[EM] PR favoring racial minorities

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Raph Frank wrote:
> On 8/22/08, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:
>>  If I understand Schulze's STV method correctly, it calculates vote
>> management strengths and so does vote management on behalf of the voter and
>> on all candidates. I may be wrong, though, and Schulze STV uses a very large
>> amount of memory for elections with many candidates and winners. Still, it
>> shows the possibility of having a method that resists vote management.
> 
> That is interesting.  I have had a look at his paper, but
> the method itself seems pretty complex.
> 
> Is there a simple/basic explanation of the method?

You would have to ask Schulze that. I don't know of any, at least.

> - capturing a greater proportion of personal votes for the party
> 
> Any surplus of a candidate who easily reaches
> quota will be a mix of personal and party votes.
> Thus some of the votes that went to a party member
> will end up being transferred away.
> 
> If less party supporters vote for the candidate, then
> they can be used at full strength for other party members.
> This means that that the party gets better use of the personal
> vote of the member.
> 
> This is the vote management version of Hylland free
> riding.  Party voters are en mass downgrading their
> top choice as he is likely to get elected anyway.
> 
> Meek's method solves the first problem by adjusting the quota
> and CPO-STV solves the 2nd problem by not eliminating anyone.
> The 3rd one like Hylland free-riding on an individual level is
> very hard to fix.  (Schulze aims for equality of effect rather than
> trying to eliminate it).

If it turns out that we can't get rid of Hylland free-riding, then 
equality of effect might be the best thing to have: while it degrades 
the performance of the method, hopefully it won't degrade it too much, 
and it'll keep the dynamics from going in the wrong direction of 
encouraging party centralization.

> Meek's method also solves Woodall free-riding, though I'm not
> sure if there is a vote management method that takes advantage
> of it.  A party would need to flood the constituency with 'no-hope'
> candidates so there is enough of them for all of their supporters
> to vote for.  That might be a little to obvious, but it could work.

Schulze considered the case with write-in candidates. Obscure write-ins 
are pretty much ensured not to win, and could be used as Woodall 
free-riding dummies. He then checked an STV election where write-ins 
were permitted (the city council of Cambridge, MA), but found no obvious 
evidence of Woodall free-riding.

See the free-riding section of http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze2.pdf .

> None of your party's supporter's votes would be wasted electing
> candidates for other parties who get elected on the first count.

At least not until the other parties do the same. The absurd result 
would be an STV election with thousands of candidates, none of which can 
win, getting eliminated at the start of the election before the "real" 
candidates appear.