Filling a Vacancy on a council

[Steve Eppley]

Donald D wrote:
>      I have been testing different means of filling a vacancy in a
> multi-seat body using Preference Voting and the Cambridge Ballots. I
> have come to the conclusion that the best way to fill a vacancy is
> to go back and work the ballots from the last election - but with a
> change.
-snip-
>     The rule is that the sitting members of the current body are
> not to be dropped.
-snip-

Looks fine.  Why not check out the rules used in Australia and
Ireland, which have been using STV for decades?  There may be no
need to reinvent the wheel.

Another possible improvement to the STV algorithm would be to
uneliminate all candidates dropped during previous iterations 
every time STV is about to transfer overquota excess votes from
seat-winners.  Those transfers could transform a "loser" into a
winner. 

---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)