[EM] Request for help: complex election

[Gervase Lam]

> Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 13:16:38 -0500
> To: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com
> From: Adam Tarr <atarr at purdue.edu>
> Subject: RE: [EM] Request for help: complex election

> Only that there's no proportionality in this system.  So, if 75% of the
> voters want one set of four candidates, and 25% of the voters want
> another set of four candidates, then you will get a 4-0 split rather
> than the appropriate 3-1 split.  Even worse, 51% of the voters could get
> 4 candidates, leaving the other 49% of the voters with no
> representation.
>
> If you insist on not using a good proportional method like STV-PR or PAV
> (Proportional Approval Voting), then a simple alternative is "cumulative
> voting".  It works exactly the same as regular voting, except you may
> cast any or all of your four votes for any candidate.  So you could vote
> for one candidate twice and another candidate twice, or four different
> candidates once, or one cadidate four times, or one candidate three
> times and another once... you get the idea.

I think I remember somebody mentioning that Cumulative Voting could be 
used in a multi-seat election quite a while back.  A voter would be handed 
a fixed number of 'decal' dots.  I suppose each dot could have an IV 
"security" letter or digit in a randomly chosen font or may be some other 
design pattern or logo.

The voter would then put the stick the appropriate number of dots beside 
the appropriate candidate, which may be hand written.  Physically handing 
dots to voters means that there can be less concentration on anomalies 
where voters seem to be using too many dots.

May be another alternative is to have a normal Approval vote except that 
the maximum number of candidates a voter is allowed to vote is equal to 
half the number of seats up for grabs?  Again, the 'decal' dots can be 
used to physically limit the number of votes a voter can do.  This also 
has the advantage that you don't have to go through the potentially 
painful process of counting the number of dots beside each candidate and 
resultant arithmetic.

Thanks,
Gervase.