) whereas STV is proportional when voters vote honestly. In 
simple terms, STV and QPQ distort proportionality less than does 
plurality at large.



3. a vote counting computer program which works


See OpenSTV.


4. preferably a ballot scanning program


I am not familiar with these. I think the best approach would be to find 
a general scanning system (OCR or optical scan), then feed the output to 
the vote counting program.



5. preferably some good examples that the system works in real life.


There should be plenty of examples for STV. For Schulze, I don't know of 
any explicit such examples or statements, but organizations like Debian 
and Wikimedia use it and 

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

[Juho]

On Apr 25, 2010, at 11:24 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:


Hi,

I am a member of the Czech Green party, and we are giving our statutes
an overhaul.
We are a small parliamentary party with only some 2000 members.
Lately we have had quite some problems infighting due to the
winner-takes-it-all election methods used within the party.
I am sitting in the working-group for the new party statutes, and
would like introduce proportional elections instead.
So I thought I might find some help in this forum in formulating my  
proposal.


There are several practical different types of elections in the party,
which need to be addressed:
1. election of council members
2. election of delegates to regional and national rallies, where the
regional and national council members are elected
3. election of candidates to the ballot - primary elections

In this letter, I would like to ask you to propose good proportional
election system for the election of the council members.
A council exists at all levels in the party organization: national,
regional and local.

SCENARIO 1: COUNCIL ELECTIONS
We have to elect the following:
1. Election of the party president
2. Election of one or more vice-presidents in order of importance,
i.e. first vice president, second, third etc.
3. Election of the rest of the council members
Normally the council has five or seven members.


One approach could be to first elect all the council members using  
some proportional method, then elect the president among the council  
members using some appropriate single-winner method, and then elect  
the vice-presidents using some single winner method. This could still  
mean that the most powerful grouping would get all the president and  
vice-president seats. If you want the vice-presidents to elect  
different sections of the party and the party members are not expected  
to respect this wish and vote accordingly, then maybe you'd need some  
method that can elect also the president and vice-presidents in some  
proportional way.




CURRENT SYSTEM:
Currently the president and the vice presidents are elected in several
two-round run-off elections
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system).


Ok but not ideal. The biggest block might take all the seats. There  
are also better single-winner methods, e.g. the Condorcet methods.



The rest of the board members are elected by block-voting
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality-at-large_voting) in the
following way:


Not good, not proportional. I'd get rid of this one and use some  
proportional method. If your candidates are purely individuals and  
there are not too many candidates then STV could be used. If you have  
clearly identified subgroups then some list based method could work.



1. A candidate who gets 50% of the vote is elected
2. In the second round, candidates with less than 25% of the votes are
eliminated
3. In the third round, candidates with less than 30% of the votes are
eliminated. Now only 40% of the votes is enough for election.
4. New elections are arranged for the rest of the mandates, where
candidates who got at least 20% of the votes in the previous election
rounds can run as candidates in new elections:


DELIVERABLES FOR IMPLEMENTATION:
In the end, if proportional elections are to make their way into the
party statutesm, then I have to deliver the following:
1. a proposal of a text to the statutes, describing the election rules
and procedures
2. a motivation of the proposal which shows why it is better than the
present one.
3. a vote counting computer program which works
4. preferably a ballot scanning program
5. preferably some good examples that the system works in real life.


Should be doable (I don't know the status of the scanning programs  
though).




CRITERIA:
I am looking for a approximately proportional election scheme, which  
is


I propose to use a fully proportional method (if you don't have any  
requirements to make it only approximately proportional).



(i) simple for the party members to understand - this is the main
criterion. A complex system like Schulze-STV has no chance of getting
required political support
(ii) simple to use, i.e. where it is quick to vote and vote counting
is also quick (max 400 votes cast)
(iii) gives results which leave most party members reasonably
satisfied with the result
(iv) votes are cast "secretly" on paper ballots, alternatively on some
smart electronic voting system that is as secure as paper ballot
voting.
(v) asset voting is excluded due to lack of political support


I already mentioned basic STV and list based methods. Both approaches  
are very traditional and therefore maybe also easy to accept. (I have  
promoted also tree based methods that offer a more detailed opinion  
space than lists.)




ASSUMPTIONS:
There are several types of board elections in the party, where several
types of assumptions apply:
1] 70-90% of the voters are "dishonest" - i.e. they vote strategically
as they are told by leaders, who want to

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 04:24 PM 4/25/2010, Peter Zbornik wrote:

Hi,

I am a member of the Czech Green party, and we are giving our statutes
an overhaul.
We are a small parliamentary party with only some 2000 members.
Lately we have had quite some problems infighting due to the
winner-takes-it-all election methods used within the party.


You are familiar, I presume, with 
http;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy


For a small party to be effective, it must be coherent. Every time a 
"winner" takes all, i.e., forces a large minority (or sometimes an 
actual majority due to poor voting systems) to either support the 
winner or leave the party (or at least not support the winner), it 
weakens the party. A string of these can devastate it.



I am sitting in the working-group for the new party statutes, and
would like introduce proportional elections instead.
So I thought I might find some help in this forum in formulating my proposal.

There are several practical different types of elections in the party,
which need to be addressed:
1. election of council members
2. election of delegates to regional and national rallies, where the
regional and national council members are elected
3. election of candidates to the ballot - primary elections

In this letter, I would like to ask you to propose good proportional
election system for the election of the council members.
A council exists at all levels in the party organization: national,
regional and local.

SCENARIO 1: COUNCIL ELECTIONS
We have to elect the following:
1. Election of the party president
2. Election of one or more vice-presidents in order of importance,
i.e. first vice president, second, third etc.
3. Election of the rest of the council members
Normally the council has five or seven members.


The best way to handle council officer electinos is within the 
council itself, and repeated ballot is the standard way to do it; 
these officers should serve at the pleasure of the council, they are 
servants of the council. Thus ordinarily majority vote is adequate, and simple.


How you elect the council determines whether the council is 
representative of the members or of only certain powerful members. 
Since a political party cannot compel its members to vote or to 
donate to the party, it will do best if it truly satisfies the 
members that it is *their* party. However, some members, being very 
active, come to think that they know best for the party, and as long 
as they are reasonably popular, it can seem like what is good for 
them is good for the party. But the influence of the party will be 
limited, roughly, to their personal power, rather than to the 
normally increased power of a coherent group that seeks consensus and 
that is open to new members and their ideas.


If the organization has local councils that are open to attendance 
and participation and that seek consensus rather than simply making 
quick decisions by majority (they can still make decisions that way, 
including the decision of how much consensus is enough), the party 
will be a living thing, open to new growth. But the natural tendency 
of organizations is to devolve into oligarchical structures that 
self-limit, and that expand, then, only under certain conditions, as 
when a candidate, say, becomes personally popular among the general public.


It's remarkable to me how rarely do organizations arise that truly 
attempt to change the dominant paradigms of political structure. 
Mostly they imitate what they have seen operating in more powerful 
parties, or, occasionally, they choose alternate structures that seem 
better but that are inefficient and ineffective. Structure determines 
what elements in the party rise to power, just as it does for the 
overall society, so new political movements that use traditional 
structures recreate traditional problems with new faces.



CURRENT SYSTEM:
Currently the president and the vice presidents are elected in several
two-round run-off elections
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system).


Bad idea. Elect a representative council and let it elect the 
officers. Use elections like that and you are limited to fixed terms 
for officers. The model is the old King model, really, all we changed 
was that we elect Kings for fixed periods. There is a reason for this 
model; a King can make rapid decisions; but that requires a dedicated 
army responsible to the King. In democratic structures a president is 
a servant of the members, not the other way around. And the members 
can change the president at any time.


That is, any direct democracy can vacate the office of chair and 
elect a new chair, at will (following the rules for meetings). The 
purpose of a chair of a democratic meeting is only to ensure orderly 
process, so that members can be heard and decisios aren't railroaded 
through. A dominating or over-controlling chair in a real democratic 
organization is quickly gone, a chair who knows how to facilitate 
consensus, who is trusted to be f

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

[Jameson Quinn]

Two questions, before I respond more fully:

1.

2010/4/25 Peter Zbornik 

> (v) asset voting is excluded due to lack of political support
>

Can you clarify? Is the problem with vote secrecy of the "lower" delegates,
and/or with the "back room" process among the "higher" delegates (that is,
the candidates in the current system)? There are versions of asset voting
which avoid either or both problem - the former, by only allowing votes for
"qualified candidates" (however that's defined), and the latter, by having
each candidate pre-declare their transfer order, which is then made public
simultaneously before the vote and used to automate the transfer process. In
other words, it's basically STV with one predeclared ballot type per
candidate.

2.
Would you be interested in another proportional system, based on two-rank
Bucklin ("favor", "approve", or unvoted), which can be explained as STV-like
- that is, candidates accumulate a pile of a droop quota of (possibly
fractional) ballots to win, no ballot fraction is in more than one pile or
in a pile it doesn't approve. The advantages over STV are that my system is
monotonic, because it can find condorcet-like compromise winners for each
proportional segment of voters; that it's simpler to vote, either a
considered individual ballot, a "vote for one candidate, approve one
faction" simple vote, or a "party-line" factional vote; and that, unlike
STV, it has a good single-winner special case. The disadvantages are that
it's completely unknown as a system, that the internal mechanics are
complicated (except for single winner), and that I don't have a working
implementation - but I would be willing to code one if you're interested. If
you are, I would be happy to say more about this.

Jameson Quinn

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

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Peter Zbornik wrote:

Hi Kristoffer,
 
The election methods you proposed are a great help.
Just one clarification in order to avoid misunderstandings: The 
president and the vice presidents are all members of the board, i.e. you 
have X board members out of which one is the president, vice president etc.

Should have stated this more clearly.
 
My idea was that you elect all boardmembers in one election, and the 
person getting the highest number of votes will become the president, 
and the runner-up the vice-president etc.
Or maybe it is required to elect these people in two elections, as you 
write below.
Could I ask you to reconsider a reformulation of your answer to the 
questions below (especialy point c]) and if appropriate send it to the 
group?


Yes, I can do so. I hope you don't mind me just replying to this mail 
but on-list as well as off-, so that the election-methods list also gets 
a copy.


I'll get to the other mail - I just need a bit more time for that.


I wrote:
2. In which order should the election of the board members be
performed in order to insure that all the voters will be reasonably
satisfied with.
a] how should the elections be done, it the current election order
should be preserved (i.e. first you elect the president, then the vice
presidents etc.)?
 
You wrote:
First do an election for president and VPs. Run the ballots through the 
method of choice to get an ordering. The one who is listed at top on the 
ordering (outcome) becomes president. The one who is second becomes the 
first VP and so on down. That's one election.
Then elect the rest of the council. Run the ballots through STV (QPQ, 
...) to get the composition of the rest of the council.
 


c] if you reverse the election order, i.e. first you elect the board
members, then the president and the vice presidents, and lastly you
elect the president? This order of election seems to be more simple to
conceptualize.

 
You wrote:
I think it's better to do the presidential election first. Consider the 
case where the council/board is elected first. Then those who support a 
candidate X has to be careful not to rank him too highly, because they 
may want him for president, but if they ranked him too highly he would 
be elected to the "rest of the council" first and so be excluded from 
standing for president (as he couldn't keep two positions at once).


Therefore, it makes sense to elect the higher positions first. The 
voters that don't get their candidates elected as president can still 
vote for them in the ordinary council election.


I'll try to explain why I set it up as two separate elections as shown 
above. The primary reason I did that is as a concern of proportionality. 
Consider a situation where the party members are evenly split between 
two opinions - there are two wings, each of the same size. I think that 
in such a case, a tied council should be broken by a centrist - a 
candidate that considers all sides of the issue.


A Condorcet method is good at finding and electing such candidates, but 
a proportional method would allocate half the council to each wing, and 
so there would be no such centrists in the council from which to elect. 
Therefore, it makes more sense to elect the centrists from the same pool 
as the rest of the council, then elect the rest of the council separately.


If making use of multiple ballots is a problem, you could just make use 
of the same ballot input for both the Condorcet method and the 
multiwinner method. Elect the president (and VPs) first, then remove 
those candidates from the ballots and elect the rest of the council.


If you need to elect new presidents from the council/board more often 
than you elect the council itself, then you have little choice but to 
elect from the council itself, of course. If that is the case, elect the 
whole council first (using STV), then elect the president and VPs from 
the council using Condorcet.


There is also, more theoretically, the issue of proportionality. Say you 
have a board of 9 members, and two of these are president and VP. If the 
party is divided into three wings that are of nearly the same size, then 
removing the two members from the proportional council (to serve as 
president and VP instead of just members of the board) will distort the 
proportionality no matter how you do it, because one can't cleanly 
divide 7 by 3. An election in two parts would let the multiwinner method 
try to compensate, since it knows the council size will be 7. This issue 
is less important than those I've already mentioned, but I thought I 
should show it for the sake of completion.



---
 
Thanks for your understanding and your help.
 
Vänliga Hälsningar

Peter Zborník


:-) You're welcome.

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Hi Jameson,

answers in the text.

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 6:58 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> Two questions, before I respond more fully:
>
> 1.
>
> 2010/4/25 Peter Zbornik 
>
> (v) asset voting is excluded due to lack of political support
>>
>
> Can you clarify? Is the problem with vote secrecy of the "lower" delegates,
> and/or with the "back room" process among the "higher" delegates (that is,
> the candidates in the current system)?
>
Yes that is indeed the problem - it allows for bribery and blackmailing.
The secret ballot was introduced together with the equal voting right in
many states of Europe, including the Czech Republic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot.


>  There are versions of asset voting which avoid either or both problem -
> the former, by only allowing votes for "qualified candidates" (however
> that's defined), and the latter, by having each candidate pre-declare their
> transfer order, which is then made public simultaneously before the vote and
> used to automate the transfer process. In other words, it's basically STV
> with one predeclared ballot type per candidate.
>
The latter system is acceptable to me provided you can chose to cast either
an asset-type vote or a STV vote (in any case you can always vote for
yourself).
The latter system means that the preference orderings should be clearly
stated, which actually could be a good thing to make the voting more
transparent, but I wouldn't call it an essential part of the STV.
Usually the negotiating goes on until shortly before the voting, so I am not
sure if the added value would be so big. Normally the party fractions have
this preference ordering set up anyway.
The former system breaks the principle of the secret ballot.


>
> 2.
> Would you be interested in another proportional system, based on two-rank
> Bucklin ("favor", "approve", or unvoted), which can be explained as STV-like
> - that is, candidates accumulate a pile of a droop quota of (possibly
> fractional) ballots to win, no ballot fraction is in more than one pile or
> in a pile it doesn't approve. The advantages over STV are that my system is
> monotonic, because it can find condorcet-like compromise winners for each
> proportional segment of voters; that it's simpler to vote, either a
> considered individual ballot, a "vote for one candidate, approve one
> faction" simple vote, or a "party-line" factional vote; and that, unlike
> STV, it has a good single-winner special case. The disadvantages are that
> it's completely unknown as a system, that the internal mechanics are
> complicated (except for single winner), and that I don't have a working
> implementation - but I would be willing to code one if you're interested. If
> you are, I would be happy to say more about this.
>
Maybe a description of your system for dummies in three sentences would be a
help, since I don't understand it from your description. Brand-new unproven
systems will have troubles of gaining support, but give it a shot, I am
curious of your system anyway.


>
> Jameson Quinn
>

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

[Andrew Myers]

On 7/22/64 2:59 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:



On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>> wrote:

At 04:24 PM 4/25/2010, Peter Zbornik wrote:

Hi,

I am a member of the Czech Green party, and we are giving our
statutes
an overhaul.
We are a small parliamentary party with only some 2000 members.
Lately we have had quite some problems infighting due to the
winner-takes-it-all election methods used within the party.

...
The best way to handle council officer electinos is within the
council itself, and repeated ballot is the standard way to do it;
these officers should serve at the pleasure of the council, they are
servants of the council. Thus ordinarily majority vote is adequate,
and simple.


I'll be surprised if a version of asset voting is appealing to these 
folks. To me, asset voting has always sounded very similar to Soviet 
"democracy". A multistage process with a hierarchy of voters creates 
rich opportunities for various forms of coercion, and distances voters 
from the choice of leaders even more than they are now. That's the way 
it worked in the Soviet Union, and I'm sure the Czechs are familiar with 
the history.


-- Andrew

-
Andrew Myers
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
Cornell University

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

[Raph Frank]

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 9:24 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:
> DELIVERABLES FOR IMPLEMENTATION:
> In the end, if proportional elections are to make their way into the
> party statutesm, then I have to deliver the following:
> 1. a proposal of a text to the statutes, describing the election rules
> and procedures
> 2. a motivation of the proposal which shows why it is better than the
> present one.

I posted a "simple" explaination of PR-STV in a post back in August.

http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2009-August/024720.html

However, you would also need to cover why a PR method is a good idea in general.

> 3. a vote counting computer program which works

OpenSTV has already been linked to.

> 4. preferably a ballot scanning program

That would be cool.  I don't think there is any open source software
available that actually does it though.  It should be possible to have
simple software that can process ballots based on an image taken from
a webcam or camera phone.

> 5. preferably some good examples that the system works in real life.

PR-STV is used in many countries.

> (iv) votes are cast "secretly" on paper ballots, alternatively on some
> smart electronic voting system that is as secure as paper ballot
> voting.

This is a good plan.  Combining this with scanning software gets you
the best of both worlds.

> ASSUMPTIONS:
> There are several types of board elections in the party, where several
> types of assumptions apply:
> 1] 70-90% of the voters are "dishonest"

PR-STV has pretty good strategy resistance.  There are some strategies
called "free-riding", but shouldn't be that big an issue.

> Currently I am considering Re-weighted range voting and range voting,
> since it fulfills the criteria above, but other simple-to-understand
> methods could be used.

It would be very interesting to see how RRV works in practice.

The problem is that with any change is that it is hard enough to get
voting reform to happen without also trying to push an untested
method.

> Maybe the RRV system will have be reduced to approval voting for the
> high dishonesty scenario.
> This would lower its attractivity.

Then it would be proportional approval voting, which should still be a
reasonable method.

> b] Is one election enough to give an unambiguous winner, even if the
> president is elected by the margin of one vote?
> The talk about RRV not electing the Condorcet winner makes me a little 
> nervous.
> The election of the president has to be unambiguous, and several
> elections is not a problem.

It probably would elect the condorcet winner.  However, with PR
methods, there is no guarantee that it picks the middle candidate.

> d] what are the main advantages of the your preferred method to the
> current election system?

Improved proportionality means that voices from all parts of the party
are represented.  If you elect using a majority based method, then you
only get one group represented.

> e] (optional question) if a member of the board leaves his/her
> position before the end of the election period, and a new member of
> the organ has to be elected, how should this election take place in
> order to insure proportionality is retained?

It is unclear how best to handle this.

Some possible options:

- The outgoing member gets to nominate his replacement

- re-count the original ballots
If they are still available, you re-run the PR-STV system, but current
councillors are not allowed to be eliminated.

- a single seat by-election -> this breaks proportionality

- the council appoints someone with similar views to the person who left
This can be abused.


> f] what is the minimal number of votes a person needs in order to be
> elected (if all voters except for one put an "X" for the candidate and
> the last voter puts maximum points, is this candidate normally
> elected?)

By X, you mean no vote?

Actually, I am not sure how RRV handles no-opinions.  I don't think
they are allowed.  Maybe Warren can comment.

In most cases, you would need a roughly a Droop quota.   However, you
could get elected with less, especially, if the votes are fragmented.

> 3. If the following exists for your selected election method, could
> you please provide a reference to:
> a] a text which describes the election procedure and can be used in
> statutes (preferably a text in existing statutes)

It would depend on how you actually want to implement the method.  For
PR-STV, there are some subtleties here in how transfers are
calculated.

> Why d'Hondt? Why does it give proportional
> representation?

Do you mean why does D'Hondt work in general, or just for RRV?

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

[Raph Frank]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:
> Yes that is indeed the problem - it allows for bribery and blackmailing.
> The secret ballot was introduced together with the equal voting right in
> many states of Europe, including the Czech Republic.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot.

But, asset does use a secret ballot for the first stage.  If I was
implementing it large scale I would include a rule that says that only
electors who receive, say 20+ votes count.

