[EM] Random and reproductible tie-breaks

[Stéphane Rouillon]

Hello Allen,

simply using the number of ballots involved in the tie is enough. Compare 
its rest using euclidian divison by the number of involved candidates to the 
alphabetical rank of the candidates.
Simple, effective and greatly equiprobable. It works for winner selection as 
for elemination rounds.

Stéphane

>From: Allen Smith <easmith at beatrice.rutgers.edu>
>To: election-methods at electorama.com
>Subject: Re: [EM] Random and reproductible tie-breaks
>Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:37:03 -0400
>
>In message <BAY104-F349E279E77D96E5BF3CE858F450 at phx.gbl> (on 24 September
>2008 23:05:05 +0000), stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca
>(=?iso-8859-1?B?U3TpcGhhbmUgUm91aWxsb24=?=) wrote:
> >for an anti-fraud purpose, the capacity to repeat the counting operation 
>is
> >a must. Hence I recommand to use a reproductible random procedure to 
>break
> >ties. This allows the use of different computers to reproduce the 
>counting
> >operation, while always obtaining the same result despite ties.
>
>Cryptographically secure hashing methods would appear to be the appropriate
>way to do this, using the ballots and/or some other agreed-upon information
>(e.g., the year of the election in a specified coding, the names of the
>candidates in a specified format...). I'm not sure whether it would be a
>good idea to set it up such that the tie-breaking couldn't be computed
>before the ballots came in (as would be possible if all the information
>needed for it was known in advance).
>
>        -Allen
>
>--
>Allen Smith, Ph.D.		  http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/
>September 11, 2001		   A Day That Shall Live In Infamy II
>"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
>safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
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