[EM] 04/12/02 - Re: Action - Rouillon's contest

[Donald Davison]

04/12/02 - Re: Action - Rouillon's contest

Stéphane wrote,
> I would put in place
>a contest (an election) to select the best
>single and multiple member district method.


Dear Stéphane,  Good, below are my recommendations, Donald

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Recommendations for Candidate Election Methods: by Donald E Davison

 **  For Multi-Seat Elections I recommend my Hare-Davison method be used in
elections that have the following differences:

   * A partisan election conducted in a single area:
   * A partisan election conducted in a district:
   * A partisan election conducted in Districts Within Districts:
   * A non-partisan election conducted in a single area with two or
     more slates of two or more candidates:
   * A non-partisan election conducted in Districts Within Districts:

 **  I recommond that Preference Voting/STV with Droop quota be used in a
non-partisan multi-seat election conducted in a single area.

 **  For Single-Seat elections I recommend Alternative Vote aka Instant
Runoff Voting aka IRVing.  In my years of studying election methods I have
not been able to find nor design any single-seat method better than Instant
Runoff Voting.

 **  I recommend my Multi-Single-Seat Election Plan if more than one
single-seat same type position is to be elected from one field of
candidates.

 **  For the American Presidential election I recommend My American
Presidential Election Plan, which keeps the Electoral College but weds it
to IRVing in the states.

Note: text on Hare-Davison, Districts Within Districts, Multi-Single-Seat
Election Plan, and My American Presidential Election Plan can be found
below:
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Hare-Davison - A New STV Election Method:  by Donald E Davison

This is my design of Preference Voting/STV.
Hare-Davison has these differences from Preference Voting:

 * The voter is allowed to rank both candidates and/or parties together
   in any mix.
 * The candidate to be eliminated shall be the lowest candidate of the
   party with the lowest average votes per candidate.
 * The quota will be the Hare quota

After the casting of ballots, when all the votes are counted according to
the first choice on each ballot, we will have vote sums headed by each
candidate and each of their parties.  Independent candidates will not have
a party vote sum, they will only have a vote sum headed by themselves.

The quota is to be the Hare quota, which is total votes divided by the
number of seats, a proportional part of the whole.  The Droop quota is not
necessary because the new elimination rule will do everything the Droop
quota can do and do it better. If any candidate has a surplus of votes over
the quota, that surplus is to be transferred.  The transfer value is to be
the number of surplus votes divided by the total number of votes that
candidate has.  When the time comes to eliminate a candidate, that
candidate to be eliminated shall be the lowest candidate of the party with
the lowest average votes per candidate.  The average votes of each party is
calculated by dividing the sum of the party votes and the votes of all the
party candidates by the number of party candidates remaining.  An
independent candidate's average will be the same as the number of votes he
has.

Candidates are eliminated one by one and their votes transferred using the
average votes rule until the number of remaining candidates in the entire
election equals the number of seats.  These candidates are the elected
members.  The election is over.

Advantages of Hare-Davison's Elimination Rule:

 * The new elimination rule makes it easier to tally the mix of candidate
and party votes, because now the party votes are carried separate from the
candidate votes.
 * The rule removes any need for any faction to attempt to average their
votes per candidate. This rule will do that for them, and do it much better
than Droop.  This rule will remove the need of Droop.
 * The rule allows the use of Hare quota, which has no excluded voters.
 * The rule removes any need for Meek and the need to transfer Meek surpluses
 * The rule will protect the candidates with below average vote sums from
being eliminated for as long as possible.  Of course, the rule will also
protect other parties the same.  The candidate to be eliminated will come
from the party with the lowest average votes per candidate.
 * This rule will make it easier to hand count a Hare-Davison election.
The use of the rule will result in far less calculations of surplus
transfers because there will be far less surpluses to transfer.

It should be rare, but it is possible for the average votes of a party to
be greater than the quota.  If this happens, enough surplus votes are to be
transferred from the sum of the party and party candidate votes such that
the average is reduced down to the quota.

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Districts Within Districts and Hare-Davison: by Donald E Davison

A single area Hare-Davison election will give us the best proportionality
and this will be fine for a county or average size state or small country,
but when the state or country is large then the election should be divided
into districts.  Also, there will be elections in which the public has
decided it wants small districts with only a few seats each.  While using
small districts is one of the negative design features of Preference
Voting(STV), the solution is to have districts within districts.  The
public will have their local member link via the sub-district, but the
proportionality unit will be smaller because it will be based on the number
of seat in the Greater District.

