[EM] STV's Dirty Little Secrets

[LAYTON Craig]

Donald Wrote:
>     It is not difficult to argue for wastage of votes or parts of votes
>that did not receive any lower choices.  Those parts are exhausted and
>should be left exhausted, that is, those parts should not be given to other
>candidates.

They shouldn't be given to other candidates, but they shouldn't necessarily
be left exhausted.  If the number of exhausted votes is so high that more
than one seat is left to be filled and no candidate has a quota, then
perhaps (getting very speculative) candidates should continue to be knocked
out and their votes redistibuted until there is one candidate left.  That
candidate is declared elected.  ALL votes are then reactivated, and
transferred at full transfer value (1) from already elected candidates.
(Craig, I'm not sure if you're still on this list, but you probably have
very serious criticisms of this, as it gives voters more than one vote
each).

>    STV would be a good election method if it were not for these Dirty
>Little Secrets.
>    Best to consider MMP for large elections.

Any system (ie the party list part of MMP) that elects candidates without
the voter being able to discriminate between individual candidates isn't
very democratic.  The innacuracy of small(ish) electorates is a necessary
trade-off for being able to vote for individuals.  You only need a minimum
of six or seven members per electorate to ensure that the electorate is
always marginal (at least by todays standards), and the choice of individual
candidates encourages candidates to garner party support, thus moving away
from a non-existant grey centre.