[EM] A Reply to: Two New STV Features - New to Me

[Donald E Davison]

Greetings,

Sam Lightman wrote:
>I have to admit I find the whole discussion of the Irish vote
>completely opaque. This bodes ill for selling PR to a public which
>prefers not to have to figure anything out, which is why FPTP will be
>so hard to dislodge.

Dear Sam Lightman,
     FPTP will be hard to dislodge because the people who support the major
parties are also a majority of all the people and these people do not wish
to dislodge FPTP nor Gerrymandering.
     While their faction may currently be out of power, they want the same
path to continue to exist that has taken other parties to power. They wish
to use this same path themselves.
     These people of the major parties are willing to take their chances
with FPTP in order to have that possibility of gaining that Big Plum of
winning it all - complete control of government.
     And doing it with less than a majority of the voters is very
acceptable, because it is quicker. Why wait for a majority. Why be required
to have a majority that may never be realized.
     These people are willing players of the game. And if they keep
playing, some day their party will be next to steal the Big Plum of
complete control.

Sam: > For openers, what constitutes a surplus vote?
>
>Sam Lightman
>

Donald: If a candidate receives more than a quota of first choices, that
candidate has a surplus over a quota of votes. The surplus is transferred
to other candidates according to second choices.
     My thinking now is that this raises the question: What is a quota?
     It would be best if I included a summary of Choice Voting aka STV. A
few years ago I wrote a summary titled: "A Special Summary of Choice Voting
- Written Just for You - the Voter"
     This summary will explain quota and surplus votes and more.

Regards,
Donald
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  A Special Summary of Choice Voting - Written Just for You - the Voter

     Choice Voting, aka STV, is composed of three parts.
                    which are used in the following order:

  Choice Selection - The Ranked Choices made by the Voters<P>
  Choice Transfer - The Transfer of Surplus Votes from leading Candidates<P>
  Choice Run-Off - The Transfer of Salvaged Votes from Eliminated Candidates<P>

     The Choice Selection
     Choice Voting is as easy as One-Two-Three for you the voter. Suppose
there is to be a Choice Voting election of lawmakers in your local city in
which ten members are to be elected. You merely record the candidate that
you rate as most preferred. Then you record your second preferred choice -
then your third - and you make as many ranked choices as you care to make.
When you have done this you are finished - you have done your civic duty -
the rest will be handled by the election commission. They will work your
vote and your ranked choices according to the rules of Choice Voting.

     The members of the election commission will need to know more about
Choice Voting in order to finish what you have started, and you may wish to
know more in order to make the decision to vote this election reform into
law. So - it will be best if you read on.

     In explaining Choice Voting I am going to use an election that takes
place in a single area - not divided into districts. When an area is
divided into two or more districts, the election will have some
differences.
     When you voted, you had the option to select and rank a series of
candidates. You selected one candidate as your first choice candidate -
another as your second choice and you selected as many choices as you cared
to make. You only had one vote but this vote now has an attached list that
is made up from your ranking of your candidate choices. This vote is
transferable in part or whole to another candidate of one of your choices
under certain conditions.
     In an election, most of the choices beyond the first, the lower
choices, will never be used but you should still make them in case your
lower choices are needed. The vote belongs to the first candidate on your
list and will stay with that candidate except for the certain conditions.

     The Choice Transfer of Surplus Votes
     After the election, all the ballots are counted according to the first
choice candidate on each ballot. This gives us the first count of the
candidates.
    The total vote count in the election area is now divided by ten, the
total number of members we are trying to elect. We will get a number called
a quota (Hare Quota). Think of a quota as being the size of a container.
The ten candidates that fill a container with the most votes will be the
winners - if they have a majority of a quota in votes.
    Some candidates may have more than a quota of first choices - they have
a surplus of votes. These surplus votes will be transferred to other
candidates. If your first choice candidate is one of these candidates with
a surplus then the surplus fractional part of your vote will be transferred
to your next choice. This is the condition under which part of your vote
could be transferred. This is also one way in which one of your lower
choices is needed and used.
     Any candidate that had a surplus of votes will be keeping a quota of
his votes. Any candidate that starts with a quota or gains a quota during
the transferring of votes, will be considered as being elected.

     The Choice Run-Off of Salavaged Votes
     After all surplus parts of votes have been transferred we go into the
Choice Run-Off part of the election method. The lowest candidate at this
point is deemed to no longer to be a contender and will be eliminated. In
the event this eliminated candidate is your first choice selection, your
vote will not be eliminated. Your vote will be salvaged and transferred to
your next lower choice candidate. This is the certain condition under which
your whole vote could be transferred. This is also another way in which one
of your lower choices will be needed and used. It is in your best interest
to select more than one choice because this is how you can preserve the
full value of your vote. Otherwise your vote would become exhausted -
meaning that your vote dies with the dropped candidate - you will not be
represented. Exhausted ballots become wasted ballots. Your vote did not end
up on a winning candidate when it could have if enough choices were
available. Wasted votes do not have representation nor any proportionality.
The quality of proportional representation of an election method and its
design features can be measured by the number of wasted votes the system
produces. The less wasted votes the better the election system. Bad design
features will cause wasted votes, but you, the voter, are also part of this
Choice Voting election method. How good the method is, depends somewhat on
you.

