Reply to: [EM] Multiple Winner Elections

[Advance Copy]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 02/24/01
Dear Moe, you wrote:

>From: "Moe St. EverGreen" <evergreen at lovemail.com>
>To: <election-methods-list at eskimo.com>
>Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 13:53:20 -0500
>Subject: [EM] Multiple Winner Elections

>What are the best choice(s) of voting system(s) for
>a multiple winner election?

>I can believe there could be more than one depending on
>the type of election.

>For instance, we will have a 2 person co-chair in an organization,
>where the idea is to balance any opposing factions
>as they will likely occur.

>What would be the best form of election?

Don: Because your idea is to balance any opposing factions, you must use a
proportional representation method, and Pure STV is the best method.

>I know Approval could be used (taking the top two),
>but it seems very easily for a faction to have a strategy
>of running multiple candidates.

Don: Yes, you are correct. The Approval Voting method in which the top two
are taken as the winners can end up with the simple majority electing both
seats.  Don't use Approval Voting for any type of election.

>Cumulative seems a little like overkill, and I'm not sure
>how well it stands up against other systems.

Don: Cumulative Voting is a proportional method, but it is not the best.
Pure STV is the best.

>I don't see how we could possibly use any form
>of Proportional for this.

Don: On the contrary! You must use a form of proportional representation.

>And I worry that STV is just as bad as IRV.

Don: Not to worry, Pure STV will be better than IRV for what you want to do.
     Pure STV is STV without the `Dirty Little Secrets' that STV has picked
up over the years. Secrets that advantage the larger factions. That's human
nature I suppose.

   Your two person co-chair election should be conducted as follows:
     1) Divide the total votes by the number of seats.  This is known as
the Hare Quota. You should get two halves. One half will end up on one
candidate and the other half will end up on another candidate.
     Do not use the Droop Quota, which is one of the Dirty Little Secrets
of STV. The Droop Quota will divide the votes into three near equal parts.
One part elects one candidate, another part elects the second candidate,
and the third part elects no one. The voters in the third part have been
disenfranchised. The supporters of the Droop Quota have no sense of what is
right or wrong - and they don't care. Don't use the Droop Quota.
     On the count of the ballots you may have one candidate over the quota
of fifty percent, for example 57 %. You need to transfer that seven percent
of Surplus Votes to other candidates. Do not use random transfer. It is not
exact. If we were to repeat a STV election ten times, random transfer will
not yield the same elected candidates each time. Today most STV elections
use fractional transfer. In your case of only two seats you will only need
to make one fractional division. It is mathematically impossible for more
than one candidate to go over the quota of fifty percent.
     So, in order to transfer the Surplus Votes from this candidate we
start by dividing seven by fifty-seven which gives us 0.1228 (7/57). This
is known as the Transfer Value. This candidate that had 57 % of the vote
would be declared as being elected to one of the seats and all his ballots
would be marked down to 0.1228 of a vote and transferred to the next choice
on each ballot.
     But, this is a step in which another Dirty Little Secret of STV may
show its ugly head, which you need to be aware and careful of. In some
current STV elections in the world, this transfer value is increased, which
means that more votes than the surplus votes are transferred. This gives a
greater influence in the election of the second seat to the voters of the
first elected candidate. This is corruption of course, but that's more
human nature.
     The next step is to use IRV to reduce the remaining candidates down to
one, who becomes the second elected co-chair.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>The other situation is that we will have a large county executive
>committee, which we want to elect using some form of PR.

Don: Being as you want to elect using some form of PR, Pure STV is best.

>The idea is that each candidate must choose to run
>either unaffiliated, or as affiliated with one of our
>activist groups or neighborhood groups (affiliation being
>decided by a majority approval of that group).

>Whatever the method of election counting, the seats would be filled
>in the order of any top winning unaffiliated winners first..."

Don: Why are the unaffiliated winners first?  Why do this?  You may find
that all the candidates will choose to run unaffiliated if that way has
some advanage, fair or unfair.
     How do you decide which are the top unaffiliated winners?  In other
words: How do you draw the line between top and losers?  May I guess that
you require a minimum number of the top unaffiliated candidates to be
elected. If so, this is easy to do. You merely have a rule that states: The
last minimum number of unaffiliated candidates cannot be eliminated during
the runnoff cycles of STV.
     But, I feel you should treat all candidates equally.  Pure STV will
elect only the top candidates, affiliated and/or unaffiliated.  No need to
include an extra rule that the unaffiliated be elected first.  Any
candidate that gets the votes, wins.

>"...then the remaining seats would be proportioned out per the total
>support each group received (with affiliated being a group), with the
>seats for each group being filled in order of most support to least
>support.

>Since we are a county political party, we won't have parties within
>ourself, but we will very likely have factions and neighborhood groups
>which will need to have representation.

>Please let me know of the best alternative methods we may use, and
>if we did use the system above, should we rank the votes, or use
>something similar to approval voting, etc., for the actual ballot
>and ballot counting.

>- Moe.

Don: Use Pure STV - Ranked Votes, Hare Quota, Fractional Transfer with a
Honest Transfer Value
     Do not use Approval Voting for anything.


  Regards, Donald Davison - Host of New Democracy,  www.mich.com/~donald

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   |                         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                               |
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