Each vote would then indicate 2 choices.  If their first choice
doesn't get 20 votes, then their vote goes to their 2nd choice.  It
would proceed as per normal Asset after that.

The people who receive votes then can cast then in the 2nd stage of
the election.

Why is this different from when legislators vote in a parliament?
They are also open to corruption and bribery.

You could also implement where a voter can rank the candidates and
then if the vote becomes exhausted, then their first choice gets to
decide how the vote is transferred.

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

[Juho]

I think there are good and well tested single-winner and proportional  
multi-winner methods that the Czech Green party could use (like  
Condorcet methods and STV). For the election of president (P) and vice- 
presidents (VP) there maybe are no good existing solutions (see  
requirements below), so we may need to propose a new one (hopefully  
just a combination of old well tested tested methods). Here's one  
proposal for your consideration.



Based on the discussion my understanding of the requirements is as  
follows (please correct if wrong).


- P and VP are regular members of the elected board (or council)
- it would be a good idea to elect a centrist P (one that appeals to  
all, not just to the biggest grouping)
- VPs should be elected in a proportional style (the strongest group  
shall not be able to take all the P and VP seats)

- the board (including P and VPs) should be proportional
- the board election should be based on voting individuals (not named  
sections of the party or their nominated representatives)
- board, P and VP elections will take place at the same time (=> one  
can use the same ballots in all these elections)
- the method must be easy to understand and also well tested where  
possible



Draft of a method:

- collect ranked votes
- use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a compromise  
candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board (some  
special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P and VPs  
will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)


One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect  
them from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the  
process would be similar.


If one needs to elect new members to the board to replace old ones one  
could use the old ballots + special rules that will not eliminate any  
of the sitting board members.


Does this work? Is this practical? Can this be considered to be  
understandable and well tested? Are there some strategic  
opportunities? Does this maintain proportionality as it should? Any  
conflicts with the expectations and needs of the Czech Green party?


Juho






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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:50 PM 4/26/2010, Peter Zbornik wrote:

Hi Jameson,

answers in the text.

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 6:58 PM, Jameson Quinn 
<jameson.qu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Two questions, before I respond more fully:

1.

2010/4/25 Peter Zbornik <pzbor...@gmail.com>

(v) asset voting is excluded due to lack of political support


Can you clarify? Is the problem with vote secrecy of the "lower" 
delegates, and/or with the "back room" process among the "higher" 
delegates (that is, the candidates in the current system)?


Yes that is indeed the problem - it allows for bribery and blackmailing.


You know, that's claimed, often. I've not seen a shred of evidence, 
but it would depend on context. Bribery is something that can appear 
when there is concentrated unsupervised power, and you are going to 
get that if you have elections for officers who serve fixed terms. 
It's pretty unlikely in your context. Blackmail is likewise, or 
probably you mean vote coercion. Who would be coerced, the secret 
ballot voters (Asset has a secret ballot initial stage), or the 
electors, the candidates who hold votes. And why would not any kind 
of delegate then be subject to these risks?


Tell me, in a political party the size you mention, someone tries to 
coerce you into voting for them. What would you do? And what would 
make you think that others would do differently? It would be 
political suicide. (There can be literally crazy people who will do 
anything, but that's a risk under all circumstances.)


The secret ballot was introduced together with the equal voting 
right in many states of Europe, including the Czech Republic. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot.


Notice that the protections of secret ballot are not absolute. Those 
who count the votes can modify them, often, computers can be hacked, 
etc. But under reasonably settled conditions, people can be and are 
very open about their politics. I'm very skeptical that there is a 
risk from Asset Voting as to bribery or coercion, that wouldn't exist 
with any system you set up, practically.


 There are versions of asset voting which avoid either or both 
problem - the former, by only allowing votes for "qualified 
candidates" (however that's defined), and the latter, by having 
each candidate pre-declare their transfer order, which is then made 
public simultaneously before the vote and used to automate the 
transfer process. In other words, it's basically STV with one 
predeclared ballot type per candidate.


The latter system is acceptable to me provided you can chose to cast 
either an asset-type vote or a STV vote (in any case you can always 
vote for yourself).
The latter system means that the preference orderings should be 
clearly stated, which actually could be a good thing to make the 
voting more transparent, but I wouldn't call it an essential part of the STV.


Asset Voting is STV, but with a chosen human being transferring votes 
instead of a mechanical process set up by the voter. The problem with 
the latter is that most voters don't have enough information about 
candidates to do it well. The "declared" ballot variation is similar 
to STV, and in real STV elections, parties sometimes hand how "how to 
vote" cards. I like Asset because it is not faction-dependent. The 
voters simply choose whom they want to represent them and this person 
then either represents them or helps choose who will.


There are certain possible vulnerabilities with asset voting that 
don't exist with large-scale elections; the problem with asset is its 
very strength. You can vote for yourself if you want in Asset, and 
then you become an elector who can participate in the direct process 
of composing a Council. However, you would then be just one person, 
and in situations where security is a problem, and police protection 
must be assigned, it's not practical to protect every single isolated 
person. But my guess is that these hazards don't exist for you. I 
presume that there is a list of party members, and that is as big a 
security risk as I could imagine being real.


The other problem is that someone could demand that you vote for 
them, and if you don't, and they don't get any votes, they will know 
that you didn't. Of course, you could simply lie. "Those idiots, they 
can't even count the votes! Or, wait a minute, what did you say your 
code was? Damn! I maybe I wrote it wrong. Ah well, next time."


(Because there can be a huge number of "candidates" in Asset, there 
would be no candidates' names on the ballot. And that is the norm in 
small organizations, it seems you are trying to use 
large-organization process! I.e, printed ballots with the names of 
nominated candidates, which then favors them, computer processing of 
ballots, etc. Why?)


Usually the negotiating goes on until shortly before the voting, so 
I am not sure if the added value would be so big. No

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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Juho wrote:

> Draft of a method:
> 
> - collect ranked votes
> - use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a compromise 
> candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs (some 
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P will not be 
> eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board (some 
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P and VPs will 
> not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> 
> One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect them from 
> the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the process would be 
> similar.

This is a better approach, I think. Protecting already-elected members and 
preserving proportionality is a subtle problem, and I don't think there's a 
completely satisfactory solution available. It's defensible for filling 
vacancies (below), but when it can be avoided, it should be. (Unless someone 
has a great idea for this kind of countback.)

A burial strategy for P would have unfortunate effects for the STV election, is 
a possible problem.

> 
> If one needs to elect new members to the board to replace old ones one could 
> use the old ballots + special rules that will not eliminate any of the 
> sitting board members.
> 
> Does this work? Is this practical? Can this be considered to be 
> understandable and well tested? Are there some strategic opportunities? Does 
> this maintain proportionality as it should? Any conflicts with the 
> expectations and needs of the Czech Green party?



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

[Juho]

One more thing. If needed, the method could allow nominating only some  
subset of all the candidates as candidates for the P and VP positions.


Juho



On Apr 27, 2010, at 2:45 AM, Juho wrote:

I think there are good and well tested single-winner and  
proportional multi-winner methods that the Czech Green party could  
use (like Condorcet methods and STV). For the election of president  
(P) and vice-presidents (VP) there maybe are no good existing  
solutions (see requirements below), so we may need to propose a new  
one (hopefully just a combination of old well tested tested  
methods). Here's one proposal for your consideration.



Based on the discussion my understanding of the requirements is as  
follows (please correct if wrong).


- P and VP are regular members of the elected board (or council)
- it would be a good idea to elect a centrist P (one that appeals to  
all, not just to the biggest grouping)
- VPs should be elected in a proportional style (the strongest group  
shall not be able to take all the P and VP seats)

- the board (including P and VPs) should be proportional
- the board election should be based on voting individuals (not  
named sections of the party or their nominated representatives)
- board, P and VP elections will take place at the same time (=> one  
can use the same ballots in all these elections)
- the method must be easy to understand and also well tested where  
possible



Draft of a method:

- collect ranked votes
- use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a  
compromise candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
and VPs will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)


One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect  
them from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the  
process would be similar.


If one needs to elect new members to the board to replace old ones  
one could use the old ballots + special rules that will not  
eliminate any of the sitting board members.


Does this work? Is this practical? Can this be considered to be  
understandable and well tested? Are there some strategic  
opportunities? Does this maintain proportionality as it should? Any  
conflicts with the expectations and needs of the Czech Green party?


Juho






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list info



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

[Juho]

On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:01 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:


On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Juho wrote:


Draft of a method:

- collect ranked votes
- use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a  
compromise candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named  
P will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named  
P and VPs will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)


One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect  
them from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise  
the process would be similar.


This is a better approach, I think. Protecting already-elected  
members and preserving proportionality is a subtle problem, and I  
don't think there's a completely satisfactory solution available.  
It's defensible for filling vacancies (below), but when it can be  
avoided, it should be. (Unless someone has a great idea for this  
kind of countback.)


A burial strategy for P would have unfortunate effects for the STV  
election, is a possible problem.


The STV election that follows may also reduce the incentives to try  
the burial strategy. That is because (in addition to burial not being  
a very efficient strategy in the first place) the benefit would be  
only to get a better P but not more voting power in the board, and  
because the modified vote could well contribute to the benefit of the  
competing sections in the proportional election.


Juho






If one needs to elect new members to the board to replace old ones  
one could use the old ballots + special rules that will not  
eliminate any of the sitting board members.


Does this work? Is this practical? Can this be considered to be  
understandable and well tested? Are there some strategic  
opportunities? Does this maintain proportionality as it should? Any  
conflicts with the expectations and needs of the Czech Green party?






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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Apr 26, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Juho wrote:

> On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:01 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
> 
>> On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Juho wrote:
>> 
>>> Draft of a method:
>>> 
>>> - collect ranked votes
>>> - use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a compromise 
>>> candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
>>> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs (some 
>>> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P will not be 
>>> eliminated in the process but will be elected)
>>> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board (some 
>>> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P and VPs will 
>>> not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
>>> 
>>> One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect them 
>>> from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the process 
>>> would be similar.
>> 
>> This is a better approach, I think. Protecting already-elected members and 
>> preserving proportionality is a subtle problem, and I don't think there's a 
>> completely satisfactory solution available. It's defensible for filling 
>> vacancies (below), but when it can be avoided, it should be. (Unless someone 
>> has a great idea for this kind of countback.)
>> 
>> A burial strategy for P would have unfortunate effects for the STV election, 
>> is a possible problem.
> 
> The STV election that follows may also reduce the incentives to try the 
> burial strategy. That is because (in addition to burial not being a very 
> efficient strategy in the first place) the benefit would be only to get a 
> better P but not more voting power in the board, and because the modified 
> vote could well contribute to the benefit of the competing sections in the 
> proportional election.

It's a reasonable argument (though the STV election should go first), if the 
voters are reasonable and if they regard the P office as less important than 
the makeup of the board--that depends on how the office is defined, I suppose.

Another alternative would be to hold a separate P election (new ballots) once 
the board is defined. Or to let the board elect the officers from amongst 
themselves. That appeals to me, actually, again depending on the definition of 
the roles.

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

[Juho]

On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:22 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:


On Apr 26, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Juho wrote:


On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:01 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:


On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Juho wrote:


Draft of a method:

- collect ranked votes
- use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a  
compromise candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and  
VPs (some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already  
named P will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already  
named P and VPs will not be eliminated in the process but will be  
elected)


One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could  
elect them from the members of the (already existing) board.  
Otherwise the process would be similar.


This is a better approach, I think. Protecting already-elected  
members and preserving proportionality is a subtle problem, and I  
don't think there's a completely satisfactory solution available.  
It's defensible for filling vacancies (below), but when it can be  
avoided, it should be. (Unless someone has a great idea for this  
kind of countback.)


A burial strategy for P would have unfortunate effects for the STV  
election, is a possible problem.


The STV election that follows may also reduce the incentives to try  
the burial strategy. That is because (in addition to burial not  
being a very efficient strategy in the first place) the benefit  
would be only to get a better P but not more voting power in the  
board, and because the modified vote could well contribute to the  
benefit of the competing sections in the proportional election.


It's a reasonable argument (though the STV election should go  
first), if the voters are reasonable and if they regard the P office  
as less important than the makeup of the board--that depends on how  
the office is defined, I suppose.


Another alternative would be to hold a separate P election (new  
ballots) once the board is defined. Or to let the board elect the  
officers from amongst themselves. That appeals to me, actually,  
again depending on the definition of the roles.


A fully separate P election would make the board less proportional -  
unless the elected P would have voting power only if he/she is already  
a member of the board.


Juho





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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 03:39 PM 4/26/2010, Peter Zbornik wrote:
The best PR system in terms of producing decent factional 
representation is STV-PR, and others can explain how to do it. There 
are programs that exist. But with 400 ballots, counting ballots is trivial.


Has it occurred to you to wonder why, with 2000 "members," you only 
get 400 ballots? I can tell you, it's pretty simple.


We have 400 ballots because the local organizations elect their 
delegats to the natonal rally, where the national council is 
elected. The election of these delegates have its own irks and 
quirks, this is another scenario, which I would like to discuss separately.


So you have "delegates" at the "national rally"? If you have 2000 
members and 400 delegates, that's one delegate for five members, 
that's extremely low. However, an average of five might work, if 
delegates are chosen, not elected. Elections on a small scale create 
warped representation, if the elections are majoritarian. If you have 
a local group with, say, 20 members, and they are electing four 
delegates, Asset could be used, it can do amalgamation on that scale 
(ESF proved it). But it would be much simpler to use proxy voting or 
delegable proxy. There are hosts of issues involved. Are delegate 
expenses paid? How? If they are paid centrally, that then creates a 
dependence of the members on the party, when it should be the other 
way around



If you are going to hold a single-winner election, I highly 
recommend Bucklin-ER with runoff if there is no election in the 
first round. And, in fact, if you are doing elections at a meeting, 
Bucklin simply is more efficient, and you can hold all the rounds you need.


Could you please send a description of this method?


A number of variations on Bucklin were used in the United States in 
roughly 1915-1920. Political scientists were enthused. And then it 
disappeared, almost without a whimper, and I haven't been able to 
figure out what happened. The reports of elections were that it 
worked, and it worked well. People liked it. But, I suspect, there 
were powerful forces that didn't want improved voting systems.


I'll describe two variation. The first is what was actually used in 
Duluth, Minnesota, it is described in detail in the Minnesota Supreme 
Court decision that outlawed it based on a rather strange 
interpretation of one-person, one-vote that was not confirmed 
anywhere else, and the Court knew that it was defying the precedent 
of other states.


The ballot has three ranks. A form that could be used would be a list 
of candidates. Next to each candidate are three check boxes. You may 
check only one candidate in first rank, one candidate in second rank, 
and as many candidates as you like in third rank. You may check no 
candidates in any or all ranks (you may skip a rank and, say, approve 
a candidate in first rank, none in second rank, and others in third 
rank). If you check no candidates in all ranks (and don't write in a 
candidate in a space provided), your ballot is invalid and is not 
counted in the basis for a majority. But if you write in a name, it's 
a valid ballot (-- according to Robert's Rules, any mark that might 
possibly be a vote makes it a ballot for the purposes of determining 
a majority.)


The first rank votes are counted. A majority is more than half of all 
ballots cast.  If a candidate has a first rank vote on half of the 
ballots, that candidate wins. If no candidate has a majority, the 
second rank votes are counted and added to the first rank votes. If 
any candidate has a vote on a majority of ballots, considering the 
first and second rank votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise the third 
rank is counted.


If this is a final poll, and there is no majority required, the 
winner is the candidate with the most votes. Ties can be decided by 
backing up and comparing the tied candidates with the third rank 
votes struck, then second. The candidate with more votes in 1st and 
2nd rank would then win, or if that is also a tie, then in 1st rank 
only. If still tied, it's decided by chance.


However, if a majority is required, then the election must be 
repeated. In pure deliberative process, the repeated election is not 
restricted, candidates are not eliminated, but some might withdraw. 
It gets simpler if it is Bucklin-ER, which I'll describe next.


For Bucklin-ER, it's the same except that the voter may vote for more 
than one candidate in each rank. It's simpler because there is no 
need to eominate candidates in order to "make room" for additional 
votes at a higher rank. What is needed for an election to complete is 
for voters to make a compromise, to start adding additional approved 
candidates, candidates who are ranked in at least the third rank.


Now, for a more sophisticated version, the ballot is a Range ballot. 
For equivalence with Bucklin-ER, it can be a Range 4 ballot; there 
is, in addition to the 3 Bucklin ranks -- which are now considered 
"ratings" -- and th

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 03:50 PM 4/26/2010, Andrew Myers wrote:

I'll be surprised if a version of asset voting is appealing to these 
folks. To me, asset voting has always sounded very similar to Soviet 
"democracy".


This is downright weird.

 A multistage process with a hierarchy of voters creates rich 
opportunities for various forms of coercion, and distances voters 
from the choice of leaders even more than they are now. That's the 
way it worked in the Soviet Union, and I'm sure the Czechs are 
familiar with the history.


Asset doesn't resemble what the Soviets had in the least There is 
no "party" control, parties become unnecessary with Asset.


It's also not necessarily "multistage." If voters fear coercion of 
small-scale electors, they can decide, in advance, to give large 
numbers of votes to single candidates whom they trust. Those 
candidates will simply be elected, and will have extra votes to 
distribute, and if they could be coerced when they hold that many 
votes, they could be coerced, period.


I find the response fascinating, because what is being proposed is 
what solves the problems that have prevented the promise of democracy 
from being realized.


I remember a friend who, when I described delegable proxy, said, "Oh, 
I could never trust anyone with my vote." Now, I hadn't suggested 
that the proxy could *actually vote* for her, those who know the 
proposals would know that. But this is the reality: Because she will 
not trust anyone with her vote, someone is nevertheless voting for 
her -- based on her existence in the population, since seats in 
Congress are based on population -- whom she did not trust, almost 
certainly. The choice is not whether or not someone will vote for 
her. Someone will. The choice is whether or not she will choose this person.


One aspect that I suspect might be operating. As long as people 
imagine they are powerless, they imagine they are not to blame for 
what happens. After all, it's "them." But what if we actually do have 
power? And we don't use it? Horrors! We might then be to blame for 
the Bad Stuff that happens!


And this is the fact: the people have the power, but we do not 
believe it is possible to use it. So the machine rolls on, unperturbed.


In order to use the power, people are just like capital. Capital is 
powerful because it is organized and because it can be spent for 
purpose with an efficient decision-making system. The people have 
more power than the corporations, and that is easy to show; corporate 
power is almost entirely dependent upon the people and the choices 
that people make. But the people are not organized.


What's stopping them? Some will say that the corporations are 
preventing it, but I strongly suspect not. I don't think the 
corporations believe it is possible for the people to organize 
either! No, the obstacle is what we are seeing right here, with this 
charge of "Soviet democracy." I don't for a second think that Mr. 
Myers is a stooge of the corporations. He's merely ignorant. (As we 
all tend to be when encountering new ideas that we haven't actually 
explored. Ignorance can be fixed, if we don't get attached to it.)


We will organize anyway, whether Mr. Myers likes it or not. He can 
join us, or not. We are not going to coerce him. 



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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Apr 26, 2010, at 5:54 PM, Juho wrote:

> On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:22 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
> 
>> On Apr 26, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Juho wrote:
>> 
>>> On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:01 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
>>> 
 On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Juho wrote:
 
> Draft of a method:
> 
> - collect ranked votes
> - use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a compromise 
> candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs (some 
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P will not 
> be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board (some 
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P and VPs 
> will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> 
> One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect them 
> from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the process 
> would be similar.
 
 This is a better approach, I think. Protecting already-elected members and 
 preserving proportionality is a subtle problem, and I don't think there's 
 a completely satisfactory solution available. It's defensible for filling 
 vacancies (below), but when it can be avoided, it should be. (Unless 
 someone has a great idea for this kind of countback.)
 
