[EM] Cumulative Voting w/ elimination

[Bart Ingles]

Thanks again for your reply, Tom

I didn't mean to imply that Peoria used elimination -- I should have
said elimination could be used in conjunction with the Peoria method.

For single seat elections, I would rather use Approval (in fact your
additional rule would turn it into Approval), but showing how [CVE?
CAEV?] worked in the single-seat case (without your rule) might help to
validate the method.

Your concern about voters voting for less than a full ticket might be
partially offset by the fact that a party could run an excess of
candidates without penalty, in contrast to plain CV.

Proportionality is not as precise as with a quota-based method, but CVE
is much simpler, and could be shown to elect more popular candidates in
some situations (especially in smaller elections).  Maybe there should
be a trade-off between utility and proportionality anyway.

I doubt that there is much justification for ranked voting in the U.S.,
even with Proportional Representation.  If implemented here at all, P.R.
would likely take the form of 2- and 3-seat legislative districts, or 5-
to 7- member city councils.  Large Australian-style STV elections are
not even a remote possibility here, in my view.

Re pronunciation:  same as "Engels" (although I probably wouldn't
hesitate to adopt the Spanish pronunciation if confronted with a
situation involving Affirmative Action).

Regards,
El Bart




Tom Round wrote:
> 
> Hello agin, Bart. Sounds like one could call this "Cumulative Approval
> Elimination" voting ...
> 
> I haven't heard of this particular form being used, but you're right, it
> would reduce still further some of the defects of simple Cumulative Voting
> relative to STV. (NB. My earlier post may have been misleading. Peoria city
> council simply uses the system without elimination -- ie, vote for up to S
> candidates, each gets an equal fraction of your vote.)
>
> If a jurisdiction simply adopted the rule that the lowest candidate is
> eliminated, and each ballot's vote points then re-allocated accordingly
> (ie, divided equally among all remaining candidates voted-for), it would
> also function pretty much like Approval Voting for a single seat.
> 
> I'd tentatively advocate a further rule that, if a ballot contains votes
> for more candidates than S (= the number of seats), each still receives 1/S
> of a vote. That makes it simpler for voters (they don't have to worry about
> "losing" candidates to elimination if they spread their votes TOO widely,
> eg across a multi-party coalition), and for vote-counters (since it limits
> the possible numbers of fractions of a vote that each candidate may recieve).
> 
> This method would give voters a limited power to discriminate among
> candidates of their own party -- ie, if they particularly liked one/ some
> or detested others they could vote for less than the full party ticket.
> This would however cost their party a seat if the final race was between a
> candidate not-voted-for and a candidate from a rival party.
> 
> Regards,
> Tom
> 
> PS. Pronunciation is not all that relevant in cyberspace, but I am curious
> ... Is your surname pronounced Ing-ells or Ing-glayss (ie, Spanish style)?
> 
> At 10:46 AM 9/2/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >Anyone ever hear of Cumulative Voting w/ elimination?  Seems like it
> >would solve the problem of a faction losing representation because it
> >diluted its vote among too many candidates.  Proportionality wouldn't be
> >as accurate as STV, of course, but better than Cumulative Voting alone.
> >
> >Using the Peoria form of Cumulative Voting (if that's the correct name),
> >it could be done on regular "X" voting equipment.  Might be suitable for
> >city council-type elections, or small 2- and 3 seat districts.
> >
> 
> =============================================================
> 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/
> =============================================================