     All candidates that have either a full quota or have been eliminated
are not to receive any more votes but instead the votes pass over these
candidates and go to the next lower choice on the list of each ballot.

     We continue to drop each new lowest candidate one by one until the
number of remaining candidates is equal to ten, the number of members to be
elected.
     My thinking is that all elected member should be required to have at
least a simple majority of a quota. If the citizens have agreed to a
majority requirement when Choice Voting was installed, then at his point in
the election we would eliminate the tenth and last candidate if that
candidate does not have a required majority. His votes are to be
transferred to the remaining candidates. It is acceptable to eliminate this
candidate - the candidate did not have the required majority of votes.
     We continue dropping any new lowest candidate that lacks a majority
until only candidates with majorities remain. These candidates are elected.
It is acceptable to elect less members. The representative body will
survive with less members. We the voters will also survive with less
members.

     In the event there is a vacancy after the members have been elected,
another one of your lower choices will be needed and used to fill the
vacancy. In the election you may have only voted for one candidate, the
candidate that was the highest in the polls - a sure winner. But if you
only made one choice and then your winning candidate becomes the vacancy,
the replacement will be chosen by others - not you. So, this is one more
reason for you to make more than one choice.

     Choice Voting is at its best when it is used in only one area that
covers the entire election area. There are advantages: The voter has a
larger selection of candidates. The candidates have a larger area from
which to receive support - it will be easier to gain a quota of the votes
in the entire area than in only one district of the election area.  With
only a single election area, all parties will gain their just
proportionality over the entire area.
     A party with fifty percent of the vote will be able to elect fifty
percent of the members, a party with twenty percent of the vote will be
able to elect twenty percent of the members, and a party with only ten
percent of the vote will be able to elect ten percent of the members.
     But, this will not be true if the election area is divided into small
districts. A twenty percent party might only be able to elect two percent
of the members. A ten percent party might be able to elect one or maybe no
members.

<H3>The Dirty Little Secrets of Choice Voting aka STV</H3>
     In this summary, I presented Choice Voting with its most democratic
features, like One Area election, Hare Quota, Fractional Transfer, and
Transfer Value based on all the votes, not just the transferable votes.<BR>
      But, you must be aware that some forms of Choice Voting(STV) have
Dirty Little Secrets, which are design features that make Choice Voting
less democratic. Some features were designed to aid the larger faction at
the expense of the smaller factions.

  * Dividing the election area into small districts is one of those
    undemocratic features, one of those Dirty Little Secrets.
  * Use of the Droop Quota is another one of those undemocratic features.
  * And, basing the Transfer Value on only the transferrable votes is
    also an undemocratic feature.

     The Flaw of Choice Voting aka STV
     The Dirty Little Secrets are flaws of Choice Voting, but those are
flaws that are imposed on choice Voting by politicians. Choice Voting does
have a major flaw that is not the fault of Choice Voting, but it is still a
flaw.
     Choice Voting is a very good method, but its operation depends on
enough informed choices being made by a large majority of the voters. Sad
to say, but this is not going to be the case in a large election.
     Most voters are only able to make one or two informed choices of
candidates, but these voters are informed about their political parties.
The solution to this major flaw and the Dirty Little Secrets is to have an
election method in which the voter has the option to rank candidates and/or
parties together.
     These methods will also be designed to balance up (Top UP) the party
proportionality across all the districts, if districts were selected as
part of the design. The Top Up methods would also offset the effect of the
other Dirty Little Secrets.
   I have designed a method like that. What follows is a short outline of
my Level Eight plan, which is the result of eight upgrades I applied to the
FPTP Single Seat District method.

      Level Eight Plan - The Davison District Multi-Seat Plan

  * The districts can be a mix of sizes. This system does not need
    all districts to be the same size. The people can decide the
    size of their local district, two seat minimum.
  * Only one vote each, but the voters have optional ranking of
    candidates in their district and/or any parties that have at
    least one candidate running in any district.
  * The ballots will be worked according to Choice Voting(STV).
  * The districts will each use their own number of votes as
    a quota, based on the district candidate votes.
  * Political parties cannot be eliminated. Parties can have
    votes transferred to them, but they are not to have any
    votes transferred away from them.
  * The candidates are eliminated down to the number of seats
    in each district, but they are not elected yet.
  * The votes of these candidates are then transferred to the
    party of each candidate. At this point all the votes will be
    in the party vote sums.
  * All the party vote sums of all the districts are
    added together, party by party.
  * All the candidates of the same party from all the
    districts are placed together to form a Party List.
  * Independent candidates will all go on the Independent List.
  * The order of the candidates on each Party List is determined
    by their standings in the STV election.
  * There is to be no artifical threshold.
  * The members are elected via the Party List method.
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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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