Years ago I read about a study on gerrymandering and multi-seat districts.
Its conclusion was that seven is the cut-off number of seats for the
ability of any faction to gerrymander a district.  So, eight or more would
be a good minimum number of seats per district for gerrymandering
prevention.

But, if the public wants a closer member-link, I suggest my system of
Districts Within Districts.

As an example, we could take the current single-seat districts and pair
them up to form two seat sub-districts and then take five or more of these
sub-districts to form a Greater District.  Some elections would only need a
few Greater Districts while very large elections would use many Greater
Districts.

The data of the entire Greater District is calculated according to the
rules of the Hare-Davison method, which include:
 * The voter is allowed to rank candidates and/or parties in any mix.
 * The quota is the Hare Quota based on total votes divided by seats.  In
District Hare-Davison, the total votes and seats of the Greater District
will be used to determine the Hare quota.
 * Elimination is based on the lowest candidate of the party with the
lowest votes per candidate.

The only party candidates a voter can rank are the candidates running in
his local sub-district, but he can rank any party that has at least one
candidate running somewhere in the Greater District.
An independent candidate is treated the same as a political party, that is,
a voter can rank any independent candidate running anywhere in the Greater
District.  It is as if the independent candidate is a small political party
which has only one candidate running.

Some Advantages of Districts Within Districts:
 * It wil give us the gerrymandering prevention ability of eight or more seats.
 * It will give us the closer member-link of two-seat sub districts.
 * It will give us the smaller proportionality unit that comes with eight
or more seats compared to the three seat model currently proposed by the
Center for Voting and Democracy.
 * Any changes in the number of people voting in a sub district will change
the number of members that sub district will be able to elect - best to get
out the vote.
 * Any percent population changes between all the sub districts will result
in the same changes in the number of members each sub district will be able
to elect, that is, the affect is a form of automatic reapportionment.

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Multi-Single-Seat Elections Plan: by Donald E Davison

Multi-Single-Seat means that more than one Single-Seat Election is being
conducted at the same time in one field of candidates.

Counting More Than One Set of Choices: When only one judge is to be
elected, IRVing is to be used. When more than one is being elected we will
still use IRVing but with a difference. That difference is that instead of
only counting the first choice of each ballot, we count a number of choices
equal to the number of judges to be elected. We add all these choices
together and then drop the lowest candidate. And instead of working the
candidates down to only one we will work them down to the number of judges
to be elected. Each judge in order to win must get a majority - because
each judge will be sitting as a single person and must serve the entire
community like any single office holder.

If five judges are to be elected then each voter has five votes and is
allowed to select up to five candidates as his first choices - plus the
voter is allowed to select additional choices to act as runoff selections
if needed. The first five choices on each ballot are considered to be equal
and therefore receive one vote each.  The math will work as follows: The
first tally of the candidates is obtained by adding the first five choices
of every ballot together.  This will result in a vote sum for every
candidate.  We now drop the lowest candidate below the fifth candidate and
repeat the counting of the first five choices of every ballot, but this
time we pass over the name of the eliminated candidate.  This is the best
way to handle the count.  If we try to transfer the votes to the next
choices on the ballots, we will find that many of these next choices are
already in the count.  We do not want to tally two votes for one candidate
from one ballot.

This repeat of adding the first five choices together will yield us the
second tally of the candidates.  We continue dropping the lowest candidate
and adding the first five choices until we only have five candidates left.
If these five all have a majority then all five are elected.  A majority
being more than fifty percent of the number of electors that voted in the
race for these judges.

It is possible to end up with less than five with a majority.  It is
tempting to declare the top five as winners but I say that only the ones
with a majority each are elected - the others did not receive a majority.
This is important because many times in the election of judges the number
of candidates is equal to only the number of seats.  These candidates
should not be guaranteed winning an election because of no opposition.  The
people have the right to not vote for a candidate - and that candidate has
no right to expect to be a winner without having received a majority in the
election.

