[EM] Parliamentarianism

[Olli Salmi]

Outside the English-speaking countries all the votes are taken at the end
of the debate, but they are taken consecutively. Some time ago (2nd Jan) I
posted about the French and the Finnish method. The French method doesn't
necessarily produce a winner even if a Condorcet winner exists. My
understanding is that the Finnish method finds one if one exists. I'd like
to get this confirmed and also how to detect a cycle. In Sweden and
Switzerland there are further methods.

In this country the result of the vote in Parliament is photographed from
the display of the voting machine. It might be more difficult to understand
how your representative has voted if IRV were used. It might reduce
strategic voting because the MPs wouldn't know the result of the previous
vote, but then again I've read that strategic voting can force the
selection of the best choice.

In England universities use Single Transferable Vote/IRV extensively,
perhaps exclusively. At Cambridge it is also used when the Regent House
(some 3,000 persons) is voting on the so called graces, internal
regulations, if amendments have been offered.

Cambridge also have an extensive site on a computerized STV voting system
called Juliet, coded in Java. Here's the programmer's manual, if it's still
online: http://thor.cam.ac.uk/group/CST1b/juliet/swc23/ProgDoc.htm.

Olli Salmi


At 22:52 +0300 12.4.2002, Narins, Josh wrote:
>	Has anyone written on the relation between multi-option voting
>systems and parliamentary procedure?
>
>	I was thinking this morning... Why have votes on amendments at all?
>All amendments and the bill itself could be voted on simultaneously. In that
>context, you can wager your lunch they would want Approval or Condorcet, not
>IRV. :)
>
>	Anyone know anything about this?