 A burial strategy for P would have unfortunate effects for the STV 
 election, is a possible problem.
>>> 
>>> The STV election that follows may also reduce the incentives to try the 
>>> burial strategy. That is because (in addition to burial not being a very 
>>> efficient strategy in the first place) the benefit would be only to get a 
>>> better P but not more voting power in the board, and because the modified 
>>> vote could well contribute to the benefit of the competing sections in the 
>>> proportional election.
>> 
>> It's a reasonable argument (though the STV election should go first), if the 
>> voters are reasonable and if they regard the P office as less important than 
>> the makeup of the board--that depends on how the office is defined, I 
>> suppose.
>> 
>> Another alternative would be to hold a separate P election (new ballots) 
>> once the board is defined. Or to let the board elect the officers from 
>> amongst themselves. That appeals to me, actually, again depending on the 
>> definition of the roles.
> 
> A fully separate P election would make the board less proportional - unless 
> the elected P would have voting power only if he/she is already a member of 
> the board.

That wasn't my suggestion. Rather, one would hold an STV board election, and 
then elect P from the proportionally elected board. Depending on the role of P, 
the voters for P would be the at-large membership or the board itself (the 
latter makes sense if P/VP is largely an internal role, as opposed to an 
external independent executive).

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

[Andrew Myers]

On 7/22/64 2:59 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

Asset doesn't resemble what the Soviets had in the least There is
no "party" control, parties become unnecessary with Asset.

Abd,

The phrase "parties become unnecessary" is redolent of utopian idealism. 
Parties will exist. Or do you think somehow asset voting is going to 
prevent concentrations of power, despite the "iron law of oligarchy" you 
are fond of quoting? Or there will be concentrations of power, but they 
virtuously will not engage in the give-and-take on the issues that at 
least some asset voting proponents have argued is a positive feature?


No, of course there are and will be concentrations of power.  The Soviet 
system had layers of electors. This allowed voting power to become more 
and more concentrated toward the top of the hierarchy until the top 
levels were pure Communist apparatchiks chosen for their unblinking 
loyalty to the system.

It's also not necessarily "multistage." If voters fear coercion of
small-scale electors, they can decide, in advance, to give large
numbers of votes to single candidates whom they trust.
The ability to vote for the single candidate you think will win does 
help with the problem. But then what's the point of the asset mechanism? 
And if voters fear coercion of small-scale electors, they will vote the 
way those electors tell them to. That's the nature of coercion. Giving 
their vote away to someone else could open them up to reprisal. Maybe 
you think the vote will be anonymous? Then you need to design the 
protocols that protect anonymity. Not so easy. We should assume that the 
voting system is run by the parties and they will cheat if they can. The 
more layers your vote filters through, the more opportunities to cheat.


Also, we must remember that coercion comes in both negative and positive 
forms -- the latter is called vote buying. Asset voting seems to me to 
offer great possibilities for efficient distributed vote buying. 
Peer-to-peer vote buying, if you will.


If you propose something new that appears to have some of the features 
of a system known to be horrible, the onus is on you to convince others 
that these features are not a problem. You say asset voting isn't like 
Soviet democracy because it doesn't have party control. But how do you 
think that party control was established in the first place? Many 
totalitarian regimes (Soviet, even Nazi) start with a base comprising 
mostly idealists who sincerely want to make things better. The idealists 
are purged in the first few years via the governance mechanisms they 
have naively established.


> We will organize anyway, whether Mr. Myers likes it or not. He can
> join us, or not. We are not going to coerce him.

Classic.

-- Andrew


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

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/4/26 Juho 

>
> Draft of a method:
>
> - collect ranked votes
> - use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a compromise
> candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs (some
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P will not be
> eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board (some
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P and VPs will
> not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
>

Why not:
- ranked votes
- STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first and second,
one of them will be VP.
- Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use original
ballots or have the council revote.)
- VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second councilmember.




As to my own method which I mentioned earlier (RBV for "Reweighted Bucklin
Voting"): it's actually pretty simple if you don't need it to be
precinct-summable. (For precinct-summability, you need to keep two 3D
matrices, one for each level of approval, and do heavy algebra.)

Here's the non-precinct-summable version. *Voters vote into three
categories: preferred, approved, and unapproved/unvoted*. If there are
organized factions, they can publish lists for people to use in the
"approved" category, or there could even be some way to make a single mark
to approve a given list. (If you want to guarantee full Droop quotas, you
need to make people approve at least half the candidates plus half the
council size. If they vote almost that number, you almost have a guarantee.
As a practical matter, I'd require approving at least a quarter of the
candidates, or as many as seats on the council, whichever is greater.)

Start by counting only the preferred votes. *Elect the highest score greater
than a droop quota, then discount all those ballots* so that they add up to
one droop quota less. (ie, if there were three droop quotas of ballots
preferring the elected candidate, weight them all at 2/3). *Continue until
no candidate has a droop quota.*

*Now start again counting all approvals, ignoring "preferred".* Start with
all ballots fully-weighted again, and go through the already-elected
candidates in order and re-discount their ballots (they will probably have
more ballots getting a smaller discount each). Then elect & discount, as
above, until you fill the council. (If you didn't guarantee enough approvals
for full droop quotas, you may elect some candidates with less than that. Of
course, at that point, you can't discount a full droop quota from their
votes anymore. That is not a big problem.)

The 3D summable matrices are only used so that you can keep track of who to
discount at each step. (Technically, the summable version SRBV is not quite
identical to the non-summable version after the 2nd candidate is elected,
but they're highly probable to be the same - provably over 50% probable,
over all possible ballot combos -; they're only different for voters who get
at least 2 of their approved candidates elected - that is, one voter might
get 4 favorites elected while another voter FROM THE SAME PARTY might get
only 2 favorites -; there is really no way for the voters to tell when a
difference has occurred; and, when there is a difference, the summable
version's results are actually arguably a hair superior - more
Condorcet-like.)

Both versions are monotonic, unlike STV (because RBV is all top-down,
there's no bottom-up elimination. This also means it tends to start with
slightly more centrist candidates, though the PR properties mean that this
system moves on to the fringes after covering the center while STV moves to
the center after covering the fringes, so RBV might not be any more centrist
overall). Like any PR system, RBV and SRBV do not obey the participation
criterion - by getting one of your favorites elected earlier, you can
displace your other preferences. Because of that, like STV, there's a small
possibility of the same "free rider" strategy; but the risk is that your
preferred candidate is not elected, so candidates will encourage their
voters not to "free ride", and those candidates who fail to do so risk
losing (deservedly, IMO).

Probably the biggest advantage over STV is that it's much easier to vote -
you don't have to require full rankings. Ballot design is also simple and
it's tough to spoil a ballot. But, as I said in the previous email, the
disadvantage is that it's not (nearly) as field-proven.

I'd be happy to code a program for either version (open source, simple
inspectable code) if you're interested.

If you used this method, the president would be the highest second-round
approval on the council, and the VP would be the highest first-round
approval on the council besides the President. Simple and clear.

Jameson Quinn

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Juho,

the requirements are correct, except that several elections is not a big
problem. Thus I do not require, that "board, P and VP elections will take
place at the same time (=> one can use the same ballots in all these
elections)", it would be nice to have, though.
I have to study your proposal and the discussion a little bit more.

Peter

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 1:45 AM, Juho  wrote:

> I think there are good and well tested single-winner and proportional
> multi-winner methods that the Czech Green party could use (like Condorcet
> methods and STV). For the election of president (P) and vice-presidents (VP)
> there maybe are no good existing solutions (see requirements below), so we
> may need to propose a new one (hopefully just a combination of old well
> tested tested methods). Here's one proposal for your consideration.
>
>
> Based on the discussion my understanding of the requirements is as follows
> (please correct if wrong).
>
> - P and VP are regular members of the elected board (or council)
> - it would be a good idea to elect a centrist P (one that appeals to all,
> not just to the biggest grouping)
> - VPs should be elected in a proportional style (the strongest group shall
> not be able to take all the P and VP seats)
> - the board (including P and VPs) should be proportional
> - the board election should be based on voting individuals (not named
> sections of the party or their nominated representatives)
> - board, P and VP elections will take place at the same time (=> one can
> use the same ballots in all these elections)
> - the method must be easy to understand and also well tested where possible
>
>
> Draft of a method:
>
> - collect ranked votes
> - use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a compromise
> candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs (some
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P will not be
> eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board (some
> special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P and VPs will
> not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
>
> One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect them
> from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the process
> would be similar.
>
> If one needs to elect new members to the board to replace old ones one
> could use the old ballots + special rules that will not eliminate any of the
> sitting board members.
>
> Does this work? Is this practical? Can this be considered to be
> understandable and well tested? Are there some strategic opportunities? Does
> this maintain proportionality as it should? Any conflicts with the
> expectations and needs of the Czech Green party?
>
> Juho
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Hi,

I would prefer to have the P. elected by the same people electing the board.
The P. is indeed the person most often representing the party on the
outside.

Peter

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 4:02 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:

>  On Apr 26, 2010, at 5:54 PM, Juho wrote:
>
> > On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:22 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
> >
> >> On Apr 26, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Juho wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:01 AM, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
> >>>
>  On Apr 26, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Juho wrote:
> 
> > Draft of a method:
> >
> > - collect ranked votes
> > - use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a compromise
> candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
> > - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs
> (some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P will
> not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> > - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board
> (some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P and VPs
> will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> >
> > One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect
> them from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the process
> would be similar.
> 
>  This is a better approach, I think. Protecting already-elected members
> and preserving proportionality is a subtle problem, and I don't think
> there's a completely satisfactory solution available. It's defensible for
> filling vacancies (below), but when it can be avoided, it should be. (Unless
> someone has a great idea for this kind of countback.)
> 
>  A burial strategy for P would have unfortunate effects for the STV
> election, is a possible problem.
> >>>
> >>> The STV election that follows may also reduce the incentives to try the
> burial strategy. That is because (in addition to burial not being a very
> efficient strategy in the first place) the benefit would be only to get a
> better P but not more voting power in the board, and because the modified
> vote could well contribute to the benefit of the competing sections in the
> proportional election.
> >>
> >> It's a reasonable argument (though the STV election should go first), if
> the voters are reasonable and if they regard the P office as less important
> than the makeup of the board--that depends on how the office is defined, I
> suppose.
> >>
> >> Another alternative would be to hold a separate P election (new ballots)
> once the board is defined. Or to let the board elect the officers from
> amongst themselves. That appeals to me, actually, again depending on the
> definition of the roles.
> >
> > A fully separate P election would make the board less proportional -
> unless the elected P would have voting power only if he/she is already a
> member of the board.
>
> That wasn't my suggestion. Rather, one would hold an STV board election,
> and then elect P from the proportionally elected board. Depending on the
> role of P, the voters for P would be the at-large membership or the board
> itself (the latter makes sense if P/VP is largely an internal role, as
> opposed to an external independent executive).
>  
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>

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

[Raph Frank]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 1:54 AM, Juho  wrote:
> A fully separate P election would make the board less proportional - unless
> the elected P would have voting power only if he/she is already a member of
> the board.

I think if there are a reasonable number of members, then the
non-proportionality will only be slight.

I think both the President and VP should be centerists.  The President
should definitely be a centerist, so making the VP a non-centerist
gives that faction more power.

Also, by having 2 centerists on the council, you get a mix of
councilors who represent portions of the party and councilors who
represent the entire party.

I would suggest

Each voter casts a ranked ballot

1) The condorcet winner becomes President
2) The runner-up becomes Vice-President
3) Use PR-STV to elect the remainder of the council

This is simple and doesn't does require special rules to protect from
elimination.  The same ballots are just processed three times.

Also, the fact that the ballots are used three time should help with
strategy protection.

For by-elections, another option is to elect the condorcet winner.
However, ballots held by any of the other are not included.

This means that if you have 5 PR-STV seats, the ballots will be split
into 6 piles

A) Ballots held by councilor A
B) Ballots held by councilor B
C) Ballots held by councilor C
D) Ballots held by councilor D
E) Ballots held by councilor E
F) Ballots held by none of the candidates

If councilor C decides to resign, then you work out the condorcet
winner based on the ballots in pile C and F.

Also, if the President resigns, the VP becomes President.  Vacancies
in the VP office are filled by the condorcet winner based on all the
ballots.  A Councilor must resign his seat to become President or VP,
so that triggers another vacancy that has to be filled.

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

[Raph Frank]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Jameson Quinn  wrote:
> Why not:
> - ranked votes
> - STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first and second,
> one of them will be VP.
> - Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use original
> ballots or have the council revote.)
> - VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second councilmember.

The order of election with PR-STV shouldn't be used to determine VP,
all seats are equal.

However, I think your idea to run condorcet after the PR-STV election
is a good idea.

I would change it to:

- ranked ballots
- PR-STV elects the council
- Excluding non-elected candidates
-- Condorcet winner is President
-- Condorcet runner-up is Vice President

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

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/4/27 Raph Frank 

> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Jameson Quinn 
> wrote:
> > Why not:
> > - ranked votes
> > - STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first and
> second,
> > one of them will be VP.
> > - Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use original
> > ballots or have the council revote.)
> > - VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second
> councilmember.
>
> The order of election with PR-STV shouldn't be used to determine VP,
> all seats are equal.
>

Why?

Actually, it could be "first seat", or "plurality winner", which is mostly
equivalent. This would help IFF you wanted to increase decrease the
probability of a simple majority disproportionately sweeping P and VP. Since
it's only VP we're talking about, the chance of plurality-style strategy is
slim.

JQ

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

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Apr 27, 2010, at 6:09 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> 2010/4/27 Raph Frank 
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Jameson Quinn  
> wrote:
> > Why not:
> > - ranked votes
> > - STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first and second,
> > one of them will be VP.
> > - Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use original
> > ballots or have the council revote.)
> > - VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second councilmember.
> 
> The order of election with PR-STV shouldn't be used to determine VP,
> all seats are equal.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Actually, it could be "first seat", or "plurality winner", which is mostly 
> equivalent. This would help IFF you wanted to increase decrease the 
> probability of a simple majority disproportionately sweeping P and VP. Since 
> it's only VP we're talking about, the chance of plurality-style strategy is 
> slim.

The problem with FPTP in this case is that it's largely accidental. In the 
obvious counterexample, a significant majority of voter splits their vote 
across several clones, causing their representatives to be elected late, even 
though they have the most support.

One way to order the winners in an STV election is to count for the the 
original board, and then re-count for successively smaller groups, but with 
only the most recent winners eligible, giving a complete ordering of the board.
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Re: [EM] Proportional election method needed for the Czech Green party - Council elections

[Raph Frank]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 2:09 PM, Jameson Quinn  wrote:
> Why?

The principle on which PR is based is that all seats are equal.

> Actually, it could be "first seat", or "plurality winner", which is mostly
> equivalent.

It could also have some strategic effects, where people decide to rank
their favorite of the top-2 first, so as to capture the VP position.

> This would help IFF you wanted to increase decrease the
> probability of a simple majority disproportionately sweeping P and VP. Since
> it's only VP we're talking about, the chance of plurality-style strategy is
> slim.

Hmm, maybe.  However, if the President resigns, the VP presumably
becomes President.  IMO, this means that they should both be
centerists.

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 10:36 PM 4/26/2010, Andrew Myers wrote:

On 7/22/64 2:59 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

Asset doesn't resemble what the Soviets had in the least There is
no "party" control, parties become unnecessary with Asset.

Abd,

The phrase "parties become unnecessary" is redolent of utopian idealism.


Redolent. Nice word. Where can I buy some redolence?


 Parties will exist.


Sure. In FA/DP I call them "caucuses." The problem with present 
parties is that they are too difficult to create, so FA/DP makes them 
trivial to create. When they are hard to create, they develop their 
own inertia, it becomes "my way or the highway." It's easy to say 
that one could just found another party, "if you're so smart," but 
what if one has just spent years of one's life developing a party, 
and it is taken over by a faction that is highly motivated and highly 
biased, maybe even corrupt?


Look, I've seen it happen with really great nonprofit organizations; 
the natural oligarchy that develops substitutes its own vision for 
the collective vision, the group loses connection with its roots, and 
eventually it fails or becomes a far less effective "fixture" of the 
political environment.


 Or do you think somehow asset voting is going to prevent 
concentrations of power, despite the "iron law of oligarchy" you 
are fond of quoting? Or there will be concentrations of power, but 
they virtuously will not engage in the give-and-take on the issues 
that at least some asset voting proponents have argued is a positive feature?


Will not engage in give-and-take? Where does this idea come from? 
However, note: I'm not proposing Asset Voting as a utopian solution, 
but merely as a possible solution to a basic problem in democracy: 
how to create a fully representative assembly. It's possible to do it 
through a party system, but party systems create a serious kind of 
inertia that causes them to become unrepresentative. They end up 
representing party interests rather than the interests of the members.


Yes, Iron Law of Oligarchy. OLigarchies will form, but I do have 
experience with organizations where this fact is harnessed rather 
than becoming dominant.


In any case, FA/DP would be the utopian solution, and, strictly, it 
isn't utopian, because there exists a specific plan to get from here 
to there, and that plan does not require a fixed ("utopian") vision, 
it only requires small improvements, each step "funding" itself and 
preparing for the next steps, and, since what is being constructed is 
an intelligent decision-making system, it will modify its own course 
as it sees fit, and the FA aspect essentially requires and insists 
that no FA is controlling, so there will be independent FAs, as 
needed, and the most efficient and effective of them will survive, 
and the others will be absorbed without having caused harm.


This *sounds* utopian, but only because most people don't have 
experience with organizations that work like this. I did't invent the 
FA concept, I simply found it and gave it a name. It works, and does 
what most people routinely consider impossible.


No, of course there are and will be concentrations of power.  The 
Soviet system had layers of electors. This allowed voting power to 
become more and more concentrated toward the top of the hierarchy 
until the top levels were pure Communist apparatchiks chosen for 
their unblinking loyalty to the system.


Sure. They had what appeared to be democratic mechanisms. But they 
absolutely didn't have the FA concept. There was a supposedly 
democratic structure, but it was *coercive.* My guess is that those 
who designed the Soviet system, originally, were quite idealistic 
about it, but they were doing this within a context that blamed the 
defects of goverment on enemies, and they were trying to build a New 
Man who would only act for collective interest.


FA/DP -- and asset voting -- work with people as they are, and they 
do not incorporate any such assemptions, the opposite. Using the term 
"Soviet" implies coercion. The Soviets also used a form of approval 
voting. That doesn't make approval voting "soviet."


Asset Voting doesn't create, as proposed, formal layers beyond one. 
(I.e, it creates, from the original Voters/Seats, 
Voters/Electors/Seats). I'd be interested in seeing what the Soviets 
actually had, but there are no "intermediate councils" unless the 
electors themselves decide to form them, and they would not be 
legally binding entities. Indeed, they might be "parties," in effect, 
or political parties might create such associations. But they would 
not control the voting of electors, though they certainly could 
advise it. An elector doesn't have anything to lose, which is 
different from elected seats, who must maintain the support of their 
electors, certainly to be re-elected, but, in some systems, even to 
maintain the seat, because it might be "continuous election," 
revocable. --- because of the nature of the scale problem, I've 

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 04:36 AM 4/27/2010, Peter Zbornik wrote:

Hi,

I would prefer to have the P. elected by the same people electing 
the board. The P. is indeed the person most often representing the 
party on the outside.




Okay, structural defect. The president is normally the presiding 
officer of the board of trustees. That person should be chosen by the 
board itself, since they are the ones who have to live with it! This 
person should mostly be chosen for fairness, so that board members 
are treated fairly, an abusive chairperson is very damaging to an organization.


You want to elect a public figure. This person should *not* be a 
member of the board, probably, but it's the board's job to support 
this person. Call it the President, fine. The person should have 
board rights, maybe a vote on the board, but isn't chosen as a person 
to control the party, but to speak for it. Important difference.




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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.

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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.



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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






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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.

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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

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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.)



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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. 



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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
>

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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.

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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.

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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."





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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.

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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."
>
>
>
>
>

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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.


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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.

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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

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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




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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.
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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.





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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

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Ok, thanks.
Yes, my misstake.

