[EM] Cumulative Voting with Elimination - idea for simple PR system...

[Tim Hull]

In my research of voting systems, PR, etc, I've been trying to come up with
the most simple candidate-based PR system that I can possibly devise that
uses votes for candidates and no other factors to determine the winners (i.e.
open list and asset voting don't count for this purpose). I know simplicity
is not the most essential aspect of such a system, but I was just interested
due to the fact that complexity acts as a barrier against adoption and also
due to the fact that all the candidate-based PR systems out there are quite
complex.

Anyway, I came up with an interesting idea - combine cumulative voting (in
particular the equal-and-even variant) with IRV-style elimination.  It seems
that this would transform CV from a semi-proportional system into a
proportional system, while not complicating things excessively.  It also
seems that it may be superior to the various "proportional approval voting"
schemes put forward...

This system would work as follows:

1. Voters vote for up to n candidates - n being either # of open seats or #
of candidates
2. Each voter has one vote equally and evenly divided among the candidates
they voted for.
3. After doing the first count, eliminate the candidate with the fewest
votes.
4. Recount all ballots, dividing votes equally and evenly among *remaining
candidates only*
5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until there are only as many candidates remaining as
there are open seats.
6. The remaining candidates shall be declared elected.

Any comments on this method?  It seems like it may be reasonably usable,
unless I'm overlooking something - i.e. some reason it's not true PR or
another obvious or non-obvious pitfall.  STV is probably better (due to the
simple fact that you rank candidates), but it seems that this is an
interesting idea...

Tim
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