[EM] Tom Round's `yesterday' post is lost
Tom Round
T.Round at mailbox.gu.edu.au
Sun Oct 17 04:09:57 PDT 1999
... Was lost, but now is found. Here it is again. I'm curious why it didn't
get through. This is, of course, not a swipe at Donald personally. Tom
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 12:17:07 +1000
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
From: Tom Round <aisround at kraken.itc.gu.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [EM] Proportional Representation and the Droop Quota
Donald,
I had this same debate back in 1995 with Mike Osippoff (sp?) [By the way,
where's Mike gone to?] on this same list, and while his arguments in favour
of Condorcet for referenda won me over, his advocacy of the Hare over the
Droop quota did not. I can dig my archived paragraphs out and re-post them
if anyone wants to see the arguments at length, but in a nutshell, it goes
along these lines:
* Whichever quota is used, it means that, for S seats, the first (S minus
1) candidates elected will need a full quota while the last candidate
elected will need 50.1% of the remaining votes -- ie, 100% of the votes
after (S minus 1) quotas have been set aside to elect the winners. For a
simple illustration I'll assume 5 seats, making the Hare quota 20% and the
Droop quota 16.67%.
* Yes, you are right that if the Droop quota is used it means a party wins
60% of the seats (3 of 5) for 50.1% of the vote, whereas under the Hare
quota it would only win 2 of 5 seats with 50.1% -- winning 3 of 5 would
require about 60%.
* If the Droop quota is used, you have the first 4 candidates elected on a
full quota (16.67% each) and the 5th elected on a majority of the votes
remaining (ie, 33.34%). [* I'm assuming exhausted votes affected all
candidates about equally.] Thus, all candidates -- including the last to
reach quota -- require 16.67% of the votes to be elected, whether or not
they belong to a large or a small party (or none at all).
* But if the Hare quota is used, the first 4 are each elected with a 20%
quota, leaving only 20% of the votes remaining to decide the final seat.
This means the 5th candidate requires only 10.1% of the total votes to win
a seat. It also means that a party with, say, 52% of the votes may win only
2 of 5 seats, while two rival parties with only 48% between them (_if_
divided carefully, say 34% and 14% -- which will cancel out any supposed
extra freedom for their voters to choose between two parties instead of
one) can win 3 seats. Here, 52% gives 2 quotas and remainder 12% (total 2
seats), 34% gives 1 quota and remainder 14% (total 2 seats), 14% gives 0
quotas and remainder 14% (total 1 seat). (Flow of preferences if STV is
used does not change this result because the last candidate of the 52%
party will be first eliminated and so cannot win the 5th seat.)
* Now, I dislike "majority tyranny" and plurality over-representation as
much as anyone else, but subject to one limiting proviso -- that checks and
balances aren't taken so far that they actually let a smaller group
out-vote a larger group. Here, the Hare quota lets 48% win three of 5 seats
and so out-vote a party with 52%. To quote William Morris, in News From
Nowhere (1891): "
sometimes there will be differences of opinion
What
is to be done? Which party is to give way? Our anarchist friends say that
it must not be carried by a majority; in that case, then, it must be
carried by a minority. And why? Is there any divine right in a minority?"
* Thus whereas Droop means that every candidate needs an equal 16.67% to
get in, Hare means that the first 4 need twice as many votes to win a seat
as does the lastcomer (20% to 10% respectively).
* And no, you can't fudge this by claiming that "after the last runner-up
is excluded, her preferences must go to the 5th winner and lift her up to a
full 20%" -- because then, to be consistent, you'd have to say that under
the Drrop quota the same occurs and means the last candidate "requires"
33.34% to win! As Lincoln said, calling a tail a leg don't make it one. Of
course she doesn't "need" the full 20% -- only 10.1% -- to gain the final
seat. The unavoidable mathematical crux of the matter (which caused even
Hare himself to abandon his first draft in favour of the Droop quota), is
that in reality the last elected needs only a majority of the votes not yet
side aside, to be sure of winning.
* Initially, all else being equal, the last candidate to make quota is
likely (though by no means certain) to belong to a smaller party. Some
might favour this on policy grounds, to counter-balance the other
advantages that large parties enjoy. Unfortunately, the most an electoral
system can do to help small parties is treat them equally with the largers
-- attempting to specially favour them only means the larger parties will
artificially divide themselves into smaller factions, as was pointed out
earlier today on this list, to make sure they don't "waste" any votes above
the quota they _really_ need. This is exactly what happened in 19th-century
European PR systems that started off using the Hare quota (with largest
remainders for leftover seats). I have seen this done in student-union
elections when ticket-voting can be used to pool the different factions'
preferences.
At 09:20 PM 10/14/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Greetings,
>
> Proportional Representation(PR) is a system of voting in which each
>faction elects the same percentage of members as the percentage the faction
>has of the total voters - no more - no less.
>
> In other words a 12 % faction will elect 12 % of the members and a 48
>% faction will elect 48 % of the members - no more - no less.
> But, if Droop enters the equation, the 48 % faction will be able to
>elect 58 - 60 % of the members. This is not PR - Droop STV is not PR.
>
> If you are a supporter of a large faction, it is understandable if you
>also support the Droop quota, but you are part of the problem, because you
>are taking more representation than what you are entitled to, which means
>you are also stealing representation from some of the other voters.
> You have disqualified the votes of these other voters, which is the
>same as if you stopped them from voting in the first place. The right to
>vote belongs to every qualified citizen, not just to you and your large
>party.
>
>Donald
>
>Note: Do no harm. Read the following quote, it means you.
>
> +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
> | 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 |
> +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
>
> N E W S L E T T E R
>
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=============================================================
Tom Round
BA (Hons), LL.B (UQ)
Research Associate -- Key Centre for Ethics,
Law, Justice and Governance (KCELJAG)
(incorporating the National Institute for Law, Ethics and Public Affairs)
HUM[anities] Building, Room 1.10, Nathan Campus
Griffith University, Queensland [Australia] 4111
Ph: 07 3875 3817
Fax: 07 3875 6634
E-mail: T.Round at mailbox.gu.edu.au
Web: http://www.gu.edu.au/centre/kceljag/
http://www.gu.edu.au/school/ccj/
=============================================================
>Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 06:39:18 -0400
>To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
>From: donald at mich.com (Donald E Davison)
>Subject: [EM] Tom Round's `yesterday' post is lost
>
>Greetings,
>
>On Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:27 Tom Round wrote:
>>Donald, look, I thought I had explained my argument about this clearly
>>enough yesterday, but I'll put it another way ...
>
>Dear Tom Round,
>
> I do not have a post from you for `yesterday'.
> I would not have deleted a post from you without opening it.
>
> I would now like to ask a question of everyone.
> Did anyone else not receive Tom's `yesterday' letter???
> I would like to think that I am not alone when it comes to not
>receiving letters from the list.
>
>Donald,
Tom Round, BA (Hons), LL.B,
Research Officer, Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice &
Governance (KCELJAG), Griffith University,
Queensland 4111, Australia
ph (07) 3875 3817, fax 3875 6634
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