Peter

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 11:26 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
>

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

[Peter Zbornik]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Juho  wrote:

>   On Apr 28, 2010, at 9:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
>  Hello,
>
> I have some catching up to do here.
> I need to think more about some of the different methods and the proposals
> I have gotten.
> Some of the methods are new to me.
> As I am a layman it takes time to understand them.
>
> Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.
> Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?
>
>
> The most common single-winner methods (plurality, top-two runoff, IRV) are
> known not to be "centrist oriented". For example in the quite common set-up
> where we have two extremists and one centrist with slightly less support
> they all elect one of the "extremists".
>
> Approval and Condorcet are more centrist oriented. They are both also old
> and well tested methods although they have not been widely used in public
> political elections.
>
> One problem with Approval (that was not mentioned yet) is the limited
> expressive power of the Approval vote and resulting problems in choosing the
> right strategy, e.g. when there are three leading candidates and one should
> approve either one or two of them. That is problematic e.g when left wing
> has 2 candidates and is is bigger than right wing that has 1 candidate. (In
> Approval voters are generally assumed to vote strategically and not just
> sincerely list candidates that they consider "approvable".)
>
>  If I have understood the discussion correctly, you are still in draft
> phase.
>
>
> Many of the presented drafts can be quickly made into concrete and exact
> proposals. Some of the used components are more mature / well tested than
> others. There are some details left to decide, e.g. which STV variant (/
> which proportional method) or which Condorcet variant (/ which single-winner
> method) to use.
>
>  When some of you feel you have a good proposal at hand in this
> discussion, feel free to summarize and put forward a draft.
>
>
> I'm trying t listen to you to understand which one of the proposals would
> be the best for your needs :-). Now my understanding is that you still want
> all the listed requirements to be met and you want to use as "well tested"
> (and simple/explainable) methods as possible.
>
Yes, the requirements are set.
People have to understand what they are voting about, if they are to support
the method.
The people who like the majoritarian system can be expected to spread FUD
(fear uncertainty doubt).
It has at least to be a method in use in some organizations.
Maybe I shouldn't have excluded Schulze STV right away, since it is in use
at some places.


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

>
>
> Using the same ballots with different vote counting techniques seems like
> quite an elegant and interesting solution.
> I never thought of that possibility.
> If more than one ballot is to be used, then I prefer to having the P and
> VP elected before the councilmembers.
>
>
> There is a small problem here. If one elects the P and VPs first, then the
> voters may not give the already elected P+VPs any votes in the second
> (council) round for strategic reasons (or maybe they are not even candidates
> there any more but considered "already elected"), and as a result
> the groupings of P and VPs would be over-represented in the council. This is
> not ok if you want the council (that includes P+VPs) to be proportional.
> (For this reason my first draft used the same ballots for all elections and
> the second draft elected the council first and P+VPs among the council
> members only after that.)
>
>
> Just to avoid misunderstandings:
> The president is the party leader as in most political parties around the
> world.
> He is the main guy simply, the person appearing on television etc., the one
> people know best in the streets.
> The president also chairs the meetings of the national council (sometimes I
> have used the term "board", the meaning is the same in this context).
> Think Gordon Brown or Angela Merkel, small scale :o)
> We have discussed splitting the external and internal funcions of the
> president, but it is not politically feasible to do.
>
>
> Two separate jobs then, and someone might be competent for one job and
> someone else for the other. This would make the election process more
> complex. The simplest approach would be to elect these two persons among the
> council members in two separate elections and forget proportionality with
> respect to these two jobs. VPs could still be elected proportionally (but
> they could be close to the two Ps => the set of Ps+VPs is not fully
> proportional).
>
>  It is neither feasible to change the role of the president to be a
> stricly internal guy or to have him elected by the council.
> The president has to be elected by the delegates as is the case today, if
> the proposal should have a chance 

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

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/4/28 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".
>

That's with honest votes. Of course, voters can strategize to counteract the
system's tendency. In the US-2000 election, some Gore ("center-left") voters
had a slogan that "a vote for Nader ("left") is a vote for Bush (we all know
how he turned out)." This slogan encapsulates the perverse strategy
incentives of an "extremist oriented" system like Plurality, or, to a
slightly lesser extent, IRV.


>
> 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".)
>

This is exactly the problem that Bucklin is intended to solve. Bucklin is
essentially multi-round approval using one ballot. It's not as theoretically
clean as many methods, so there are some desirable criteria that it doesn't
strictly satisfy; but it's a simple, practical method, both for voting and
for counting. (Of course, as always, I'm referring to the
equal-rankings-allowed versions of Bucklin.)

Of course, the issue with Bucklin is that it uses a different (simpler)
balloting style than STV or Condorcet. So if you used Bucklin for the
single-winner method, you'd either need to take two ballots, take a combined
ballot (with some ficticious "cutoff" candidates - possibly hard to
understand), or use a proportional method like RBV which is based on Bucklin
ballots.

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 08:59 AM 4/29/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:
[quoting Juho]
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".)



This is exactly the problem that Bucklin is intended to solve. 
Bucklin is essentially multi-round approval using one ballot. It's 
not as theoretically clean as many methods, so there are some 
desirable criteria that it doesn't strictly satisfy; but it's a 
simple, practical method, both for voting and for counting. (Of 
course, as always, I'm referring to the equal-rankings-allowed 
versions of Bucklin.)


All the known implementations of Bucklin (all in the United States, 
eighty to ninety years ago) did not allow equal ranking in the top 
two ranks. I'm not sure of all the variations that were used. 
However, the versions I'm familiar with did allow equal ranking in 
the third rank. With what we know now, there is no harm in allowing 
equal ranking in all ranks. The reason that would be advanced to 
prohibit it is to disallow the Majority Criterion failure that can 
happen when voters vote for more than one in first rank. Because 
there is very little strategic reason for them to do that, if any, 
unless they really do have only a negligible preference -- in their 
judgment! -- this MC failure is technical, not substantive. It's also 
not very likely to happen unless the jurisdiction is blessed with 
more than one widely pleasing candidate.


(If the conditions of the majority criterion are set up, the majority 
preference must be elected in the first round, unless some of the 
majority also votes for another candidate. The Condorcet Criterion, 
which Bucklin also technically fails, for the same reasons, occurs if 
the ranking is limited. That is not intrinsic to Bucklin; a Bucklin 
ballot could allow full ranking and could consider it if deterministic.)


It's important to separate ballot design from counting method. Just 
as IRV can be run as 3-rank or with full ranking (and some 
implementations that FairVote touts as "IRV" only allow two explicit 
ranks), so too Bucklin could be run with as little as two approved 
ranks or with a full Range ballot that has, effectively, say, 100 
ratings. As long as there are as many ratings as ranks, the voters 
can decide to fully rank the candidates, but the key difference with 
equal-ranking methods is that they have the *option* of equal 
ranking. If there are not enough ranks to fully rank the candidates, 
we must notice, all methods require equal ranking, but usually just 
at the bottom!


Mr. Quinn has correctly described Bucklin as "multi-round approval." 
That is, if we imagine that a series of approval elections are held, 
with a majority being required for election. At the beginning, voters 
vote conservatively, i.e., the easiest way for them to vote, 
particularly if they don't yet know the preferences of the other 
voters, is simply to vote for their own preferred candidate. They 
will only equal-rank if they have no strong preference; allowing 
equal ranking makes the voters' decision easier. If it's hard to 
decide, you really don't have a strong preference! But if you have 
some nagging doubt when you decide to equal rank, which one do you 
prefer? In the end, the decision that most matters, in Bucklin, is 
whether or not you'd be pleased to see the outcome be a particular 
candidate, or at least not displeased. If so, then probably you 
should vote for the candidate, and then the voting problem reduces to 
ranking these candidates. Which can be done as pure ranks or as ratings.


One device that is used by Borda Count, which is a related method, is 
to have as many ranks as candidates. While I generally favor this (it 
allows voters to use their ability to compare preferences to generate 
a rank order), it may be collecting noise, if there are a lot of 
candidates. My sense is that 3-rank Bucklin (which means 3 approved 
ranks), with an added rank within the disapproved set, is enough for 
most purposes, but some studies should be done with simulations to 
determine how much results are improved with additional ranks.


Bucklin addresses the major concern of most voters when they hear 
about Approval: why can't I vote for my favorite, to give my favorite 
a chance to win, before my additional approvals are considered?


It should also be understood that, like any good method, Bucklin 
doesn't force voters to approve any additional candidates at all. If 
Bucklin is used in a runoff system, this is a perfectly sane vote 
under some circumstances. It all depends on how strong the pref

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

[Jameson Quinn]

> One device that is used by Borda Count, which is a related method, is to
> have as many ranks as candidates. While I generally favor this (it allows
> voters to use their ability to compare preferences to generate a rank
> order), it may be collecting noise, if there are a lot of candidates. My
> sense is that 3-rank Bucklin (which means 3 approved ranks), with an added
> rank within the disapproved set, is enough for most purposes, but some
> studies should be done with simulations to determine how much results are
> improved with additional ranks.
>

1. I don't see how Borda is "related" to Bucklin.

2. As I've said before, I favor only 2 ranks for Bucklin. This keeps
strategic opportunities to an absolute minimum, and allows simple one-word
labels for each rank (preferred, approved, unapproved).

Bucklin is very easy to understand and vote. Natural voting tendencies are
> sound strategy!


Agreed.


>
>
>  Of course, the issue with Bucklin is that it uses a different (simpler)
>> balloting style than STV or Condorcet.
>>
>
> It can use the same ballot, the same set of preferences. A Range ballot can
> be used for STV or Condorcet analysis. That the ballot is simpler is not
> exactly correct. A three-rank ballot looks the same as a three-rank STV
> (IRV) ballot. It's counted differently in Bucklin.


While you can modify STV to allow equality, the well-known versions do not.
Thus, the ballot is not the same. The Bucklin ballot is more permissive and
thus simpler.

Also, for a council, 3 rankings is not nearly enough for STV. You should
really require nearly-full ranking. With Bucklin, as few as 2 rankings is
enough (and, in my opinion, optimal).

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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:07 PM 4/29/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:

One device that is used by Borda Count, which is a related method, 
is to have as many ranks as candidates. While I generally favor this 
(it allows voters to use their ability to compare preferences to 
generate a rank order), it may be collecting noise, if there are a 
lot of candidates. My sense is that 3-rank Bucklin (which means 3 
approved ranks), with an added rank within the disapproved set, is 
enough for most purposes, but some studies should be done with 
simulations to determine how much results are improved with additional ranks.



1. I don't see how Borda is "related" to Bucklin.


Borda is Range Voting with a special restriction: equal ranking is 
not allowed, and the number of ranks is equal to the number of 
candidates. Strictly, real Borda rules do allow equal ranking, but 
only at the bottom, and the voter is essentially penalized with a weak vote.


Another way to put it is that Borda with equal ranking allowed and 
therefore empty ranks is Range. Thus we can recognize that the Borda 
count that is promoted by Saari is simply Range with the hands of the 
voters tied.


And the ballot that feeds Bucklin is strategically optimal if it is a 
Range ballot covering the approved set. That's the connection.




2. As I've said before, I favor only 2 ranks for Bucklin. This keeps 
strategic opportunities to an absolute minimum, and allows simple 
one-word labels for each rank (preferred, approved, unapproved).


Sure, but there is more flexibility for handling large candidate 
sets. "Strategic opportunities" are ways in which voters can more 
accurately express their preferences. It's a good thing, not a bad 
one, and Bucklin handles these well. Key to Bucklin: the ranking, at 
least the ranking that can elect a candidate, is of approved 
candidates only. Not willing to cause the election of a candidate, 
don't vote for the candidate in an approved rank. The "unapproved" 
rank that Mr. Quinn mentions is the default rank of no-vote.



Bucklin is very easy to understand and vote. Natural voting 
tendencies are sound strategy!


Agreed.


Cool. I hope it's correct!


Of course, the issue with Bucklin is that it uses a different 
(simpler) balloting style than STV or Condorcet.



It can use the same ballot, the same set of preferences. A Range 
ballot can be used for STV or Condorcet analysis. That the ballot is 
simpler is not exactly correct. A three-rank ballot looks the same 
as a three-rank STV (IRV) ballot. It's counted differently in Bucklin.



While you can modify STV to allow equality, the well-known versions 
do not. Thus, the ballot is not the same. The Bucklin ballot is more 
permissive and thus simpler.


Bucklin can be no-equal-ranking allowed, and was, unfortunately, 
simulated that way by Warren, accounting for its less than optimal 
performance, I suspect. Bucklin can use exactly the same ballot as 
STV or Condorcet. (either one can allow or not allow equal ranking.) 
The only critical difference is analysis. Bucklin uses the ballot to 
control a series of approval elections with declining approval 
cutoff. STV has complicated rules that I won't describe. Condorcet 
only considers the pairwise data, which can neglect preference 
strength, but some Condorcet methods do use preference strength 
information estimated from rank distance or vote counts.


Also, for a council, 3 rankings is not nearly enough for STV. You 
should really require nearly-full ranking. With Bucklin, as few as 2 
rankings is enough (and, in my opinion, optimal).


Remember, 3-rank Bucklin, standard ER, allows complete ranking of 
candidates into four groups, and this is adequate for good analysis. 
With the "overvoting" scheme I've mentiond, the same ballot would 
allow ranking into six groups. With the disapproved rank used, (which 
would only be used for the proportional representation part of an 
election as is being considered, or possibly to determine preference 
in a runoff, or just for information so that voters can make good 
choices in a runoff, knowing a truer picture of overall preferences), 
which turns Bucklin into 4-rank, in a way, there are eight possible 
rankings. Add an explicit zero, and it's nine rankings. Don't you 
think that's enough for STV? Given that one can equal rank?


With 2-rank Bucklin, you have three ranks. You can't use the ballot 
for serious Condorcet analysis, probably, particularly if we consider 
write-ins allowed. There are reasons why they used three ranks, 
usually, a century ago. They were actually able to handle an election 
with over ninety candidates, and the result seems to have been 
popular. I should find that, as I recall, they did find a majority, 
which is quite a trick with that many candidates!


With 2-rank Bucklin, the election can handle full ranking of only 
three candidates, which, with a write-in, means two on the ballot. 
That's pretty primitive, given how easy it is and how harmless it is 
to add a t

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

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/4/29 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax 

> At 01:07 PM 4/29/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>
>  One device that is used by Borda Count, which is a related method, is to
>> have as many ranks as candidates. While I generally favor this (it allows
>> voters to use their ability to compare preferences to generate a rank
>> order), it may be collecting noise, if there are a lot of candidates. My
>> sense is that 3-rank Bucklin (which means 3 approved ranks), with an added
>> rank within the disapproved set, is enough for most purposes, but some
>> studies should be done with simulations to determine how much results are
>> improved with additional ranks.
>>
>>
>> 1. I don't see how Borda is "related" to Bucklin.
>>
>
> Borda is Range Voting with a special restriction: equal ranking is not
> allowed, and the number of ranks is equal to the number of candidates.
> Strictly, real Borda rules do allow equal ranking, but only at the bottom,
> and the voter is essentially penalized with a weak vote.
>
> Another way to put it is that Borda with equal ranking allowed and
> therefore empty ranks is Range. Thus we can recognize that the Borda count
> that is promoted by Saari is simply Range with the hands of the voters tied.
>
> And the ballot that feeds Bucklin is strategically optimal if it is a Range
> ballot covering the approved set. That's the connection.
>
>
One could probably construct such a connection for any two systems. I know
that you feel in your heart that this connection has a deep truth, whereas
some concoction of why Schulze and Plurality are deeply connected would be
bullshit, but it's hard to see that you could convince a mathematically
openminded person who disagreed with you.

Mr. Quinn seems to have a common response: that "strategic" voting is Bad.
> He doesn't say what he means by it, but Bucklin voters were allowed to leave
> a rank empty. So if they had a strong preference for their favorite, but
> were still willing to accept, in the end, the election of another candidate,
> they could rank their favorite in first rank and the other in third rank,
> which represents a sincere -- but smart -- vote. It reduces the chance,
> which does exist with Bucklin, that a multiple majority would be found in
> the second round, and that thus they'd be possibly abstaining from that
> election, having voted for both of these candidates.
>
> Note that this outcome isn't a bad one if it were actually bad, the
> voters wouldn't have added the additional approval, I assume. In a two-round
> system, they gain additional flexibility, they can postpone the "hold my
> nose" vote till the end, when it is far more obvious that it's a necessity.
> They will have some pretty good information from the primary.
>

I don't think that strategic voting itself is Bad. I think that an
opportunity for strategy is an opportunity for regret, and regret (and
recrimination) is something that makes you want to change voting systems so
they don't give the "unfair" result you regret helping to cause.

(Of course, I don't mean a result you regret; any system has losers. I mean,
actions you regret; a result that you realize you could easily have
changed.)

This is why semi-honest (Range-type) strategy is in some ways more
pernicious than dishonest strategy. Any time a semi-honest strategy could
have changed the result, people will probably feel more regret than if the
same change had been possible with an honest strategy.

I could write pages about other things I think about strategy, but that's
enough for now.

Jameson

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]

Dear all,

if the single-winner president or the proportionally elected VPs
sometimes are not a member of the set of proportionally elected
council members (which is likely), then I would also like to ask you
for a proposal on the last "conservative" method, thus it would not be
optional, as I wrote below.  Thus, in all I ask you for three
proposals.

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

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

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

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

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

What methods would you recommend for this scenario?

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

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

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

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

Best regards
Peter Zbornik

2010/4/29, Peter Zbornik :
> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Juho  wrote:
>
>>   On Apr 28, 2010, at 9:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>>
>>  Hello,
>>
>> I have some catching up to do here.
>> I need to think more about some of the different methods and the
>> proposals
>> I have gotten.
>> Some of the methods are new to me.
>> As I am a layman it takes time to understand them.
>>
>> Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.
>> Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?
>>
>>
>> The most common single-winner methods (plurality, top-two runoff, IRV)
>> are
>> known not to be "centrist oriented". For example in the quite common
>> set-up
>> where we have two extremists and one centrist with slightly less support
>> they all elect one of the "extremists".
>>
>> Approval and Condorcet are more centrist oriented. They are both also old
>> and well tested methods although they have not been widely used in public
>> political elections.
>>
>> One problem with Approval (that was not mentioned yet) is the limited
>> expressive power of the Approval vote and resulting problems in choosing
>> the
>> right strategy, e.g. when there are three leading candidates and one
>> should
>> approve either one or two of them. That is problematic e.g when left wing
>> has 2 candidates and is is bigger than right wing that has 1 candidate.
>> (In
>> Approval voters are generally assumed to vote strategically and not just
>> sincerely list candidates that they consider "approvable".)
>>
>>  If I have understood the discussion correctly, you are still in draft
>> phase.
>>
>>
>> Many of the presented drafts can be quickly made into concrete and exact
>> proposals. Some of the used components are more mature / well tested than
>> others. There are some details left to decide, e.g. which STV variant (/
>> which proportional method) or which Condorcet variant (/ which
>> single-winner
>> method) to use.
>>
>>  When some of you feel you have a good proposal at hand in this
>> discussion, feel free to summarize and put forward a draft.
>>
>>
>> I'm trying t listen to you to understand which one of the proposals would
>> be the best for your needs :-). Now my understanding is that you still
>> want
>> all the listed requirements to be met and you want to use as "well
>> tested"
>> (and simple/explainable) methods as possible.
>>
> Yes, the requirements are set.
> People have to understand what they are voting about, if they are to
> support
> the method.
> The people who like the majoritarian system can be expected to spread FUD
> (fear uncertainty doubt).
> It has at least to be 

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear all,

I am sending a post scriptum to the email below.

1. The conservative method is only interesting if, the unambiguously
pre-elected president and vice president(s) are not in the set of
proportionally (for instance STV) elected council members.
2. If the unambiguously elected president and vice president(s) is in the
set of proportionally (for instance STV) elected council members, then I
guess the conservative method would include the "optimal" method as a
special case (the optimal method was where the president and vice presidents
are elected from the proportionally elected council members).
3. The number of pre-elected vice presidents in point 1 above can be zero.
The president is always unambiguously pre-elected.

4. For completeness, I would like to add one additional requirement, which I
think can be resolved after the seletion of a good voting procedure.
Requirement: The selected council must contain at least X members of each
sex (gender-equality rule). X is specified before each election.
This gender rule is used in our organization today.

