[EM] 12/27/02 - Northern Ireland Assembly:

[Donald E Davison]

12/27/02 - Northern Ireland Assembly:

Dear James Gilmour,

Thank you for posting imformation about the Northern Ireland Asssembly.  I
prefer to discuss information from real elections.  There are too many
concocted elections presented on this list.

You wrote: "Northern Ireland Assembly
===================
108 members elected from 18 constituencies each returning 6 members.

Overall summaries based on first-preference votes must be interpreted with care.
STV-PR guarantees PR only WITHIN individual constituencies.
Although constituencies of 6 members guarantee representation only to
groups that
can secure at least one-seventh of the vote within a district, groups with much
less overall support usually do gain representation in STV-PR elections..."

Donald here:  A group with much less overall support will be able to gain
representation only if the group has most of its support bunched up in one
or two constituencies, but if their support is spread even over all the
constituencies, then the group will not elect any members.

James: "...eg the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, with 2% of the
first-preference votes and 2% of the seats."

Donald:  The only way this could have happened is if the Women's Coalition
had most of their support bunched up in one or two constituencies, like
0.80% of their support in one constituencey and another 0.80% of their
support in another constituency (or 1.60% of their support in one
constitucency), if so, then they would elect two seats, which is about two
percent of the 108 seats.  Had their support been spread out even over all
18 constituencies, they would have not elected any seats.

It is a condemnation of the constituency STV method when a small group must
have most of its support in one or two consituencies in order for the group
to receive its fair share of proportionality.

James: "In an STV-PR election the actual proportion of wasted votes cannot
be calculated simply from the district magnitude (number of members per
district).  With 6 members, representation is guaranteed to 85.7% of the
voters (6/7), ie up to 14.3% of those who vote may have their votes wasted.
But in actual STV-PR elections the proportion of wasted votes is usually
much smaller."

Donald:  No, it is not much smaller, it only appears to be much smaller
because the use of the Droop quota has forced most of the wasted votes to
become exhausted votes (`A Rose by any other name is still a Rose.').

If we divide exhausted votes into two types, we should be able to see what
has happened to most of the wasted votes.  Type One Exhausted is caused by
the lack of enough choices by the voter.  Type Two Exhausted is caused by
the lack of enough room within the Droop quotas of the candidates at quota
to hold all the votes for these candidates.  The limit of votes each
elected member is allowed to receive has been reduced (from Hare down to
Droop), therefore it is impossible for any additional votes to be
transferred to candidates already at Droop quota, therefore the ballots
become exhausted even through they contain one or more ranked choices for
candidates at Droop quota.

What has been happening during the elimination of candidates during a Droop
STV election is that as each candidate is eliminated some wasted votes are
turned into Type Two Exhausted votes.  When we get down to only one
runner-up, most of the wasted votes have already been turned into Type Two
Exhausted votes and that is why these constituencies below are able to
report out such low numbers for wasted votes.

James: "In the 1999 election to the NI Assembly the distribution of wasted
votes was as follows."
        >2% <3%   3 constituencies
        >3% <4%   2 constituencies
        >4% <5%   2 constituencies
        >5% <6%   5 constituencies
        >6% <7%   2 constituencies
        >7% <8%   3 constituencies
        >8% <9%   1 constituency

In these constituencies above, the officials are able to put a better face
on their wasted votes situation, but they don't talk about the balance of
wasted votes that are now labeled as exhausted votes.  The officials are
using smoke and mirrors to make their election and Droop STV look good.

Donald:  Usually a STV will not eliminate the first runner-up, but one
proof of my claim that wasted votes are turned into Type Two Exhausted
votes, is for us to suppose we do eliminate the first runner-up and
transfer his votes.  What will happen is that the remaining wasted votes
will also be turned into Type Two Exhausted votes and all these wasted vote
percentages above will be reduced down to zero.

Another proof is: If the ballots were to be calculated using the Hare
quota, the results would be no wasted votes and no Type Two Exhausted
votes.

A third proof is:  Suppose all voters ranked every candidate, meaning that
every ballot has enough lower choices so that it should be able to end up
on one or another of the elected members.  This will be true in a Hare STV
election, but in a Droop STV election we will still have 14.3% of the vote
tied up in a combination of wasted and Type Two Exhausted votes.  In an
STV-PR election the actual proportion of wasted votes can be calculated
simply from the district magnitude.  With 6 members, up to 14.3% of those
who vote will have their votes wasted or shunted to Type Two Exhausted.


While I approve of a policy of averaging votes for political parties,
slates, coalitions, or whatever, the Droop quota is a crude way of
averaging, for the Droop causes these problems of wasted and/or Type Two
Exhausted votes.  The Droop quota is the major flaw in current STV, but the
flaw is compounded when the jurisdiction is divided into constituencies.
If the Northern Ireland Assembly were elected from one area, the wasted
votes would only amount to 0.92% and not the 14.3% we get from six seat
constituencies.

I am not advocating only one area elections, what I am saying is that there
are methods that will provide near 100% party proportionality for
constituency elections.  Top Up MMP is one of those methods and the only
method in use today.

The sad thing about STV is that over the years the politicians have fiddled
with the rules of STV so that now it is not a good PR method.  Top Up MMP
is superior to Droop constituency STV.




Regards,
   Donald Davison, host of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald
                        Candidate Election Methods
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