Bottoms Up

[New Democracy]

Dear list members,

In the 5/20/97 CV&D Update, Rob Richie wrote:

5. "Bottoms up":  Some local elections in Australia are held
using a system they call "bottoms up." It essentially is STV/
preference voting without the transfer of surplus -- or SNTV
(single non-transferable vote, as used in Japan until recently)
with a mechanism to avoid wasting your vote on weak
candidates.. Thus, voters rank candidates in order of
preference, and ballots are transferred from the bottom
up until one candidate is left. A variant could be to not do
 transfers to candidates who have passed the winning
threshold in a previous round.
     Do any of you have reactions to this system? Although full
STV/preference votingwould be preferable, we might want to
explore proposing this system for local, non-partisan elections
in the U.S. -- it gets around the big educational hurdle, which
is explaining the transfer of surplus ballots from winners.

Donald: Yes, I do have a reaction to this system and to this logic. While
Bottoms Up is better than Single Non-Transferable Vote which in turn is far
better than At-Large Plurality, if there is a better method than any of
these then we should use the best for all elections - even local,
non-partisan elections. Rob writes that STV/Preference Voting is preferable
- then it follows that it would be preferable for all elections.

     Education is not a big hurdle - the need to transfer surplus ballots
can be explained. The mechanics of transferring by hand can be tedious and
may be regarded as a hurdle. Computers are able to handle this task but it
is not a question of doing the task by hand or by computer - it is a
question of doing what has to be done.

     The use of the Bottoms Up method may result in one or two candidates
failing to win when they should have won. Are you willing to accept this?
Are these losing candidates willing to accept this? Are the voters of these
candidates willing to accept this? My answer is NO to all these questions.

     Let us use the best election method possible. And I say that method is
Preference Voting with Hare Quota and Fractional Transfer because this
combination will draw an exact line between the candidates that should win
and the candidates that should lose.  If we have the use of computers then
fine - we use the computers. If we do not have the use of computers then we
do it by hand but we follow the logic of doing what has to be done.

    Another point: We should have one method for all elections. Not one for
Federal elections and another for local and a third for single seat
elections. Selling one method will be easier plus we may be able to reform
all elections at the same time.

Don,


Donald Eric Davison of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald

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