[EM] Borda count in practice

[Bart Ingles]

My thoughts as well.  This is probably one of the better systems in
current use in single-seat government elections, although I would prefer
to simplify it into plain approval voting rather than combine it with
Condorcet.

Bart


Forest Simmons wrote:
> 
> If your interpretation of the Slovenia election law is correct, so that
> truncations receive zero, and the ranked choices receive the same points
> that they would have received on a ballot without truncations, then
> Slovenia's version of Borda is a kind of hybrid of Borda and Approval,
> hence better than standard Borda.
> 
> Consider, for example, a single winner election with twenty candidates, of
> which a typical voter might approve four.  If that typical voter ranked
> only those approved four, they would receive 20, 19, 18, and 17 points,
> respectively (from that voter's ballot), while the other candidates would
> receive zero.
> 
> That's not so different from giving each of the four approved candidates
> 20 points (and zero for the rest) which would be equivalent to Approval.
> 
> The greater the number of candidates, the closer this method is to
> Approval.
> 
> Suppose that we used Slovania's version of Borda in Borda seeded single
> elimination or in Borda completed Condorcet (Black). It seems to me that
> when the number of candidates is moderately large, then there would be
> very little incentive to rank insincerely.
> 
> Forest
> 
> On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, Jurij Toplak wrote:
> 
> > There was a discussion about Borda count here for the last few weeks. I
> > wander if anybody on the list actualy knows which countries use Borda system
> > in their national elections? I know that my country, Slovenia, uses it.
> >
> > In Slovenian parliamentary elections two of the 90 members are elected in
> > single-member districts according to Borda system (the other 88 members are
> > elected with Droop and D'Hondt quota system). Law states that "A voter shall
> > vote by indicating his preferential order of candidates in front of the
> > names of the candidates, starting with number 1." (National Assembly
> > Election Act, Art. 74). "Points shall be assigned to candidates according to
> > orders of preference. For each first place the candidate shall receive as
> > many points as there were candidates on the ballot paper, and for each
> > successive place a point less. The points of each candidate shall be
> > totaled."(Art. 95).
> >
> > Therefore, if a candidate on a 5-candidate ballot only votes for one
> > candidate, this candidate will receive 5 points and the others zero. This is
> > opposite to what Saari and the others here on the list are proposing.
> > However, there is no basis in the law to give to this candidate only one
> > point or to give the others "average" of 2.5 points. Law clearly sais "For
> > the first place the candidate shall receive as many points as there were
> > candidates on the ballot paper."
> > It is also impossible to call this ballot null since the law sais that "A
> > ballot paper shall be valid if it is clear which candidate he voted for."
> > (art. 76).
> >
> > These districts are quite small - one has 2000 and the other 8000 voters.
> > This means that if a group of few hundred voters deliberately voted for only
> > one candidate this would make a big difference in result.
> >
> > However, the law stating "for each successive place a point less" could also
> > be interpreted that the chosen candidate on a 5-candidate ballot would get 5
> > points and the others 4 points. But it is not interpreted this way I guess.
> >
> > Does anybody know how do other countries that use Borda treat such ballots?
> >
> > The election act of Slovenia is available at
> > http://www.sigov.si/elections/zvdz.html
> >
> > Happy new year to everybody,
> >
> > Jurij
> >
> >
> >
> >