Best regards
Peter Zborník

2010/5/3 Peter Zbornik 

> Dear all,
>
> if the single-winner president or the proportionally elected VPs
> sometimes are not a member of the set of proportionally elected
> council members (which is likely), then I would also like to ask you
> for a proposal on the last "conservative" method, thus it would not be
> optional, as I wrote below.  Thus, in all I ask you for three
> proposals.
>
> Motivation:
> I can imagine that there could be a method, which elected the rest of
> the council members after the the president and some or all vice
> presidents have been elected using proportional ranking (see the
> proposal of Markus Schulze for an example).
>
> Such an election method would sacrifice a proportionality in the
> council in order to elect the president unambigously and to achieve
> proportionality between the president and some of the vice presidents
> (at least the 1st VP).
>
> The election of the rest of the council members would be done to
> maximize the proportionality of the elected council, maybe by using a
> modified version of STV, where the pre-elected president and vice
> presidents would be considered elected to the council at the start of
> the STV election, using the same ballots as for the  proportional
> ranking election. Less important VPs (like for instance a fourth VP),
> would be elected from the council.
>
> Thus, the rest of the council members would be elected in such a way,
> that the council would be as much proportional as possible given the
> pre-elected P and VPs.
>
> The advantage of this method is, that there would be no ambiguity
> relating to the legitimacy of the elected president and the most
> important VPs.
>
> What methods would you recommend for this scenario?
>
> Would there be a software that could be able to handle this problem
> (possibly after some slight modification)?
>
> I think the scenario above (i.e.first proportional ordering of P and
> some VPs, then balancing election of the rest of the council to
> achieve proportionality in the council and finally possibly electing
> some less important VPs from the elected council) is the variant which
> would come closest to the way the elections are done in our party
> today, while attaining proportionality.
>
> Right now the scenario above seems to be the optimal solution, which I
> would like propose to the party.
>
>  It wasn't easy to arrive to the model above, but now I think the
> problem is well-defined.
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zbornik
>
> 2010/4/29, Peter Zbornik :
>  > On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Juho  wrote:
> >
> >>   On Apr 28, 2010, at 9:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
> >>
> >>  Hello,
> >>
> >> I have some catching up to do here.
> >> I need to think more about some of the different methods and the
> >> proposals
> >> I have gotten.
> >> Some of the methods are new to me.
> >> As I am a layman it takes time to understand them.
> >>
> >> Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.
> >> Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?
> >>
> >>
> >> The most common single-winner methods (plurality, top-two runoff, IRV)
> >> are
> >> known not to be "centrist oriented". For example in the quite common
> >> set-up
> >> where we have two extremists and one centrist with slightly less support
> >> they all elect one of the "extremists".
> >>
> >> Approval and Condorcet are more centrist oriented. They are both also
> old
> >> and well tested methods although they have not been widely used in
> public
> >> political elections.
> >>
> >> One problem with Approval (that was not mentioned yet) is the limited
> >> expressive power of the Approval vote and resulting problems in choosing
> >> the
> >> right strategy, e.g. when there are three leading candidates and one
> >> should
> >> approve either one or two of them. That is problematic e.g when left
> wing
> >> has 2 candidates and

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

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Peter Zbornik,

> Is the winner of a single-winner Schulze election always
> in the set of winners of a Schulze-STV election, if the
> same ballots are used for both elections?

If more than one seat has to be filled, then the winner
of the Schulze single-winner election method is not
necessarily in the winning set of the Schulze STV method.

*

> If the answer to the question in my email below is no or
> if the vice presidents sometimes are not members of the
> set of Schulze-STV winners (which I guess can be the case
> even in a council with 7 members, one prezident and 3 VPs),
> then I can imagine that there could be a method, which
> elected the rest of the council members after the the
> president and vice presidents have been elected using
> Schulze proportional ranking.
>
> Such an election method would sacrifice a proportionality
> in the council in order to achieve proportionality in the
> ordered set of the president and the vice presidents.
>
> The election of the rest of the council members would be
> done to maximize the proportionality of the elected council,
> maybe by using a modified version of Schulze-STV, where the
> president and vice presidents would be considered elected
> to the council at the start of the STV election, using the
> same ballots as for the Schulze proportional ranking election.
>
> Thus, the rest of the council members would be elected in
> such a way, that the council would be as much proportional
> as possible.
>
> Would your software be able to handle this problem (possibly
> after some slight modification)?
> What methods would you recommend for this scenario?

I recommend:

--the president is the top-ranked candidate of the Schulze
  single-winner ranking,
--the vice president is the second-ranked candidate of the
  Schulze single-winner ranking,
--the other members of the council are chosen by the Schulze
  proportional ranking method so that proportionality is
  maximized.

My software could handle this problem (after some slight
modifications).

Markus Schulze



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

[Juho]

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


Dear all,

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


Possible but maybe not very common.


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

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


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


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


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


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




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

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


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


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




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

The advantage of this method is, that there would be

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Markus Schulze,

thank you for your reply.
Why do you recommend the first vice-president to be elected as the second
ranked of Schulze single-winner method and not the second ranked using the
Schulze proportional ranking method?
Do you have a strong oppinion in this issue?
What is the difference in the results of these two methods?
I guess that in the single winner case both the president and vice president
will belong to the biggest faction, while for the proportional ranking this
is the case only if the second largest faction will not get a droop quota of
votes.
In our party there is one tradition used in some parts of the party, which
says that if there are two competing factions with two candidates for
the presidential post, the candidate of the losing faction gets the first
vice presidential post.

Best regards
Peter Zborník

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Markus Schulze <
markus.schu...@alumni.tu-berlin.de> wrote:

> Dear Peter Zbornik,
>
> > Is the winner of a single-winner Schulze election always
> > in the set of winners of a Schulze-STV election, if the
> > same ballots are used for both elections?
>
> If more than one seat has to be filled, then the winner
> of the Schulze single-winner election method is not
> necessarily in the winning set of the Schulze STV method.
>
> *
>
> > If the answer to the question in my email below is no or
> > if the vice presidents sometimes are not members of the
> > set of Schulze-STV winners (which I guess can be the case
> > even in a council with 7 members, one prezident and 3 VPs),
> > then I can imagine that there could be a method, which
> > elected the rest of the council members after the the
> > president and vice presidents have been elected using
> > Schulze proportional ranking.
> >
> > Such an election method would sacrifice a proportionality
> > in the council in order to achieve proportionality in the
> > ordered set of the president and the vice presidents.
> >
> > The election of the rest of the council members would be
> > done to maximize the proportionality of the elected council,
> > maybe by using a modified version of Schulze-STV, where the
> > president and vice presidents would be considered elected
> > to the council at the start of the STV election, using the
> > same ballots as for the Schulze proportional ranking election.
> >
> > Thus, the rest of the council members would be elected in
> > such a way, that the council would be as much proportional
> > as possible.
> >
> > Would your software be able to handle this problem (possibly
> > after some slight modification)?
> > What methods would you recommend for this scenario?
>
> I recommend:
>
> --the president is the top-ranked candidate of the Schulze
>  single-winner ranking,
> --the vice president is the second-ranked candidate of the
>  Schulze single-winner ranking,
> --the other members of the council are chosen by the Schulze
>  proportional ranking method so that proportionality is
>  maximized.
>
> My software could handle this problem (after some slight
> modifications).
>
> Markus Schulze
>
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>

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

[Raph Frank]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 10:52 AM, Markus Schulze
 wrote:
> I recommend:
>
> --the president is the top-ranked candidate of the Schulze
>  single-winner ranking,
> --the vice president is the second-ranked candidate of the
>  Schulze single-winner ranking,
> --the other members of the council are chosen by the Schulze
>  proportional ranking method so that proportionality is
>  maximized.

For the rest of the council, I think electing them using Sculze-STV
with the restriction that only results where the President and VP are
members are allowed would give better proportionality.

My understanding of how the ranking system works is

1) Elect Schulze winner
2) Elect 2 member council with Schulze-STV subject to winner in 1) being present
3) Elect 3 member council with Schulze-STV subject to winners in 1,2)
being present
4) Continue with process until all seats filled.  One new member is
elected to council in each step.

So, the process would be modified to

1) Elect Schulze winner as President
2) Elect Schulze 2nd place candidate as VP
3) Elect 8 member council subject to President and VP being members

This gets Centerist President and VP and also maximises
proportionality.  It also assumes all the other councilors are equal
in standing.

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

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Raph Frank,

you wrote (3 May 2010):

> For the rest of the council, I think electing
> them using Schulze-STV with the restriction
> that only results where the President and VP
> are members are allowed would give better
> proportionality.

If I understand Peter Zbornik correctly, then he
wants a ranking of the members of the council, so
that it is clear who the 2nd vice president, the
3rd vice president, the 4th vice president, etc.,
is.

Therefore, I recommend a proportional ranking
method for the election of the council.

Markus Schulze



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

[Peter Zbornik]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Markus Schulze <
markus.schu...@alumni.tu-berlin.de> wrote:

> Dear Raph Frank,
>
> you wrote (3 May 2010):
>
> > For the rest of the council, I think electing
> > them using Schulze-STV with the restriction
> > that only results where the President and VP
> > are members are allowed would give better
> > proportionality.
>
> If I understand Peter Zbornik correctly, then he
> wants a ranking of the members of the council, so
> that it is clear who the 2nd vice president, the
> 3rd vice president, the 4th vice president, etc.,
> is.

Markus Schulze understands me correctly.

>
> Therefore, I recommend a proportional ranking
> method for the election of the council.
>
> Markus Schulze
>
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>

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

[Raph Frank]

2010/5/3 Juho :
> (What I mean by "distorting effect" is that if you have left, centre and
> right, and centre has less first place support than the other two, then a
> good approach may be to elect C if one elects only one representative. But
> if one elects two then one could pick L and R (to be proportional). This
> means that the proportional ranking (or locking) approach always makes a
> mistake, either in the case of one or two representatives. But in the case
> of electing the presidents it may be well justified to elect C as president
> (the most important job, expected to represent all sections of the party)
> and then elect either L or R as the first vice president. And the other one
> as third. Fair enough although the "team of two" is not proportional.)

Looking it purely on the number line is like trying to slot in new
candidates at each step.

For example, assuming that each voter/candidate is scored from 0 to
100 and new candidates are added one at a time.

Round 1:
The most representative candidate would be placed at 50.

Winners: 50
Ideal result: 50

Round 2
The ideal result would be one candidate at 33 and one at 67.  However,
the winner from round 1must be included.

I am going to assume 33 wins the tie-break with 67.

Winners: 50, 33
Ideal: 67, 33

Round 3
The ideal would be 25, 50, 75

Since 33 was elected, 75 wins against 25.

Winners: 33, 50, 75
Ideal: 25, 50, 75

As you add more members, the differences between ideal and actual is
reduced, but it is never eliminated.

Also, if there is no need for rankings, then it is better to just
elect the remaining candidates proportionally.

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

Right, if there is a desire for an ordered list and proportionality,
then proportional ordering methods are a good idea.

However, they do sacrifice some proportionality for being able to rank
the candidates.

> If the requirement of conservative / already used methods (like STV) is not
> strict, then one could well use some Condorcet method as a basis in the
> serialization.

This might be the simplest.  Just elect the council using PR-STV and
then rank them in condorcet order.

However, that does mean that the condorcet winner isn't guaranteed to
be the President.

> You mentioned also the possibility of additional requirements (in the P.S.
> mail). It is possible e.g. to elect certain minimum number of males and
> females. In the serial approach that was discussed above one simple approach
> would be to just eliminate all remaining male or female candidates at some
> appropriate in the serial process when all the remaining representatives
> must be of same sex.

So assume that the rules were 8 member council and at least 3 men and
at least 3 women.

If a 5th man is elected, then all further men are eliminated before
the next round.  Similarly, if a 5th woman is elected, all remaining
women are eliminated.

You also need a rule which says that members of a particular gender
would be automatically elected.  For example, if there is 1 man
elected and 2 unelected men remaining, then those 2 men are
automatically elected.

This could cause strategic effects and problems with quota.

It might be better to say that men are protected from elimination if
there are only 4 remaining men and likewise only 4 remaining women,
except in the last round (when there are 9 remaining candidates).
Also, all men or eliminated if 5 of their gender are elected.

This guarantees at least 3 of each are elected, which still having the
same effective quota for each (except if the 5 elected rule kicks in).

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

[Juho]

On May 3, 2010, at 2:07 PM, Raph Frank wrote:


2010/5/3 Juho :
(What I mean by "distorting effect" is that if you have left,  
centre and
right, and centre has less first place support than the other two,  
then a
good approach may be to elect C if one elects only one  
representative. But
if one elects two then one could pick L and R (to be proportional).  
This
means that the proportional ranking (or locking) approach always  
makes a
mistake, either in the case of one or two representatives. But in  
the case
of electing the presidents it may be well justified to elect C as  
president
(the most important job, expected to represent all sections of the  
party)
and then elect either L or R as the first vice president. And the  
other one
as third. Fair enough although the "team of two" is not  
proportional.)


Looking it purely on the number line is like trying to slot in new
candidates at each step.

For example, assuming that each voter/candidate is scored from 0 to
100 and new candidates are added one at a time.

Round 1:
The most representative candidate would be placed at 50.

Winners: 50
Ideal result: 50

Round 2
The ideal result would be one candidate at 33 and one at 67.  However,
the winner from round 1must be included.

I am going to assume 33 wins the tie-break with 67.

Winners: 50, 33
Ideal: 67, 33

Round 3
The ideal would be 25, 50, 75

Since 33 was elected, 75 wins against 25.

Winners: 33, 50, 75
Ideal: 25, 50, 75


(An alternative approach to defining the ideal winner sets would be  
{50}, {25, 75}, {17, 50, 83} etc., but this is not important in this  
example.)




As you add more members, the differences between ideal and actual is
reduced, but it is never eliminated.

Also, if there is no need for rankings, then it is better to just
elect the remaining candidates proportionally.


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

pick as many of them from the chain as needed.


Right, if there is a desire for an ordered list and proportionality,
then proportional ordering methods are a good idea.

However, they do sacrifice some proportionality for being able to rank
the candidates.

If the requirement of conservative / already used methods (like  
STV) is not
strict, then one could well use some Condorcet method as a basis in  
the

serialization.


This might be the simplest.  Just elect the council using PR-STV and
then rank them in condorcet order.


Yes, using a non-serial proportional method to get the ideally  
proportional council and then serialize its members using a serial  
proportional method would give ideal proportionality for the council.  
(PR-STV is however not ideally proportional but a practical method  
that has its own distortions, just like the serial ones have.) This  
approach has some other distortions. It may not elect the ideal  
president (or vice presidents) since one can only pick one among the  
council members. The sets of "n first presidents" could also be less  
proportional than in the case where one can elect the presidents from  
the full set of candidates.


We are thus talking about how to best allocate the inevitable small  
distortions that we must live with in any case.


The serial approach has the benefit of simplicity if the presidents  
will be elected in some serial style anyway. One should also note that  
the set of candidates is never ideal, and the border line between last  
elected and first not elected candidate may always be a bit violent  
with respect to proportionality. This means that to some extent the  
additional noise caused by the serial election style (of the full  
council) to some extent gets lost in the noise caused by other factors  
among the last elected / not elected candidates. We need to estimate  
the benefits and problems.




However, that does mean that the condorcet winner isn't guaranteed to
be the President.

You mentioned also the possibility of additional requirements (in  
the P.S.
mail). It is possible e.g. to elect certain minimum number of males  
and
females. In the serial approach that was discussed above one simple  
approach
would be to just eliminate all remaining male or female candidates  
at some
appropriate in the serial process when all the remaining  
representatives

must be of same sex.


So assume that the rules were 8 member council and at least 3 men and
at least 3 women.

If a 5th man is elected, then all further men are eliminated before
the next round.  Similarly, if a 5th woman is elected, all remaining
women are eliminated.

You also need a rule which says that members of a particular gender
would be automatically elected.  For example, if there is 1 man
elected and 2 unelected men remaining, then those 2 men are
automatically el

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

[Juho]

On May 3, 2010, at 2:07 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Markus Schulze > wrote:

Dear Raph Frank,

you wrote (3 May 2010):

> For the rest of the council, I think electing
> them using Schulze-STV with the restriction
> that only results where the President and VP
> are members are allowed would give better
> proportionality.

If I understand Peter Zbornik correctly, then he
wants a ranking of the members of the council, so
that it is clear who the 2nd vice president, the
3rd vice president, the 4th vice president, etc.,
is.
Markus Schulze understands me correctly.


I understood that the VPs should be ranked but that there is no such  
requirement for the rest of the council. Or are all members of the  
council considered to be numbered VPs?


The use of some proportional ranking method indeed distorts  
proportionality a bit. But I proposed to study also this "one method  
only" approach (as an alternative to best possible optimization of the  
proportionality of the council) since the resulting method would be  
simple and the distortion that it causes could be smaller than its  
benefits.


Juho






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

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Peter Zbornik wrote:

Dear all,
 
I am sending a post scriptum to the email below.
 
1. The conservative method is only interesting if, the unambiguously 
pre-elected president and vice president(s) are not in the set of 
proportionally (for instance STV) elected council members.
2. If the unambiguously elected president and vice president(s) is in 
the set of proportionally (for instance STV) elected council members, 
then I guess the conservative method would include the "optimal" method 
as a special case (the optimal method was where the president and vice 
presidents are elected from the proportionally elected council members).
3. The number of pre-elected vice presidents in point 1 above can be 
zero. The president is always unambiguously pre-elected.
 
4. For completeness, I would like to add one additional requirement, 
which I think can be resolved after the seletion of a good voting procedure.
Requirement: The selected council must contain at least X members of 
each sex (gender-equality rule). X is specified before each election.

This gender rule is used in our organization today.


A simple way of doing this, if the council size (after president and VPs 
have been elected) is even, is to have two elections, each of a council 
size equal to half the assembly. Then, for the first, only elect women, 
and for the second, only elect men. Use the same ballots, but remove 
candidates of the sex you don't want.


Methods like Schulze STV work by comparing possible councils to 
determine which are best. Thus, it may be possible to limit them to only 
consider "balanced" councils. I'm not sure how to do this in ordinary 
STV, however, since it doesn't work that way, and in any case, this 
would be untested.


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

[Peter Zbornik]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 10:16 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km-el...@broadpark.no> wrote:

> Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>  I am sending a post scriptum to the email below.
>>  1. The conservative method is only interesting if, the unambiguously
>> pre-elected president and vice president(s) are not in the set of
>> proportionally (for instance STV) elected council members.
>> 2. If the unambiguously elected president and vice president(s) is in the
>> set of proportionally (for instance STV) elected council members, then I
>> guess the conservative method would include the "optimal" method as a
>> special case (the optimal method was where the president and vice presidents
>> are elected from the proportionally elected council members).
>> 3. The number of pre-elected vice presidents in point 1 above can be zero.
>> The president is always unambiguously pre-elected.
>>  4. For completeness, I would like to add one additional requirement,
>> which I think can be resolved after the seletion of a good voting procedure.
>> Requirement: The selected council must contain at least X members of each
>> sex (gender-equality rule). X is specified before each election.
>> This gender rule is used in our organization today.
>>
>
> A simple way of doing this, if the council size (after president and VPs
> have been elected) is even, is to have two elections, each of a council size
> equal to half the assembly. Then, for the first, only elect women, and for
> the second, only elect men. Use the same ballots, but remove candidates of
> the sex you don't want.

I am affraid that this is not possible. First we have mostly odd-numbered
council sizes, and secondly the gender rule does not require that half of
the men should be men and the other half women.
Our current gender rule goes as following: "for every three members of the
body, there has to be one person of each sex". A five member council thus
has to have one woman and one man. For seven members it is two men and two
women.


> Methods like Schulze STV work by comparing possible councils to determine
> which are best. Thus, it may be possible to limit them to only consider
> "balanced" councils. I'm not sure how to do this in ordinary STV, however,
> since it doesn't work that way, and in any case, this would be untested.
>

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

[Peter Zbornik]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Juho  wrote:

>   On May 3, 2010, at 2:07 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
>  On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Markus Schulze <
> markus.schu...@alumni.tu-berlin.de> wrote:
>
>> Dear Raph Frank,
>>
>> you wrote (3 May 2010):
>>
>> > For the rest of the council, I think electing
>> > them using Schulze-STV with the restriction
>> > that only results where the President and VP
>> > are members are allowed would give better
>> > proportionality.
>>
>> If I understand Peter Zbornik correctly, then he
>> wants a ranking of the members of the council, so
>> that it is clear who the 2nd vice president, the
>> 3rd vice president, the 4th vice president, etc.,
>> is.
>
> Markus Schulze understands me correctly.
>
>
>  I understood that the VPs should be ranked but that there is no such
> requirement for the rest of the council. Or are all members of the council
> considered to be numbered VPs?
>
Normally the National council has three VPs, the regional normally two VPs
(in Prague we have an excption and have unranked VPs) for the local councils
I don't know, I guess two is normal, one VP is not uncommon.
The voters can decide upon the number of VPs and the size of the council
Seven members of the body is standard, I think five is not uncommon.
Some bodies of the party has no VP (that applies normally only for specific
bodies, like audit bodies and such and is rare),
The rest of the council members are not ranked.

