[EM] STV should be a better method.

[Donald E Davison]

Greetings,

On 11/03/99 Markus Schulze wrote:
"I am surprised about the sudden change of your opinion about STV. A few
days ago you were an enthusiastic supporter of STV and now you say that STV
has "flaws" and is "corrupted" and "not proportional." What has caused this
change of your opinion?"


Dear Markus Schulze,             11/16/99 (currently 13 days behind)

     This change in my opinion is because of my realization that STV is
going to keep its flaws.
     Choice Voting (STV) should be a better method because it allows the
voter to direct his vote to a candidate of a different party in the event
his vote, or part of his vote, needs to be transferred. This gives the
voter a greater freedom of choices. Party List methods do not allow this
feature.

     But Choice Voting has a number of flaws. Two that are the nature of
the method and three that have been imposed on the method by rules.
     * One nature of Choice Voting is that it depends on the voters making
enough informed choices so that ballots will not become exhausted during
any necessary transferring. This will only happen in an ideal election.
       In the real world, this will not be true - most voters do not know
enough about the candidates in order to make one choice. We can expect a
high number of exhausted ballots in a large election. Exhausted ballots
will cause members to be elected by different amounts of votes, some as low
as fifty percent of the highest. The intent of the method is to have the
members elected by an equal part of the total vote, then the elected
members would be proportional to the final votes.
     Because we approve of transferred votes changing parties, we do not
expect the elected members to be proportional to the count of the first
choices, but we should expect the elected members to be proportional to the
final count of the votes.

     * A second natural flaw of Choice Voting is that it is possible to
elect a candidate with less than a full quota. If a group gives their
candidate a lower amount of votes, they can still insure the election of
the candidate, but this action will free up votes that the group can use to
support another candidate. Choice Voting depends on full quotas in order to
be proportional. When groups lower the vote count they are shortchanging
the system. The word quota means: no more - no less.
     I fail to understand why the rule makers of Choice Voting allowed this
condition to exist. They could have ruled that an elected member must
receive a minimum number of votes, like ninety percent of a quota. The
elimination routine could continue until all remaining candidates have at
least ninety percent or some value above the majority of the quota. Instead
the rule makers decided to join in the dishonesty by installing the Droop
quota, which does a favor for the groups by taking the work out of lowering
the vote count for them. The rule makers are a party to the shortchanging
of the system.

     The `Dirty Little Secrets' of Choice Voting(STV).
     In addition to the two natural flaws, Choice Voting has had three
flaws imposed on it by the people who make and approve the rules.
     * Dividing the election area into small districts.
     * The Droop Quota.
     * Transferring exhausted ballots to remaining candidates.

     Small districts deny small parties their just representation. The
representation they lose is taken by the larger parties. A nine percent
group should be able to elect nine members per 100, but they will not be
able to elect any under the system of three member districts.

     The Droop Quota will cause a near quota of votes to be disqualified in
each district. The elected members will not be proportional to the total
votes - they will not be elected by equal parts of the total votes, because
the total votes will not be used to elect the members.

     Another rule of Choice Voting is the policy of transferring exhausted
ballots to remaining candidates. The mind set of the supporters of this
rule seems to be that if votes have no next choice, then the votes are fair
game to be transferred to some other candidates, even if these other
candidates were not choices on the ballots in question.
     If these ballots were transferred evenly to the remaining candidates,
then there would be no advantage to any single candidate, but this is not
the case. These votes are transferred according to the next choices of all
the votes of the remaining candidates. The candidate with the largest
number of next choices will be receiving the largest share of these
`exhausted' votes.

     Choice Voting should be a better method, but not with the burden of
these five flaws. I feel Choice Voting is only valid as an election method
under ideal conditions, such as: a small one-area election using the full
Hare quota, no Droop and no transferring exhausted ballots. And a minimum
number of votes in order for a member to be elected - at least a majority
of a quota, but I would accept a higher amount, like eighty percent of the
Hare quota.
     I have suggested in the past that a policy of trying different quotas
for an election until all members are elected by a required part of the
final quota.

     The best use of Choice Voting is to use it to determine the order of
candidates on the party lists for the Open Party List election method.

Regards,
Donald

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   |                         Q U O T A T I O N                         |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |       except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."    |
   |                            - Age 10                               |
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