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

David Catchpole s349436 at student.uq.edu.au
Sun Oct 17 23:51:44 PDT 1999


On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Donald E Davison wrote:

> "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.]

This is precisely the kind of example we need to inculcate to Donald and
Demorep that Droop quota is best.

>     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?

It's dishonesty to the extent that money automatically steals for us
through its exchange. "Lowering the Numbers" is not dishonesty but
optimising and equalising the voting power of voters.

>     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

That can't be argued. In an election of 4 members with 100 voters, with
Droop, 42 voters for a bloc have the same voting power as 2x21 voters for
two independents. This is not the case for Hare, where 5 votes are sponged
for every candidate who scores 25 or more first preferences. 



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