>
> The use of some proportional ranking method indeed distorts proportionality
> a bit. But I proposed to study also this "one method only" approach (as an
> alternative to best possible optimization of the proportionality of the
> council) since the resulting method would be simple and the distortion that
> it causes could be smaller than its benefits.
>
> Juho
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>

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

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Peter Zbornik,

this is my proposal:

--Use the Schulze proportional ranking method.

--The top-ranked candidate becomes the president.

--The second-ranked candidate becomes the vice president.

--If the first two candidates happen to be male, then,
  when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
  your considerations to female candidates.

  If the first two candidates happen to be female, then,
  when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
  your considerations to male candidates.

  The third-ranked candidate becomes the 2nd vice president.

--The fourth-ranked candidate becomes the 3rd vice president.

--The fifth-ranked candidate becomes the 4th vice president.

--If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be male,
  then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
  your considerations to female candidates.

  If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be female,
  then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
  your considerations to male candidates.

  The sixth-ranked candidate becomes the 5th vice president.

--The seventh-ranked candidate becomes the 6th vice president.

Markus Schulze



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

[Juho]

On May 4, 2010, at 3:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:


Dear Juho,

just some words to avoid misunderstandings.
I still would like to be able to propose an alternative method,  
which elects the council first and then the P and VPs, even though  
the condorcet winner is not in there (marked as the "optimal" method  
(28.4.2010)).

I guess this is what Schulze calls the bottom-up approach.
The top-down approach has the problem of sacrificing proportionality  
and the bottom-up approach has the problem of sometimes not electing  
the president.
Considering the fact that the current election system of the greens  
is closer to top-down than bottom-up, a top-down system seems to be  
more likely to pass.


I think you can also try to achieve most of both approaches. If same  
ballots can be used for P and VP and council elections then the  
election of the president is not limited to the members of the  
council. Timewise the And the council can be almost as proportional as  
when elected independently (since the elected president is likely to  
be elected also in the council anyway). It may be useful to have some  
space for discussion and maybe different alternatives when discussing  
the proposal(s) within the party, but there is no need to cover (or  
emphasize) alternatives that the members may not like. For strategic  
reasons it may however be useful to include one proposal that all are  
likely to hate and that has some obvious flaws. That would make the  
better proposals automatically more liked :-).


Juho




Both approaches seem to be appealing.

James Gilmour (4.5.2010) showed an example of a bottom-up method  
using STV.


Best regards
Peter Zborník








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

[Juho]

This is a good approach in the category of simple (only one method  
used) proportional ranking based methods.


Use of proportional ranking reduces the proportionality of the council  
and the set of n presidents a bit but not much.


The election of the president can be seen to happen before the  
election of the council.


Same ballots are used for all elections. => Good for simplicity. Some  
small restrictions if the election criteria for P are different from  
the criteria of VPs and those of the council members.


The last vice president positions are probably not needed. Their order  
will probably become public but should maybe not be emphasized.


Markus Schulze of course recommends a Schulze method based approach  
but also any other good Condorcet method could be used as the basis.  
The Schulze family of methods has the benefit that it is quite well  
documented and the basic single winner Schulze method is also already  
used in some organizations. Probably Markus Schulze will also provide  
assistance in the promotion of the methods and related software. All  
these variants are however very similar so the argumentation and  
software is pretty similar in all cases.


I support this approach as one proposal in the category of simple  
proportional ranking based methods. No need to limit to the Schulze  
method based approach only but to allow also other base methods to be  
used (e.g. Ranked Pairs, minmax(margins)). Also other categories or  
maybe variants of this one should/could be discussed and proposed as  
alternative approaches.


Juho



On May 4, 2010, at 3:42 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:


Dear Peter Zbornik,

this is my proposal:

--Use the Schulze proportional ranking method.

--The top-ranked candidate becomes the president.

--The second-ranked candidate becomes the vice president.

--If the first two candidates happen to be male, then,
 when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
 your considerations to female candidates.

 If the first two candidates happen to be female, then,
 when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
 your considerations to male candidates.

 The third-ranked candidate becomes the 2nd vice president.

--The fourth-ranked candidate becomes the 3rd vice president.

--The fifth-ranked candidate becomes the 4th vice president.

--If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be male,
 then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
 your considerations to female candidates.

 If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be female,
 then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
 your considerations to male candidates.

 The sixth-ranked candidate becomes the 5th vice president.

--The seventh-ranked candidate becomes the 6th vice president.

Markus Schulze



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list info



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

[Andrew Myers]

If you are looking for a proportional Condorcet method, I will also 
recommend the proportional election method that I developed. It is not 
STV-like, but it achieves proportionality when there are blocs of 
voters. It has the added advantage that it is already built into a 
running Internet voting system, CIVS. This algorithm has been used for 
many online polls and has been a success. The code of CIVS is publicly 
available. For more information about the method, see:


http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/civs/proportional.html

By the way, CIVS has recently acquired support for internationalization. 
It would be easy to construct a Czech instance if someone were willing 
to translate approximately 250 sentences from English to Czech. There 
is, for example, a Hungarian version (see 
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/civs-test/index.html.hu, translated 
by Árpád Magosányi). I am in the market for help translating to other 
languages.


Cheers,

-- Andrew

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

[Raph Frank]

On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 8:12 AM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:
> I am affraid that this is not possible. First we have mostly odd-numbered
> council sizes, and secondly the gender rule does not require that half of
> the men should be men and the other half women.
> Our current gender rule goes as following: "for every three members of the
> body, there has to be one person of each sex". A five member council thus
> has to have one woman and one man. For seven members it is two men and two
> women.

For elimination based PR-STV, I think my suggestion would be the most
reasonable.

- Set the threshold at one larger than the required number
- protect from elimination members of a gender if elimination would
reduce their number below the threshold
- prohibit from election members of a gender if that election would
leave less than a threshold for the other gender
- on the last round, remove remove the restrictions

In a 5 person council, that means that there must be at least 1 man and 1 woman.

If the candidates were

Men:
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5

and

Women
W1
W2
W3

then an election might go something like

Round 1

M1: 20
M2: 15
M3: 15
M4: 10
M5: 10
W1: 10
W2: 8
W3: 12

Total: 100
Quota: 17

M1 gets elected + 3 are distributed

Round 2
M1: 17*
M2: 16 (+1)
M3: 15
M4: 10
M5: 11 (+1)
W1: 11 (+1)
W2: 8
W3: 12

W2 is lowest, so is eliminated, +8 are distributed

Round 3
M1: 17*
M2: 16
M3: 15
M4: 13 (+3)
M5: 14 (+3)
W1: 13 (+2)
W2: 0
W3: 12

W3 is lowest.

However, eliminating W3 would reduce the number of women below 2, so
the lowest man is eliminated.

M4 is eliminated + 13 are distributed

Round 4
M1: 17*
M2: 17 (+1)
M3: 17 (+2)
M4: 0
M5: 16 (+2)
W1: 17 (+4)
W2: 0
W3: 16 (+4)

M2, M3 and W1 all meet the quota, so all are elected, but no surplus
is distributed.

Round 5
M1: 17*
M2: 17*
M3: 17*
M4: 0
M5: 16
W1: 17*
W2: 0
W3: 16

If this had been a previous round, W3 would be protected from
elimination, as there are only 2 women left.

However, since this is the last round, (only 1 seat left to fill and 2
candidates for the seat), the restriction is lifted.

Both W3 and M5 have 16 votes, so a tie break rule (say coin toss),
would decide which one is eliminated.

If M5 is eliminated, then the results are:

M1+M2+M3+W1+W3

if W3 is eliminated, then the results are

M1+M2+M3+M5+W1

In both cases, the requirement for at least 1 man and 1 woman is met.

>> Methods like Schulze STV work by comparing possible councils to determine
>> which are best. Thus, it may be possible to limit them to only consider
>> "balanced" councils. I'm not sure how to do this in ordinary STV, however,
>> since it doesn't work that way, and in any case, this would be untested.

Yes, you can.  The software would just need to be updated.

A council with 5 men and 0 women would be considered to lose to a
council of 4 men and 1 woman.

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

[Juho]

Some more comments on how the male/female requirements could be handled.

In the description of Markus Schulze (see below) there were two steps  
where the male/female proportionality was handled. That approach works  
if there are separate requirements for the set of three first  
(vice)presidents and the rest of the council members. My understanding  
is that in the Czech Green Party there are no such requirements on the  
presidents. In that situation it may be better to push the forced male/ 
female election to the end of the list. It may be better to allocate  
the resulting problems in the last seats and elect the first seats in  
a more optimal way. It could also be a problem if we for example know  
what the three largest groupings that are likely to get the three  
first seats are. In that situation the idea of forcing the third  
grouping to always be the one that will be forced (if needed) not to  
elect their best candidate doesn't sound fair. Towards the end of the  
list the level of randomness is higher and the groupings that get  
those last seats may be happier to get them and never mind if the  
representative is male or female.


This style of ensuring that appropriate number of male/female  
candidates will be elected is not optimal. It is for example possible  
that the fourth elected representative has an alternative of other sex  
that is about as popular as the elected president. In that case it  
could make sense to elect that alternative and in that way avoid the  
need to do some more violent changes later on the list.


This approach of pushing the forced decisions towards the end of the  
list is however a working although somewhat ad hoc solution. More  
accurate solutions may be much more complex, e.g. ones that compare  
all possible sets of representatives and then pick the one that  
distorts proportionality with respect to voter preferences and sex  
related proportionality as little as possible. What would be a better  
but still simple approach?



If one pushes the forced elections towards the end of the list the  
method could look as follows.


--Use a Condorcet based proportional ranking method.

--The top-ranked candidate becomes the president.

--The second-ranked candidate becomes the first vice president.  
(optional step)


--The third-ranked candidate becomes the second vice president.  
(optional step)


--Also the following n candidates will become members of the council.

--If at some point in the process all the remaining representatives  
must be male or female to make sure that the number of male/female  
candidates will meet the requirements, then restrict the consideration  
to male or female candidates only.



This approach is thus not an optimal way to handle the sex  
requirements but maybe good enough and at least a simple one.


(I note that Raph Frank proposed also an approach where the election  
of the last representative would be free of these sex related  
requirements. That is one way of relieving the proportionality related  
problems since at least the last choice that often distorts  
proportionality the most can be done quite freely. I'm not sure how  
big the improvement would be. There may be also other more  
sophisticated approaches as noted above.)


Juho




On May 4, 2010, at 5:03 PM, Juho wrote:

This is a good approach in the category of simple (only one method  
used) proportional ranking based methods.


Use of proportional ranking reduces the proportionality of the  
council and the set of n presidents a bit but not much.


The election of the president can be seen to happen before the  
election of the council.


Same ballots are used for all elections. => Good for simplicity.  
Some small restrictions if the election criteria for P are different  
from the criteria of VPs and those of the council members.


The last vice president positions are probably not needed. Their  
order will probably become public but should maybe not be emphasized.


Markus Schulze of course recommends a Schulze method based approach  
but also any other good Condorcet method could be used as the basis.  
The Schulze family of methods has the benefit that it is quite well  
documented and the basic single winner Schulze method is also  
already used in some organizations. Probably Markus Schulze will  
also provide assistance in the promotion of the methods and related  
software. All these variants are however very similar so the  
argumentation and software is pretty similar in all cases.


I support this approach as one proposal in the category of simple  
proportional ranking based methods. No need to limit to the Schulze  
method based approach only but to allow also other base methods to  
be used (e.g. Ranked Pairs, minmax(margins)). Also other categories  
or maybe variants of this one should/could be discussed and proposed  
as alternative approaches.


Juho



On May 4, 2010, at 3:42 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:


Dear Peter Zbornik,

thi

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

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 12:08 AM, Juho  wrote:
> (I note that Raph Frank proposed also an approach where the election of the
> last representative would be free of these sex related requirements. That is
> one way of relieving the proportionality related problems since at least the
> last choice that often distorts proportionality the most can be done quite
> freely. I'm not sure how big the improvement would be. There may be also
> other more sophisticated approaches as noted above.)

The approach is to add 1 to the requirements, so the freedom can be
given in the last step.

I was thinking of quotas and ensuring that it is actually worth voting
for candidates.

If a candidate gets in with 60% of a quota due to gender restrictions,
then the principle of PR-STV would seem to require an adjustment to
the quota.  The quota would in effect be to low for all the other
candidates.

Maybe there should be a different quota for men and women.

You could initially set it to the same for each.  If there ends up
being more men than women, then the quota for women could be
decreased, and the one for men increased (or vice versa).

This could be done iteratively (maybe like Meek's method) until the
balance requirement is just barely met.

My thinking was that by keeping at least 2 of each gender in the
competition, it means that each remaining candidate has competition,
so it is still worth voting for that candidate.  This saves the need
to run the election multiple times.

However, it would be possible for problems to still occur.  For
example, one gender might win all the seats with eliminations being
required.

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

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Raph Frank wrote:

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 12:08 AM, Juho  wrote:

(I note that Raph Frank proposed also an approach where the election of the
last representative would be free of these sex related requirements. That is
one way of relieving the proportionality related problems since at least the
last choice that often distorts proportionality the most can be done quite
freely. I'm not sure how big the improvement would be. There may be also
other more sophisticated approaches as noted above.)


The approach is to add 1 to the requirements, so the freedom can be
given in the last step.

I was thinking of quotas and ensuring that it is actually worth voting
for candidates.

If a candidate gets in with 60% of a quota due to gender restrictions,
then the principle of PR-STV would seem to require an adjustment to
the quota.  The quota would in effect be to low for all the other
candidates.

Maybe there should be a different quota for men and women.

You could initially set it to the same for each.  If there ends up
being more men than women, then the quota for women could be
decreased, and the one for men increased (or vice versa).

This could be done iteratively (maybe like Meek's method) until the
balance requirement is just barely met.


This makes me think of my own M-Set Webster (monotone divisor-based) 
method. In it, at least as by my reference implementation, it would be 
easy to set that kind of constraint.
The method ordinarily starts with the set of all councils and goes 
through "at least this many of that coalition" for different solid 
coalitions to get a certain number of candidate councils, which are then 
winnowed down to a single one in the margins phase.
One might add the additional constraints in two ways. The first would be 
to add new coalitions of all-women and all-men, having a fixed (not 
divisor-dependent) criterion of "at least this many" for each. The 
second would be to start with only the permitted councils (i.e. those 
that satisfy the constraints) instead of all possible ones. The outcome 
would be the same.


I am not sure if that method would be monotone, however, as the margins 
phase might consider jumps to inadmissible councils.


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

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Juho,

I wrote (4 May 2010):

> This is my proposal:
>
> --Use the Schulze proportional ranking method.
>
> --The top-ranked candidate becomes the president.
>
> --The second-ranked candidate becomes the vice president.
>
> --If the first two candidates happen to be male, then,
>   when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
>   your considerations to female candidates.
>
>   If the first two candidates happen to be female, then,
>   when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
>   your considerations to male candidates.
>
>   The third-ranked candidate becomes the 2nd vice president.
>
> --The fourth-ranked candidate becomes the 3rd vice president.
>
> --The fifth-ranked candidate becomes the 4th vice president.
>
> --If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be male,
>   then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
>   your considerations to female candidates.
>
>   If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be female,
>   then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
>   your considerations to male candidates.
>
>   The sixth-ranked candidate becomes the 5th vice president.
>
> --The seventh-ranked candidate becomes the 6th vice president.

You wrote (5 May 2010):

> In the description of Markus Schulze there were two steps
> where the male/female proportionality was handled. That
> approach works if there are separate requirements for the set
> of three first (vice)presidents and the rest of the council
> members. My understanding is that in the Czech Green Party
> there are no such requirements on the presidents. In that
> situation it may be better to push the forced male/female
> election to the end of the list.

I prefer my proposal because of two reasons.

First: In my proposal, the fourth and the fifth candidate reduce
the distortion of proportionality that might be caused by the
specific choice of the third candidate. The seventh candidate
reduces the distortion of proportionality that might be
caused by the specific choice of the sixth candidate. In your
proposal, there are no candidates who reduce the distortion of
proportionality that might be caused by the gender requirements.

Second: I formulated by proposal in such a manner that it can
also be used to create party lists. Here, the gender requirements
say that, for every possible number M, at least M of the first
3*M places must be filled by male candidates and at least M of
the first 3*M places must be filled by female candidates.

Markus Schulze



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

[Juho]

On May 5, 2010, at 1:36 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:


Dear Juho,

I wrote (4 May 2010):


This is my proposal:

--Use the Schulze proportional ranking method.

--The top-ranked candidate becomes the president.

--The second-ranked candidate becomes the vice president.

--If the first two candidates happen to be male, then,
when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
your considerations to female candidates.

If the first two candidates happen to be female, then,
when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
your considerations to male candidates.

The third-ranked candidate becomes the 2nd vice president.

--The fourth-ranked candidate becomes the 3rd vice president.

--The fifth-ranked candidate becomes the 4th vice president.

--If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be male,
then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
your considerations to female candidates.

If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be female,
then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
your considerations to male candidates.

The sixth-ranked candidate becomes the 5th vice president.

--The seventh-ranked candidate becomes the 6th vice president.


You wrote (5 May 2010):


In the description of Markus Schulze there were two steps
where the male/female proportionality was handled. That
approach works if there are separate requirements for the set
of three first (vice)presidents and the rest of the council
members. My understanding is that in the Czech Green Party
there are no such requirements on the presidents. In that
situation it may be better to push the forced male/female
election to the end of the list.


I prefer my proposal because of two reasons.

First: In my proposal, the fourth and the fifth candidate reduce
the distortion of proportionality that might be caused by the
specific choice of the third candidate. The seventh candidate
reduces the distortion of proportionality that might be
caused by the specific choice of the sixth candidate. In your
proposal, there are no candidates who reduce the distortion of
proportionality that might be caused by the gender requirements.


In all the proposed serial election based methods the later  
representatives do balance the imbalances caused by the earlier  
choices. The most crucial balancing move is the last seat since that  
reslt will not be fixed any more (Raph Frank addressed this problem in  
his proposal). The last seat (or two if a bigger fix is needed) can  
fix more or less well all the earlier imbalanced decisions. If we  
assume that there are many enough male and female candidates left at  
the end of the race then the need to balance both political  
proportionality and male/female proportionality at the last step is  
not much more difficult that balancing the political proportionality  
only.


Another reason why I wanted to avoid making the male/female balancing  
decisions at the beginning of the process is that the first elected  
seats are more critical/important than the others. I understood that  
Peter Zbornik wanted to guarantee that the president will be elected  
from clean table with no additional restrictions like limiting the  
choice to the already elected council members. For this reason  
probably we should also avoid distorting the election of the president  
with the male/female rules. For similar but milder reasons also the  
second vice president could be elected so that the most preferred  
(proportional) candidate wins, and the male/female questions could be  
solved when electing the regular council members.


Pushing the male/female decisions to the end also guarantees in  
general that the most liked candidates will be elected. It is possible  
for example that the third representative is clearly the most liked  
candidate of the third largest grouping (or the third most liked  
candidate in general). The male/female rule at the third position  
could force this candidate (X) to be replaced with a much less liked  
candidate (Y) of opposite sex. And if Y is ideologically close to X  
then that choice could reduce the support of X in the counting process  
so much that X will not be elected in the council at all. Use of the  
male/female rules at fixed positions in the list may thus be harmful  
in the sense that best candidates will not be elected. Also the  
political proportionality may suffer if some obvious candidates (maybe  
from some well defined quota size separate grouping) are not elected.  
If we want to move the male/female decisions up from the last seats  
then for example the Meek and two quotas based solution (that Raph  
Frank proposed) would give better (less violent) results than using  
fixed positions on the list to fix the male/female proportionality.  
When we compare that Meek based approach to the end of list approach,  
the Meek approach is less violent in its choices (if the change occurs  
at the third position, then the male and female can

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Markus Schulze,

thank you for your proposal.
It seems that your method is the one, which fulfills the requirements I set
up for the Green party council elections the closest at the moment.
Its drawbacks is however, that it is a new, complex method with only limited
testing on data an no usage in real life.
I would indeed like to include the top-down proportional ranking approach as
a requirement for council elections.
The bottom-up approach has never been used for single-winner elections as
far as I know, and I don't like that the top-most winner may not be the
president fulfilling the majority rule.

