[EM] Meek style STV - Part One of Two

[Craig Carey]

I request that somebody say where an open computer program that implements
 STV is. Some might put time into tweaking STV and getting better
 properties in it. Code is needed for that. Reducing the sequentiality of
 transfers and using quotas for losers and rechecking the quotas for
 winners, and removing vote wastage through low transfer values, are areas
 that might be able to lead to the selection of worthwhile fixes for the
 STV method. Maybe someone has a program somewhere. Compilable with GNU
 gcc C or egcs C or that is coded in BASIC or something.



At 12:09 14.10.99 , David Catchpole wrote:
>On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, Donald E Davison wrote:
>
...
>> (b)     The total value of the surplus is shared equally across both
>> transferable and non-transferable voting papers:
>
>Which is where the major divergence occurs with many STV systems in
>practice, and it's an good divergence.
>

Here is the original text from Mr Davidson's first message in the
 thread:

: (b)     The total value of the surplus is shared equally across both
: transferable and non-transferable voting papers:
: 
: Donald: The rules of some STV systems will share the surplus across only
: the transferable voting papers. This rule makes Meek STV much better than,
: for example, STV under the Northern Ireland rules.
: 
: (c)     If a candidate is elected later in the count, or an elected
: candidate receives further votes, the surplus to be transferred is
: shared across all voting papers credited to that candidate in
: appropriate proportions, not just across the voting papers which gave
: immediate rise to the surplus:
: 
: (d)     As votes are credited to the non-transferable total, the quota
: is recalculated to reflect the smaller total of votes remaining active.
: ...

So the quota is reducing?. To reduce the quota increases the surpluses.

What is meant in the following excerpt of text by Mr Davidson, after letting
 the words Hare and Droop be undefined?. 
The quotes above tend to indicate that the Meek method does waste votes
 (but not in the Queensland ALP way [mentioned by Mr Catchpole], which
 transfers only those transferrable votes that were received most recently).

These next words: "wasted votes ... kept to a minimum" seem to be false,
 and a lot of the wastage of votes has nothing to do with the choice of
 quota (?).

>> (a)     The number of wasted votes in an election, i.e. votes which do
>> not contribute to the election of any candidate, is kept to a minimum;
>> 
>> Donald: Meek Droop STV will have more wasted votes than Normal Droop STV,
>> because the last Droop Quota will be larger. It is larger because Meek will
>> balance up all the final vote totals including the vote total of the last
...
>
>Well, the principles actually lead to the implication that the quota
>becomes smaller, by taking into account reductions in the total
>number of continuing votes (and therefore the quota) by exhaustion. I
>think Meek is similar to my idea of an "instantaneous quota," in that all
>transfers are instantaneously recalculated simultaneously with the
>recalculation of the quota.

I guess that the more simultaneously the quotas are applied, then
 the smaller the relative volume of the regions where STV has very
 bad properties (like violations of my rule (P1)).

----------------------------

Regarding transferring of votes to non-transferrable papers:

A method like STV ought behave as if regarding each the candidate as being
 infinitely preferable to the candidate of the next preference. STV does
 that.

However, the words "sharing equally" [of the surplus over papers that are
 not transferrable] may mean that transfer values approach zero at a much
 faster rate. I.e. Meek is STV that, for no apparent gain, is shifted
 towards FPTP.


>Hare sucks and has no justification, but Donald is so insistent on what to
>him is its apparent worth that it's no use getting into an argument about
>it.

The words Droop & Hare are used in two different contexts: (1) thresholds
 for parties in parliament, and (2) in STV. Droop in STV has no "+1" in
 the denominator.

>OK, here we go- What the hell is the Hare quota? If a candidate has more
...
>to give your favourite candidate a Droop quota in a Hare election, but no

Note the words "Hare election". 

(This list could receive suggestions on how to repair STV and get it
 better.)



Craig Carey, Auckland