[EM] PR in student government

[Tim Hull]

Well, as far as I'm thinking, standard STV is already too complicated to
explain.  Introducing Meek/Warren would only make it more likely to fail
(this has to be voted on by the student government and the student body) due
to the added complexity of explaining them.  I don't even want to think of
such things as CPO-STV - trying to introduce that would surely spell the end
of any possibility of voting reform here.

I know the common idea behind explaining STV is "don't talk about the
counting too much".  However, I know this WILL NOT work in my case, because
we already have a ranked-ballot system in our modified Borda (where you only
rank as many candidates as there are open seats).  Thus, the counting is the
only difference - and convincing people to go from a simple (but dumb and
disproportional) point system to STV has been anything but easy as a
result.  I think that if we had at-large plurality it would be much simpler
to bring STV in - in fact, STV was actually used a long time ago (until the
1980s) at U-M but scrapped in favor of our current system due to
complexity...

Any suggestions?  I'm currently pushing the proportional aspect of the
system, as that seems to be the primary thing that sets it apart from the
status quo.  It's also the reason I see it as a big issue - elections have
been rather uncompetitive thanks for to the tendency for the establishment
to become entrenched...

Tim

On 4/17/07, Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> On Apr 17, 2007, at 9:54 AM, James Gilmour wrote:
>
> >> From: Howard Swerdfeger > Sent: 17 April 2007 17:37
> >>
> >> Tactical voting is easy in STV.
> >>
> >> Step 1 : Determine what your preferred ranking is.
> >> Step 2 : Determine who is sure to lose the election
> >> Step 3 : Rank all candidates you are sure will loose above
> >> the rest of your "real" list
> >
> >> The only flaw that I see is if you elect someone from your
> >> "sure to lose list".
> >
> > Precisely!!
> >
> > If enough other voters pick on the same "loser" because they are
> > playing
> > the same game, your "loser" will become a "winner".  There is good
> > evidence from real public elections with STV-PR that attempts at
> > tactical voting of this kind are unwise.  The only good advice for
> > STV-PR public elections, i.e. with large numbers of voters whose
> > preferences you cannot possibly know, is "Do NOT attempt to vote
> > tactically.  Vote positively for the candidates you really want".
> > James Gilmour
>
> Alternatively, use Meek's or Warren's method, either of which is
> immune to this particular strategy.
>
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>
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