Due to the complexity of the method and the minimum of descriptions for the
lay-man, I am not sure that Schulze proprtional ranking necessarily is the
best top-down method to propose to the green party, even though I like it.
A simpler top-down STV approach is discussed in:
http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P5.HTM and in
http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE12/P1.HTM (references by Schulze in
http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze2.pdf).

What is the advantages of Schulze proportional ranking to the simpler top
down STV modified method described in
http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P5.HTM?

Otten ends his second article by stating: "I do not at this point advocate
that a generalised Condorcet method is adopted. However, I think the idea
has its merits, and I do believe the question of ordering demands further
consideration. While a single rule may not be appropriate for all
circumstances, it should be possible to narrow the field somewhat from that
in section 5."

How would you respond to Ottens remark above, which stems from the fact (?)
that Condorcet methods (and thus Schulze proportional ranking) violate of
the principle, that "that later preferences should not be allowed to count
against earlier ones"?

QUOTAS:
Quota rules are always intrusive on representative democracy, and their
application is in the end a political question.

The gender-quota feature you propose is the most natural, as it gives women
representation in the top three places in the council and as it is similar
to the party list ordering requirement.
However this representation is not required in our statutes, thus it is
strictly not needed.
I will probably recommend your approach to the gender quota, if I will
recommend using Schulze proportional orderings.

However, I may face the opinion that we need to require only two women in
the council, without any specific ordering and with a minimum impact on the
proportionality of the top P and VP positions and on the council
proportionality in general.
In this situation, what 2nd best solution would you propose and why?

PROPORTIONAL ORDERINGS:
I have some questions about the Schulze proportional ordering (
http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze2.pdf).
I would like to read your full paper (maybe I find time in the weekend), but
a more detailed overview of the method would be a nice start. Maybe some
reading instructions could help me and other readers.
In your comparison with Schulze STV, did your method ever differ by more
than one council member?

Schulze proportional ranking for dummies - first try by a dummy:
If I understood it correctly, it finds the Condorcet extention (for instance
ax) from the condorcet winner (for instance a) by selecting the candidate x
which in the committee ax will have the strongest path.
I.e. the committee ax is the committee, which has the highest preferences
among the voters and simultaneously includes the president a.
Please correct me if this is not a correct description of the method.

Properties of the proportional ranking:
We thus have a promising, alfa-tested method with a natural appeal (vote
management, condorcet winner, proportional orderings), which builds upon a
good, tried and tested single-winner method in a natural way.
Now we need to understand it and sell it to the masses or at least to the
green party.
What properties does this method fulfil (by properties I mean for
instance something like WIHFR, Schwartz or Smith criterions)?
 How is proportionality measured in the Schulze proportional ranking method?
By proportional completion?
In other words how do we know that the method doesn't behave chaotically or
unpredictive?
How does Schulze proportional ranking protect against vote management?
What is the connection to Schulze STV, if any?

"Schulze proportional ranking - a brief introduction":
So far I have understood that the section 6 of your paper is not sufficient
for a full understanding the method and that your paper is really deep.
Some reading instructions could help.
What other sections in the paper do you recommend to read for a good
understanding of the Schulze proportional ranking method (for instance some
parts of section 5 about Schulze STV)?

A wikipedia article on Schulze proportional ranking for dummies might also
be of use (I guess anyone with a good understanding of the method could do
the dummies explanation).

OK, so

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

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:
> What is the advantages of Schulze proportional ranking to the simpler top
> down STV modified method described in
> http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P5.HTM?

The first problem with this one is that it will elect the President is
the IRV winner.  This gets you a non-centerist President.  Even if you
use this proposal, I would strongly recommend electing the President
with a condorcet compliant method for the first ranking position and
the proceed to the next steps.

The general problem is that protecting a candidate from exclusion can
break the proportionality process.

In fact, a candidate who reaches the quota could be defeated by a
candidate on a fraction of the quota.

>From the link:

"In exceptional circumstances it is possible that two candidates, not
previously elected may exceed the quota in the same stage."

For example:

16: L>C>R
17: Y>L>C>R
30: C>L>R
37: R>L>C

Rank Number 1 (IRV count):

Round 1:
L: 16
Y: 17
C: 30
R: 37

L is eliminated, all votes go to C

Round 2
L: 0
Y: 17
C: 46 (+16)
R: 37

Y is eliminated and all voted go to C

C wins.

Rank Number 2

Round 1:
L: 16
Y: 17
C: 30
R: 37
Quota is 34

R is elected with a surplus of 3, goes to L

Round 2:
L: 19 (+3)
Y: 17
C: 30
R: 34*

Y is eliminated, 17 goes to L

Round 3:
L: 36* (+17)
Y: 0
C: 30
R: 34*

Now both L and R have quotas, so they are entitled to the 2 seats.
However, C won in the first round, so C must be one of the 2 elected.

The rules would say that as soon as R was declared elected in round 1,
no further rounds would be attempted.

However, the same problem presumably applies to more complex methods.

> Otten ends his second article by stating: "I do not at this point advocate
> that a generalised Condorcet method is adopted. However, I think the idea
> has its merits, and I do believe the question of ordering demands further
> consideration. While a single rule may not be appropriate for all
> circumstances, it should be possible to narrow the field somewhat from that
> in section 5."

I think his second proposal is similar to Schule's ranking method.

It also naturally elects the condorcet winner in the first round.

However, it represents more counting.

> How would you respond to Ottens remark above, which stems from the fact (?)
> that Condorcet methods (and thus Schulze proportional ranking) violate of
> the principle, that "that later preferences should not be allowed to count
> against earlier ones"?

This is a basic criterion that IRV and PR-STV meet.  It is normally
called "Later No Harm".

It says that if you vote

A>B>C>D>.

the method will not even look at your lower preferences unless you
higher preferences have been elected or eliminated.

So, while A still has a chance of winning, your full vote strength
goes to A.  This might get A elected, but also, by the time your vote
gets to B, it might be to late.

This is like digging your heels in.  One side says that they want
their candidate and will accept no other, and the other says the same.

They then vote, and the side which ends up slight bigger is happy, as
they get their candidate, but the other side is disappointed.

However, if they compromised and accepted a candidate that both sides
agree is good, rather than refusing to negotiate, then the winner
would have been acceptable to both sides, even if not their first
choice.

I think "Later No Harm" is actually a sign of potential problems with
a methods rather than a positive thing.

> A wikipedia article on Schulze proportional ranking for dummies might also
> be of use (I guess anyone with a good understanding of the method could do
> the dummies explanation).

There is one on the standard Schulze-STV method.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_STV

This explains how to compare 2 councils.  I think it is easier to
understand than the paper.  However, it potentially is not as
accurate.

Maybe Markus Schulze can comment on its accuracy or otherwise.

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

[Terry Bouricius]

Peter Z.,

Ralph wrote 

"The first problem with this one is that it will elect the President is
the IRV winner.  This gets you a non-centerist President.  Even if you
use this proposal, I would strongly recommend electing the President
with a condorcet compliant method for the first ranking position and
the proceed to the next steps."


Clarification...IRV does not "get you a non-centrist" winner. IRV elects
the centrist Condorcet winner in most scenarios, though it does not assure
it in certain scenarios. A "weak" Condorcet winner (a candidate with
relatively few first preferences) can lose under IRV...But that may or may
not be considered desirable by the Czech Green Party, depending partly on
the function of President. It is important to understand that a Condorcet
winner can be a candidate that has the fewest first preferences...A weak
Condorcet winner may be a "centrist" or merely a pleasant person who
nobody knows much about and has avoided making any enemies. If the
President is primarily a meeting facilitator, this may be fine. If the
President is the public face of the party, a more charismatic leader (who
may have made some enemies within the party) might (or might not) be
preferable.

This list has a lot of people who are sold on the priority of the
Condorcet criterion, but there are other perspectives to consider.

Terry Bouricius


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

[Dave Ketchum]

"a Condorcet winner can be a candidate that has the fewest first  
preferences."


True in Condorcet, though not expected to happen often.  Compared with  
each other candidate, the CW must win in each such pair.  Each such  
can have first preference over the CW as seen by SOME voters.


IRV, looking only at first preferences while deciding which to  
discard, will discard such a CW.  It is IRV's discarding without  
looking at all that the voters vote that makes many of us desire to  
discard IRV.


Dave Ketchum

On May 5, 2010, at 8:09 PM, Terry Bouricius wrote:


Peter Z.,

Ralph wrote 

"The first problem with this one is that it will elect the President  
is

the IRV winner.  This gets you a non-centerist President.  Even if you
use this proposal, I would strongly recommend electing the President
with a condorcet compliant method for the first ranking position and
the proceed to the next steps."


Clarification...IRV does not "get you a non-centrist" winner. IRV  
elects
the centrist Condorcet winner in most scenarios, though it does not  
assure

it in certain scenarios. A "weak" Condorcet winner (a candidate with
relatively few first preferences) can lose under IRV...But that may  
or may
not be considered desirable by the Czech Green Party, depending  
partly on
the function of President. It is important to understand that a  
Condorcet
winner can be a candidate that has the fewest first preferences...A  
weak

Condorcet winner may be a "centrist" or merely a pleasant person who
nobody knows much about and has avoided making any enemies. If the
President is primarily a meeting facilitator, this may be fine. If the
President is the public face of the party, a more charismatic leader  
(who

may have made some enemies within the party) might (or might not) be
preferable.

This list has a lot of people who are sold on the priority of the
Condorcet criterion, but there are other perspectives to consider.

Terry Bouricius





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

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Peter Zbornik,

in the scientific literature, candidates, who
have not yet been elected, are sometimes called
"hopeful".

***

The Schulze proportional ranking method can be
described as follows:

   Suppose place 1 to (n-1) have already been
   filled. Suppose A(i) (with i = 1,...,(n-1))
   is the candidate of place i.

   Suppose we want to fill the n-th place.

   Suppose x,y are two hopeful candidates. Then
   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is the largest possible
   value such that the electorate can be divided
   into n+1 disjoint parts T(1),...,T(n+1) such that

   1. For all i := 1,...,n: |T(i)| >= H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
   2. For all i := 1,...,(n-1): Every voter in T(i)
  prefers candidate A(i) to candidate y.
   3. Every voter in T(n) prefers candidate x
  to candidate y.

   Apply the Schulze single-winner election method
   to the matrix d[x,y] := H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
   The winner gets the n-th place.

***

The best way to understand the Schulze proportional
ranking method is to investigate the properties of
H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. For example:

a. Suppose x and y are the only hopeful candidates.
   Suppose N is the number of voters.

   Suppose Droop proportionality for n seats requires
   that x must be elected and that y must not be
   elected, then we get H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > N/(n+1)
   and H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x] < N/(n+1), and, therefore,
   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x].

   This guarantees that the Schulze proportional
   ranking method satisfies the proportionality
   criterion for the top-down approach to create
   party lists.

b. Adding or removing another hopeful candidate z
   does not change H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].

c. H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is monotonic. That means:

   Ranking candidate x higher cannot decrease
   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. Ranking candidate x
   lower cannot increase H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].

   Ranking candidate y higher cannot increase
   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. Ranking candidate y
   lower cannot decrease H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].

d. H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] depends only on which
   candidates of {A(1),...,A(n-1),x} the individual
   voter prefers to candidate y, but it does not
   depend on the order in which this voter prefers
   these candidates to candidate y.

   This guarantees that my method is not needlessly
   vulnerable to Hylland free riding. In my paper
   (http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze2.pdf), I argue
   that other STV methods are needlessly vulnerable to
   Hylland free riding, because the result depends on
   the order in which the individual voter prefers
   strong winners. In my paper, I argue that voters,
   who understand STV well, know that it is a useful
   strategy to give candidates, who are certain of
   election, an insincerely low ranking. I argue
   that, therefore, the order in which the individual
   voter prefers strong winners doesn't contain any
   information about the opinion of this voter, but
   only information about how clever this voter is in
   identifying strong winners. Therefore, the result
   should not depend on the order in which the
   individual voter prefers strong winners.

Markus Schulze



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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Markus Schulze, dear readers,

The example below is intriguing. But I am afraid I fail to understand
this formulation of Schulze's proportional ranking.
I would be grateful if M. Schulze or someone else, could give an
example, which could help me get it.
Specifically, I didn't understand what H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is. Is
it a function, H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]=min(cardinality of T(i),
0<=i<=n+1 plus other criteria)?, I didn't get the properties of
T(n+1). Why are there n+1 partitions of the electorate and not only n?
Are hopefuls x. y two members of the set of all hopefuls? I guess yes.
Some reference to the definitions in the paper could be useful.
Thank you for you kind help.

Best regards
Peter Zbornik

2010/5/6, Markus Schulze :
> Dear Peter Zbornik,
>
> in the scientific literature, candidates, who
> have not yet been elected, are sometimes called
> "hopeful".
>
> ***
>
> The Schulze proportional ranking method can be
> described as follows:
>
>Suppose place 1 to (n-1) have already been
>filled. Suppose A(i) (with i = 1,...,(n-1))
>is the candidate of place i.
>
>Suppose we want to fill the n-th place.
>
>Suppose x,y are two hopeful candidates. Then
>H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is the largest possible
>value such that the electorate can be divided
>into n+1 disjoint parts T(1),...,T(n+1) such that
>
>1. For all i := 1,...,n: |T(i)| >= H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>2. For all i := 1,...,(n-1): Every voter in T(i)
>   prefers candidate A(i) to candidate y.
>3. Every voter in T(n) prefers candidate x
>   to candidate y.
>
>Apply the Schulze single-winner election method
>to the matrix d[x,y] := H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>The winner gets the n-th place.
>
> ***
>
> The best way to understand the Schulze proportional
> ranking method is to investigate the properties of
> H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. For example:
>
> a. Suppose x and y are the only hopeful candidates.
>Suppose N is the number of voters.
>
>Suppose Droop proportionality for n seats requires
>that x must be elected and that y must not be
>elected, then we get H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > N/(n+1)
>and H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x] < N/(n+1), and, therefore,
>H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x].
>
>This guarantees that the Schulze proportional
>ranking method satisfies the proportionality
>criterion for the top-down approach to create
>party lists.
>
> b. Adding or removing another hopeful candidate z
>does not change H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>
> c. H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is monotonic. That means:
>
>Ranking candidate x higher cannot decrease
>H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. Ranking candidate x
>lower cannot increase H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>
>Ranking candidate y higher cannot increase
>H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. Ranking candidate y
>lower cannot decrease H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>
> d. H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] depends only on which
>candidates of {A(1),...,A(n-1),x} the individual
>voter prefers to candidate y, but it does not
>depend on the order in which this voter prefers
>these candidates to candidate y.
>
>This guarantees that my method is not needlessly
>vulnerable to Hylland free riding. In my paper
>(http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze2.pdf), I argue
>that other STV methods are needlessly vulnerable to
>Hylland free riding, because the result depends on
>the order in which the individual voter prefers
>strong winners. In my paper, I argue that voters,
>who understand STV well, know that it is a useful
>strategy to give candidates, who are certain of
>election, an insincerely low ranking. I argue
>that, therefore, the order in which the individual
>voter prefers strong winners doesn't contain any
>information about the opinion of this voter, but
>only information about how clever this voter is in
>identifying strong winners. Therefore, the result
>should not depend on the order in which the
>individual voter prefers strong winners.
>
> Markus Schulze
>
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>

-- 
Odesláno z mobilního zařízení

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

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Peter Zbornik,

I wrote (6 May 2010):

> The Schulze proportional ranking method can be
> described as follows:
>
>Suppose place 1 to (n-1) have already been
>filled. Suppose A(i) (with i = 1,...,(n-1))
>is the candidate of place i.
>
>Suppose we want to fill the n-th place.
>
>Suppose x,y are two hopeful candidates. Then
>H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is the largest possible
>value such that the electorate can be divided
>into n+1 disjoint parts T(1),...,T(n+1) such that
>
>1. For all i := 1,...,n: |T(i)| >= H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>2. For all i := 1,...,(n-1): Every voter in T(i)
>   prefers candidate A(i) to candidate y.
>3. Every voter in T(n) prefers candidate x
>   to candidate y.
>
>Apply the Schulze single-winner election method
>to the matrix d[x,y] := H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>The winner gets the n-th place.

You wrote (6 May 2010):

> The example below is intriguing. But I am afraid I fail
> to understand this formulation of Schulze's proportional
> ranking. I would be grateful if M. Schulze or someone
> else, could give an example, which could help me get it.
> Specifically, I didn't understand what H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]
> is. Is it a function, H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]=
> min(cardinality of T(i), 0<=i<=n+1 plus other criteria)?,
> I didn't get the properties of T(n+1). Why are there n+1
> partitions of the electorate and not only n?

H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is a real number. My mail above is
supposed to be a definition for H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].

There are n+1 partitions because there can also be
some voters who prefer candidate y to every candidate
in {A(1),...,A(n-1),x}. The voters in T(n+1) are those
who prefer candidate y to every candidate in
{A(1),...,A(n-1),x}.

Markus Schulze



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

[Raph Frank]

2010/5/6 Peter Zbornik :
> Dear Markus Schulze, dear readers,
>
> The example below is intriguing. But I am afraid I fail to understand
> this formulation of Schulze's proportional ranking.
> I would be grateful if M. Schulze or someone else, could give an
> example, which could help me get it.
> Specifically, I didn't understand what H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is. Is
> it a function, H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]=min(cardinality of T(i),
> 0<=i<=n+1 plus other criteria)?, I didn't get the properties of
> T(n+1). Why are there n+1 partitions of the electorate and not only n?
> Are hopefuls x. y two members of the set of all hopefuls? I guess yes.
> Some reference to the definitions in the paper could be useful.
> Thank you for you kind help.

H is the number of members in the smallest partition.

When comparing candidate x to candidate y, there are n-1 candidates
who have already been elected.

candidate 1: called A(1)
candidate 2: called A(2)
...
candidate n-1: called A(n-1)

You must then split the voters up into n groups.

The voters in group 1 must prefer candidate 1 to candidate y
The voters in group 2 must prefer candidate 2 to candidate y
(and so on)
The voters in group n-1 must prefer candidate (n-1) to candidate y

Finally, the voters in group n must prefer candidate x to candidate y

Voters who prefer candidate y to all others cannot be placed in any group.

You then arrange the voters so that the smallest group has as many
members as possible.  There is no point in putting all the voters in
one group, as then the other groups will be smaller and it is only the
smallest group size that matters.

When you have done that, you look at size of the smallest group.  The
number of members in that group is taken as the votes for x is
preferred to y.  Assume that is 600 votes.

You then repeat the process but with x and y swapped.  The number of
members in the smallest group is taken as the votes for y is preferred
to x.  Assume that is 700 votes.

Under those assumptions, y beats x by 700 votes to 600.

You then repeat for every possible pair and elect the Schulze winner.

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Markus Schulze,

I think got the idea of the Schulze proportional method after your
definition and Raph Frank's explanation and example.

I am however not sure that the Schulze proportional method "satisfies the
proportionality criterion for the top-down approach to create party lists".

You wrote (6.5.2010):

a. Suppose x and y are the only hopeful candidates.
  Suppose N is the number of voters.

  Suppose Droop proportionality for n seats requires
  that x must be elected and that y must not be
  elected, then we get H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > N/(n+1)
  and H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x] < N/(n+1), and, therefore,
  H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x].

  This guarantees that the Schulze proportional
  ranking method satisfies the proportionality
  criterion for the top-down approach to create
  party lists.


If I have understood you correctly, you only show "that the Schulze
proportional ranking method satisfies the proportionality  criterion for the
top-down approach to create party lists" for the special case where there
are only two hopefuls x and y.

If I am correct, then it would be helpful if you could provide a full proof,
or further explanation, which shows that "the proportionality criterion for
the top-down approach to create party lists" is satisfied for any number of
hopefuls.

