[EM] `Lowering the Numbers' is a major flaw of STV

[Donald E Davison]

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Greetings,

     `Lowering the Numbers' is a major flaw of the Single Transferable
Vote(STV) election method.
     Soon after STV was first put into use, the people realized that there
was a lower number of votes, than the Hare Quota, that still assured a
candidate's election.  And the groups, acting accordingly, worked to lower
the number of votes that they would place on each of their candidates. I
call this action: `Lowering the Numbers'. An example:

"In Denmark, where the simple [Hare] quota was used in the indirect P.R.
elections of the Landsting until 1915, the voters of each party used to get
together before the voting and divide their first choices arbitrarily into
smaller quotas so as to make them go as far as possible." [Proportional
Representation, Hoag and Hallett, Macmillan, 1926, paragraph 203.]

    Are people justified in `Lowering the Numbers'? No, they are stealing
representation from others so that they can have more representation than
what they are entitled to - it is dishonesty.
    Will they do this anyway?   Yes! As long as we use STV.

    A man by the name of Droop suggested that this lower number should be
the quota for STV. The large political parties agreed.
    And, a feature called the Droop Quota was installed into STV. The Droop
Quota sets the quota at the lowest number of votes that still assures the
election of the candidate. Lowering the Numbers became automatic.

    Should an election method have a feature installed into it so that
`Lowering the Numbers' will be automatic, in order to do this dishonesty
for the people?
    Now we have a debate. On the one hand it can be argued that if the
people wish to be dishonest, then we should make it automatic for all of
them to be dishonest with equal mathematical precision, by using the Droop
Quota.
    On the other hand it can be argued that the Droop Quota does not treat
all factions with equality. When we have the Droop Quota as part of the
system, we are doing the dirty work for the largest faction. It is the
largest faction that will receive the most benefit from the Droop Quota. No
matter what benefit you claim the smaller factions receive, the largest
faction will receive more. And more means more votes that can be used to
gain an edge over the other candidates. The Droop Quota puts the largest
faction further ahead in this game.
    Suppose instead of using the Droop Quota, we increased the value of
each ballot by twenty percent, without increasing the Hare Quota. Would you
approve of doing that??? I do not think so, because this will clearly help
the largest faction the most. Well, I claim that `Lowering the Numbers' by
the Droop Quota produces the same effect. Lowering the Numbers by the
people's action, also produces the same effect, but not as much.
    Lowering the Numbers is still a flaw of STV. The Droop Quota did not
change that. The real solution is to not use STV.

    `Lowering the Numbers' makes STV an unacceptable PR election method,
unless steps are taken to offset the effect of Lowering the Numbers. One
step could be for us not to use small STV districts. The effect of
`Lowering the Numbers' will be far less in a larger one area STV election.
I would accept the Droop Quota in a large one area election.
    Another step would be to only use district STV in MMP type elections.
Top Up will offset the effect of `Lowering the Numbers'. This is a better
solution.
    A third step would be for us to not use STV to elect anyone. Only use
it to determine the order of candidates in a STV/Open Party List type
election. It will not be of any advantage for any group to lower the
numbers under these conditions. This is the best solution.

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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