This is not a proportional representation type election. It is one
single-seat election being done five times at one time in one field of
candidates.  The exception to this would be if a panel of judges was being
elected to serve as one body. Then they are to be elected using the
proportional rules of a multi-seat election, as one five seat election.

The above multi-single-seat method can also be used for any election of
persons that serve the same function but work separately - marshalls are
another example. (01-12-02)

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My American Presidential Election Plan: by Donald Davison - January 15 2001
Draft:

It is possible to use Instant Runoff Voting aka IRVing in one or more or
all the states without the elimination of the Electoral College.  This Plan
keeps the Electoral College, but weds it to IRVing in the states.

Each state would use IRVing to reduce their field of candidates down to
two. The electoral votes would then be divided between these two candidates
according to each state's IRVing vote count at the point in the
calculations after the votes of the other candidates have been transferred
to the final two candidates.  The division should go out to a number of
decimal points.

We must keep the last two candidates as contenders and we must divide the
votes between them because this is the only way in which all the voters in
a state can have a say when the final decision is made in the next part of
the election, that is, when the Electoral vote sums of one state are
combined with the Electoral vote sums of the other states. This is IRVing's
policy - everyone's vote is to have a voice when the final decision is
made.

The electoral votes for the top two candidates from all the states would
now be combined to give us the unofficial results. Yes, I said unofficial,
because there is one more step needed before a state can submit its results
as being official.

Each state must compare its final two candidates with the national final
two candidates. If the two are the same then there is nothing more to do,
the state can submit its results as official. But, if the candidates are
not the same, then the state must do the runoff cycles over again with an
added rule. That rule is that the top two national candidates are not to be
eliminated this time around. This is a necessary and acceptable step
because if we had a national runoff election, it would do the same, it
would eliminate a nationally lower candidate even if that candidate was a
leading candidate in a few states.
This rule is not to be used during the first round of IRVing.

When the state submits its official results, it is necessary for it to have
the same two candidates as the top two national candidates. To do otherwise
would deny the people of the state from having a voice in the election when
the final decision is being made between the last two candidates, which are
the top two national candidates.

In an earlier presidential election, George Wallace carried Mississippi and
Alabama, but the people of those two states were still entitled to have a
voice in the decision between the last two national candidates. As it
turned out, they had no voice in that final decision.

Besides, it is important that all the Electoral College votes of all the
states be there between the final top two national candidates when the
final decision is made between the two, otherwise there is the possibility
that no candidate will receive a majority of the total electoral votes and
that would cause the election to be determined by the House instead of by
the states.

This is a plan which one state can start to follow without waiting for the
other states. Of course, the influence of IRVing will be low with only one
state, but as other states come on board, the influence of this plan will
increase.

My plan is something a single state can do to improve the presidential
election for the citizens of its state, and my plan will do that very well,
while others will still be waiting endlessly for a national amendment to
eliminate the Electoral College.

Under existing conditions, this plan offers the best way in which Instant
Runoff Voting can be used in our presidential elections. This is also the
best plan for all the political parties, large and small.

Winner Take all:   I contend that a major part of the gap between
population and Electoral votes is caused by the policy of `Winner Take All'
in the states that have it. We cannot count on randomness to balance
Electoral votes to population.

Consider two states with the same number of Electoral votes. Candidate(A)
wins one state by 62 percent while candidate(B) wins the other state by 51
percent. If we divide the Electoral votes according to popular vote in each
state and then add them together, the Electoral vote count for these two
states will be in the same percentages as the sums of the popular votes of
the two states. But, not so if these states have the `Winner Take All'
policy.

The percentage gap between population and Electoral votes will be smaller
if we divide the Electoral votes in each state. Besides, the second
candidate in each state is entitled to his share of the electoral votes, so
that he may compete on the national scale.

                                        end



Regards,
   Donald Davison, host of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald
                        Candidate Election Methods
   +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
   |                        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 -                              |
   +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
    APV   Approval Voting
    ATV   Alternative Vote  aka  IRV Instant Runoff Voting  aka  IRVing
    FPTP  First Past The Post  aka  Plurality
    NOTA  None of the Above  aka  RON Re-Open Nominations
    STV   Single Transferable Vote  aka  Preference Voting  aka  Choice Voting
          aka  Hare Clarke  aka  Hare Preferential Voting

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