Best regards
Peter Zborník


On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Markus Schulze <
markus.schu...@alumni.tu-berlin.de> wrote:


> Dear Peter Zbornik,
>
> in the scientific literature, candidates, who
> have not yet been elected, are sometimes called
> "hopeful".
>
> ***
>
> The Schulze proportional ranking method can be
> described as follows:
>
>   Suppose place 1 to (n-1) have already been
>   filled. Suppose A(i) (with i = 1,...,(n-1))
>   is the candidate of place i.
>
>   Suppose we want to fill the n-th place.
>
>   Suppose x,y are two hopeful candidates. Then
>   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is the largest possible
>   value such that the electorate can be divided
>   into n+1 disjoint parts T(1),...,T(n+1) such that
>
>   1. For all i := 1,...,n: |T(i)| >= H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>   2. For all i := 1,...,(n-1): Every voter in T(i)
>  prefers candidate A(i) to candidate y.
>   3. Every voter in T(n) prefers candidate x
>  to candidate y.
>
>   Apply the Schulze single-winner election method
>   to the matrix d[x,y] := H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>   The winner gets the n-th place.
>
> ***
>
> The best way to understand the Schulze proportional
> ranking method is to investigate the properties of
> H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. For example:
>
> a. Suppose x and y are the only hopeful candidates.
>   Suppose N is the number of voters.
>
>   Suppose Droop proportionality for n seats requires
>   that x must be elected and that y must not be
>   elected, then we get H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > N/(n+1)
>   and H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x] < N/(n+1), and, therefore,
>   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] > H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x].
>
>   This guarantees that the Schulze proportional
>   ranking method satisfies the proportionality
>   criterion for the top-down approach to create
>   party lists.
>
> b. Adding or removing another hopeful candidate z
>   does not change H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>
> c. H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] is monotonic. That means:
>
>   Ranking candidate x higher cannot decrease
>   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. Ranking candidate x
>   lower cannot increase H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>
>   Ranking candidate y higher cannot increase
>   H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y]. Ranking candidate y
>   lower cannot decrease H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y].
>
> d. H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] depends only on which
>   candidates of {A(1),...,A(n-1),x} the individual
>   voter prefers to candidate y, but it does not
>   depend on the order in which this voter prefers
>   these candidates to candidate y.
>
>   This guarantees that my method is not needlessly
>   vulnerable to Hylland free riding. In my paper
>   (http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze2.pdf), I argue
>   that other STV methods are needlessly vulnerable to
>   Hylland free riding, because the result depends on
>   the order in which the individual voter prefers
>   strong winners. In my paper, I argue that voters,
>   who understand STV well, know that it is a useful
>   strategy to give candidates, who are certain of
>   election, an insincerely low ranking. I argue
>   that, therefore, the order in which the individual
>   voter prefers strong winners doesn't contain any
>   information about the opinion of this voter, but
>   only information about how clever this voter is in
>   identifying strong winners. Therefore, the result
>   should not depend on the order in which the
>   individual voter prefers strong winners.
>
>   Markus Schulze
>
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>

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

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Peter Zbornik,

the fact, that the Schulze single-winner election method
satisfies the majority criterion, is a direct consequence
of the fact that every pairwise victory is stronger than
every pairwise defeat.

Similarly, the fact, that the Schulze proportional ranking
method satisfies the proportionality criterion for the
top-down approach, is a direct consequence of the fact
that every link H[A(1),...,A(n-1),x,y] from an outcome
{A(1),...,A(n-1),x} in agreement with the proportionality
criterion to an outcome {A(1),...,A(n-1),y} in disagreement
with the proportionality criterion has a strength of more
than N/(n+1) and that every link H[A(1),...,A(n-1),y,x]
from an outcome {A(1),...,A(n-1),y} in disagreement
with the proportionality criterion to an outcome
{A(1),...,A(n-1),x} in agreement with the proportionality
criterion has a strength of less than N/(n+1). This means
that every path from an outcome in agreement with the
proportionality criterion to an outcome in disagreement
with the proportionality criterion has a strength of
more than N/(n+1) and that every path from an outcome
in disagreement with the proportionality criterion to an
outcome in agreement with the proportionality criterion
has a strength of less than N/(n+1). This means that every
outcome in agreement with the proportionality criterion
disqualifies every outcome in disagreement with the
proportionality criterion.

Markus Schulze



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

[Juho]

Based on my best understanding of the requirements here is an exact  
but partial definition of the ideal method, with the assumption that  
all votes are sincere.


V1 = set of ranked ballots that indicate who would be the best  
president / vice presidents
V2 = set of ranked ballots that indicate who would be the best council  
members


1) If there is a Condorcet winner in V1, that candidate will be the  
president (P)
2) If there is no Condorcet winner in V1, then ... will be the  
president (P)


3) Elect the first vice president (VP1) so that the pair P+VP1 is as  
proportional as possible based on V1
4) Elect other possible vice presidents one by one so that at each  
round the set of P+VP1+...+VPn is as proportional as possible based on  
V1


5) Elect the remaining council members (all at one round) so that set  
of council members (that includes P+VP1+...+VPn) is as proportional as  
possible based on V2


6) The method must guarantee that the council will have at least the  
agreed minimum number of both male and female representatives. The  
resulting distortion should be minimized.


- Maybe "as proportional as possible" is clear enough so that I don't  
need to define it here :-)
- Minimal distortion caused by the male/female rule is a more vague  
concept. It could mean minimal changes in the most important seats or  
in all the seats in average. The required forced selections could be  
pushed to the last seats or spread to all of them.
- If this is a correct reflection of the requirements then this  
definition hopefully helps in discussing the properties of different  
candidate methods or method categories
- I used the assumption that the method uses ranked ballots, but that  
should not exclude other approaches (=> differences to be described)
- Note that V1 could be chosen to be the same as V2 but that means a  
minor deviation from the ideal method
- Note also that this definition means that the proportionality of the  
full council is not perfect since the P+VPs are elected using a  
proportional ranking based method
- I assumed sincere votes. Possible strategic concerns (free riding,  
burying,...) might lead to using some other method than the one that  
gives optimal results with sincere votes. This doesn't seem to be a  
strong trend however.


The only detailed proposal so far is the one that Markus Schulze  
proposed in http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2010-May/026087.html 
. I'll comment it shortly in the light of the definition above.

- In the proposed method V1=V2
- It is Condorcet compliant (1)
- In (2) it follows the logic on the (single-winner) Schulze method  
(good or bad)
- It is quite good in (3) and (4) (but see also the male/female rule  
below)
- It does not strictly follow (5) since it uses a proportional ranking  
based approach for the whole council (the results may not be radically  
different though)
- In (6) the distortion is not minimal. The method could e.g. change  
the third candidate to opposite sex needlessly (the whole council  
could contain sufficient number of both sexes also without that change).


- There are also many other proportional ranking based methods or  
variants of this proposal that would meet the criteria the same way or  
better. One could e.g. improve the male/female algorithm, or use some  
other Condorcet method than the (single-winner) Shulze method below  
the proportional ranking part.
- Another direction would be to use different approaches in the P+VPs  
election (that according to the requirements above should pretty much  
follow the "proportional ranking style") and in the "rest of the  
council" election. The proportional ranking only approach is simpler  
but is that a good enough reason to allow the minor distortion in  
proportionality?


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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Juho,

thanks for taking the time to formalize the requirements and the discussion
so far.
I would like to put some ideas into the ether, which extend the approach of
Schulze in some directions.
It is worth emphasizing that I presently do not in any way recommend any of
the approaches below before Shulze's proportional ranking, and that they are
just some ideas, which I would like to get out of my head.
Thus in this email I deliberately leave the "procurement process" for a
proportional election system for the Czech green party in order to indulge
in some academic speculation.

---

Extension suggestion:
The Schulze proportional rankig method is good, but has one weakness, which
I will try to examplify below.

Our main problem with the proposal of Schulze, is that it gives us more
hierarchy than we usually need, and that it drops proportionality
unnecessarily much.
Let's for the sake of the argument say, that we want to select the Green
regional party council in Prague, which (as an exception) has two vice
presidents, without internal ordering and seven members.
Thus this council looks like the following: P, VPa, VPb, Ma, Mb, Mc, Md (Ma
means Member a).

The proportional ranking needed is not P>VPa>VPb>Ma>Mb>Mc>Md,
but P>[VPa, VPb]>[Ma, Mb, Mc, Md].
Let us call this required ranking for "boundary conditions".

I will discuss some ideas to address this issue by with a little
inspiration from the world of statistics.

---

 In statistics, the top-down and bottom-up approach correspond to two
heuristics often used to select variables to a regression model from a large
number of candidate variables, specifically to forward and backward
selection, see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepwise_regression):

In statistics , *stepwise
regression* includes regression models in which the choice of predictive
variables is carried out by an automatic
procedure.[1]
[2] 
[3]Usually,
this takes the form of a sequence of
F-tests , but other techniques are
possible, such as t-tests , adjusted
R-square , Akaike information
criterion , Bayesian
information 
criterion,
Mallows' Cp , or false discovery
rate .

The main approaches are:

   - Forward selection, which involves starting with no variables in the
   model, trying out the variables one by one and including them if they are
   'statistically significant'.
   - Backward elimination, which involves starting with all candidate
   variables and testing them one by one for statistical significance, deleting
   any that are not significant.

An other method (the exhaustive search), which can be used for a moderate
number of candidate variables and variables in the model, is to evaluate all
possible variable combinations. I.e. in the case where we are looking for a
model with two variables, and we have four candidate variables (a,b,c,d),
then we evaluate the model for the variables (a,b), (a,c), (a,d), (b,c),
(b,d), (c,d).

A combination of the forward selection approach and the exhaustive search
would take as imput information on how many candidate variables to evaluate
in each step, for instance, Step 1: one variable, step 2: two variables,
step 3: four variables (the Green regional party council in Prague)

---

The underlying idea from the combine statistical approach in the previous
paragraph, could be used combine top-down and
bottom-up ranking, by modifying or generalize the Schulze proportional
ranking (which I understand a little) and Schulze STV (which I haven't
studied) to one "universal" top-down method.
The unified method would have the Schulze proportional ranking as a special
case, when the bondary conditions would be a<...B (A is elected before B) the same "unified"
method would select AC otherwise (i.e. Schulze proportional ranking).

An other example where this ranking would be needed could for instance be
the national council with two presidents (party leaders), whch is a common
leaderhip structure in the green parties in some countries.
Thus, let us for instance assume the following structure:
[Pa, Pb]>VPa>VPb>[Ma, Mb, Mc]
In the case of two presidents, Shulze's proportional ranking fails to
elect the "most proportional" "Condorcet" presidential pair (I have no clue
of how to be able to find the "most proportional Condorcet presidential
pair"), since it imposes an unnecessary condition that one president should
be ranked ahead the secon.
Maybe the presidential pair or Prague regional council of the Greens cou

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Juho,

I attach a post scriptum to my email below (7.5.2010).

I wrote:
"The "unified" method for two seats without boundary conditions would select
BA (i.e.Schulze STV)
Under the boundary condition A>B (A is elected before B) the same "unified"
method would select AC otherwise (i.e. Schulze proportional ranking)."

A less ambiguous formulation is (changes in bold):
"The "unified" method for two seats without boundary conditions would select
BA (i.e.Schulze STV)*.*
Under the boundary condition *P>VP (the P is elected before the VP)* the
same "unified" method would select AC (i.e. Schulze proportional ranking)."

Best regards
Peter Zborník

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:

> Dear Juho,
>
> thanks for taking the time to formalize the requirements and the discussion
> so far.
> I would like to put some ideas into the ether, which extend the approach of
> Schulze in some directions.
> It is worth emphasizing that I presently do not in any way recommend any of
> the approaches below before Shulze's proportional ranking, and that they are
> just some ideas, which I would like to get out of my head.
> Thus in this email I deliberately leave the "procurement process" for a
> proportional election system for the Czech green party in order to indulge
> in some academic speculation.
>
> ---
>
> Extension suggestion:
> The Schulze proportional rankig method is good, but has one weakness, which
> I will try to examplify below.
>
> Our main problem with the proposal of Schulze, is that it gives us more
> hierarchy than we usually need, and that it drops proportionality
> unnecessarily much.
> Let's for the sake of the argument say, that we want to select the Green
> regional party council in Prague, which (as an exception) has two vice
> presidents, without internal ordering and seven members.
> Thus this council looks like the following: P, VPa, VPb, Ma, Mb, Mc, Md (Ma
> means Member a).
>
> The proportional ranking needed is not P>VPa>VPb>Ma>Mb>Mc>Md,
> but P>[VPa, VPb]>[Ma, Mb, Mc, Md].
> Let us call this required ranking for "boundary conditions".
>
> I will discuss some ideas to address this issue by with a little
> inspiration from the world of statistics.
>
> ---
>
>  In statistics, the top-down and bottom-up approach correspond to two
> heuristics often used to select variables to a regression model from a large
> number of candidate variables, specifically to forward and backward
> selection, see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepwise_regression):
>
> In statistics , *stepwise
> regression* includes regression models in which the choice of predictive
> variables is carried out by an automatic 
> procedure.[1]
> [2] 
> [3]Usually,
>  this takes the form of a sequence of
> F-tests , but other techniques are
> possible, such as t-tests , adjusted
> R-square , Akaike information
> criterion , 
> Bayesian
> information 
> criterion,
> Mallows' Cp , or false
> discovery rate .
>
> The main approaches are:
>
>- Forward selection, which involves starting with no variables in the
>model, trying out the variables one by one and including them if they are
>'statistically significant'.
>- Backward elimination, which involves starting with all candidate
>variables and testing them one by one for statistical significance, 
> deleting
>any that are not significant.
>
> An other method (the exhaustive search), which can be used for a moderate
> number of candidate variables and variables in the model, is to evaluate all
> possible variable combinations. I.e. in the case where we are looking for a
> model with two variables, and we have four candidate variables (a,b,c,d),
> then we evaluate the model for the variables (a,b), (a,c), (a,d), (b,c),
> (b,d), (c,d).
>
> A combination of the forward selection approach and the exhaustive search
> would take as imput information on how many candidate variables to evaluate
> in each step, for instance, Step 1: one variable, step 2: two variables,
> step 3: four variables (the Green regional party council in Prague)
>
> ---
>
> The underlying idea from the combine statistical approach in the previous
> paragraph, could be used combine top-down and
> bottom-up ranking, by modifying or generalize the Schulze proportional
> ranking (which I understand a little) and Schulze STV (which I haven't
> studied) to one "universal" top-down method.
> The unified method would have the Schulze proportional 

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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear  Juho,

I couldn't resist submitting a post post sciptum to my email below
(7.5.2010):

Example of the unified method:
Assume we have the boundary conditions [Pa, Pb]>VPa>VPb>[Ma, Mb, Mc],
then the Schulze "unified" proportional method would work like this:
Step 1: apply Schulze STV to elect Pa and Pb simultaneously and
proportionally.
Step 2: apply Schulze proportional ranking with A(1)=Pa and A(2)=Pb (in the
notation of Shulze, where A(i) are elected council members), and we are
constructing the matric d[x,y]:=H[Pa, Pb, x, y] to elect VPa and
Step 3: elect Pb using Schulze proportional ranking analogously as in Step
2,
Step 4: somehow "feed" [Pa, Pb, VPa, VPb] into schulze STV and elect Ma, Mb
and Mc simultaneously to get maximum proportionality in the ordered council
i.e. maximum proportionality under the boundary conditions.

The unified method would thus be the "most" proportional condorcet method
under boundary conditions.

PZ

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:

> Dear Juho,
>
> I attach a post scriptum to my email below (7.5.2010).
>
> I wrote:
> "The "unified" method for two seats without boundary conditions would
> select BA (i.e.Schulze STV)
> Under the boundary condition A>B (A is elected before B) the same "unified"
> method would select AC otherwise (i.e. Schulze proportional ranking)."
>
> A less ambiguous formulation is (changes in bold):
> "The "unified" method for two seats without boundary conditions would
> select BA (i.e.Schulze STV)*.*
> Under the boundary condition *P>VP (the P is elected before the VP)* the
> same "unified" method would select AC (i.e. Schulze proportional ranking)."
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zborník
>
>   On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
>> Dear Juho,
>>
>> thanks for taking the time to formalize the requirements and the
>> discussion so far.
>> I would like to put some ideas into the ether, which extend the approach
>> of Schulze in some directions.
>> It is worth emphasizing that I presently do not in any way recommend any
>> of the approaches below before Shulze's proportional ranking, and that they
>> are just some ideas, which I would like to get out of my head.
>> Thus in this email I deliberately leave the "procurement process" for a
>> proportional election system for the Czech green party in order to indulge
>> in some academic speculation.
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Extension suggestion:
>> The Schulze proportional rankig method is good, but has one weakness,
>> which I will try to examplify below.
>>
>> Our main problem with the proposal of Schulze, is that it gives us more
>> hierarchy than we usually need, and that it drops proportionality
>> unnecessarily much.
>> Let's for the sake of the argument say, that we want to select the Green
>> regional party council in Prague, which (as an exception) has two vice
>> presidents, without internal ordering and seven members.
>> Thus this council looks like the following: P, VPa, VPb, Ma, Mb, Mc, Md
>> (Ma means Member a).
>>
>> The proportional ranking needed is not P>VPa>VPb>Ma>Mb>Mc>Md,
>> but P>[VPa, VPb]>[Ma, Mb, Mc, Md].
>> Let us call this required ranking for "boundary conditions".
>>
>> I will discuss some ideas to address this issue by with a little
>> inspiration from the world of statistics.
>>
>> ---
>>
>>  In statistics, the top-down and bottom-up approach correspond to two
>> heuristics often used to select variables to a regression model from a large
>> number of candidate variables, specifically to forward and backward
>> selection, see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepwise_regression):
>>
>> In statistics , *stepwise
>> regression* includes regression models in which the choice of predictive
>> variables is carried out by an automatic 
>> procedure.[1]
>> [2] 
>> [3]Usually,
>>  this takes the form of a sequence of
>> F-tests , but other techniques are
>> possible, such as t-tests , adjusted
>> R-square , Akaike information
>> criterion , 
>> Bayesian
>> information 
>> criterion,
>> Mallows' Cp , or false
>> discovery rate .
>>
>> The main approaches are:
>>
>>- Forward selection, which involves starting with no variables in the
>>model, trying out the variables one by one and including them if they are
>>'statistically significant'.
>>- Backward elimination, which involves starting with all candidate
>>variables and testing them one by one for statistical significance, 
>> deleting
>>any 

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

[Raph Frank]

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Peter Zbornik  wrote:
> The proportional ranking needed is not P>VPa>VPb>Ma>Mb>Mc>Md,
> but P>[VPa, VPb]>[Ma, Mb, Mc, Md].
> Let us call this required ranking for "boundary conditions".

Schulze's method can do that too.

Step 1: Elect the Schulze single seat method winner as President
Step 2: Elect a 3 person council using Schulze-STV, but the President
must be a member
Step 3: Elect a 7 person council using Schulze-STV, but the President
+ VPs must be members.

I think this is what you meant by your unified method?

Schulze rankings is just Schulze-STV, except you elect councils that
increase in size by one each iteration, and members elected in
previous iterations must be members of subsequent councils.

> Example (from an email by Schulze):
> "40 ABC
> 25 BAC
> 35 CBA
> The Schulze proportional ranking is BAC.
> However, for two seats, Droop proportionality, requires that A and C are
> elected."
>
> The "unified" method for two seats without boundary conditions would select
> BA (i.e.Schulze STV)

Schulze-STV meets the Droop criterion, so would elect A and C in a 2 seat race.

Schulze-rankings elects B and then A as you say.

There are 2 steps:

*** Work out A's score vs C:  ***

We split the voters in 2 groups

Voters who prefer B to A: 60
Voters who prefer C to A: 35

There are no options in which group each voter can be placed, as no
voter is eligible for both groups.

The smallest group has 35 voters so, A better than than C gets 35 votes

*** Work out C's score vs A ***

Again we split into 2 groups

Voters who prefer only B to C: 0
Voters who prefer only A to C: 0
Voters who prefer both to C: 65

Thus we split the third group into 2 parts, as they can be placed in
either group.

Voters who prefer B to C: 32.5
Voters who prefer A to C: 32.5

The smallest group has 32.5 voters so, C better than A gets 32.5 votes

Thus the result is

A gets 35 votes and C get 32.5 votes, so A wins the 2nd seat.

Anyway, I think the rankings method can be generalised to allow groups
of candidates to be elected at once, rather than electing them one at
a time.

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