[EM] election-methods Digest, Vol 34, Issue 22

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:09 AM 4/19/2007, raphfrk at netscape.net wrote:
>I think it has the same problems as PR-STV where surpluses are not 
>transferred.  A
>voter wastes the excess of his vote if he votes for someone who is elected.

I'm just taking the opportunity to note the similarity between 
multiwinner STV and Asset Voting. With multiwinner STV the vote 
transfers are guided by user rankings, and in Asset Voting, by, 
essentially, a proxy chosen by the voter. They are really the same 
method, differing only in who provides the tranfer information.

If you think that the voters are in a better position to judge who, 
among the collection of candidates, should win, than would be the 
candidate most trusted by each voter, then you'd prefer STV, and if 
you think that candidates would know the qualifications of other 
candidates better, then you might prefer Asset.

(My own thinking about this is clear: I think that my favorite 
candidate is going to know the other candidates *much* better than I. 
Besides, if I have an opinion, why can't I communicate that to my 
favorite? After all, if I trust this person, presumably I would trust 
that he or she would give my opinion a fair hearing!)

It's quite possible to combine the methods.

For example, it's been proposed that voters *may* on an Asset ballot, 
specify ranked assignments for their votes. If they do so, the votes 
will be reassigned accordingly. The Asset aspect only comes into play 
when the ranks are exhausted. (I would assume that the vote reverts 
to the first-preference candidate, and if there is more than one of 
these, to the collection of them, divided.)

This hybrid method is fully STV and fully Asset. The voters 
themselves determine how their own vote is handled. The extra cost is 
really only the extra cost of a ranked ballot, which is small. Pure 
Asset is easier to count.

In the other direction, candidates can publish lists of how they 
would intend to transfer their votes. This is a method of its own, 
called Candidate List, it's been discussed some, if the transfers are 
automatic. If they are only a promise (as the votes of electors in 
the U.S. Electoral College are only promises, though "faithless 
electors" are quite rare), then it is Asset as a method, but 
preserves flexibility. The promise can be broken if conditions appear 
that make it advisable. I would not expect a candidate I trusted 
would change the transfers unless there *was* a good reason, perhaps 
some fact that surfaces that was not known when the list was published.

Because Asset is really a deliberative method, it's tricky to use 
standard election method criteria to judge it. Generally, however, it 
would seem to satisfy *all* the major criteria. (We have to 
amalgamate the intelligence and preferences of the voters and those 
whom they trust in order to think this. A free proxy, which is what 
Asset candidates become if they hold votes, it is assumed, will not 
necessarily follow the first preference of those who voted for him or 
her -- except for candidate list -- but may, indeed, match that 
preference *if the voter were to become more fully informed.*)

I have suggested again and again that the ideal election method is 
fully deliberative, and that is exactly what Asset is, and what few 
other methods are. The only difference between Asset and direct 
democracy is that there are two sets of voters, secret and public, 
and, generally, any voter can become a public voter.

(This does create some security problems, but in "difficult 
situations," there are procedures which can ameliorate this, I've 
described them elsewhere. Bottom line, though, to the extent that 
this is done, to that extent there is a loss of the freedom of direct 
democracy. Direct democracy without proxy representation, of course, 
is impossible as the scale becomes sufficient, but proxy democracy is 
probably superior to direct democracy *if* proxy assignments are free 
and unconstricted, and revocable at any time; further, if there is 
direct voting by proxies or electors on *all* issues -- as distinct 
from the deliberative rights of full members of an assembly -- we 
retain the positive features of direct democracy without losing the 
necessary benefits of representative democracy.)