[EM] Explaining PR-STV

[Kathy Dopp]

> From: Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com>
>>
>> Looking at the 3 choices as parts of one whole vote does not change
>> the *truth* is that voters' "votes" are treated unequally. ?Considered
>> as parts of a vote, some voters have only 1/3rd of their vote
>> considered, while others have 2/3rds or all of their entire vote
>> considered at all, or in a timely fashion.
>
> Your vote allows you to increase the total for any any candidate by 1
> vote (or group of candidates by 1 vote in total).

This statement is misleading at best.  To give voters a true picture
you need to say:

"Your vote allows you to increase the total for one or two candidates
per round up to at most one vote in sum per round. However in some
rounds some voters will have a full one vote and other voters will
have less than one or zero votes."

Tell the people the full truth about IRV.

>
> The rankings are just instructions to the counters on where you want
> that vote assigned during the counting procedure.

Let's be honest and add the phrase that "just because you give
instructions for how you want that vote assigned does not mean that
any vote is assigned to any candidate (even your 1st choice) in a way
that will help that candidate's chances of winning."

>
>> True only in round #1, so entirely misleading unless the statement is qualified.
>
> Ok, is the the updated expression above acceptable?

Yes. Acceptable to those who would mislead the public on what IRV does.

>
>> 1. ?their 2nd choice candidate gets ?a vote that could help their 2nd
>> choice candidate win whenever their 1st candidate loses, and that
>
> He does, unless the 2nd choice is eliminated before the first choice.

Yes, so to give an honest picture, state that.

>
>> 2. majority favorite candidates win, and that
>
> True, this is an issue.  The equivalent is that only candidates who
> meet the Droop quota would be given a seat in PR-STV.

Huh? That is equivalent to the lie being told to the public that IRV
finds majority winners? I don't see it.

>
> I think that would be reasonable, but some people might not like that
> their district ends up with 1 fewer representatives.


Well IRV can not elect candidates to all the seats if it follows its
own rules for quotas.

>
>> 3. a vote for a candidate always helps, rather than hurts that
>> candidate's chances of winning, etc.
>
> I think the non-monotonicity is not as big an issue with PR-STV when
> the number of seats gets larger.  The more seats being filled, the
> more accurate your polling.

Well the 75 voters in Aspen who caused their favorite candidate to
lose by ranking him first (whereas he would have won if they hadn't),
may disagree with you, as per this oped in the Aspen Times this week:

Aspen City's Waning Credibility

http://votingnews.blogspot.com/2009/08/aspen-times-citys-waning-credibility.html

>
> Also, giving a candidate a higher ranking certainly helps on average.

Well that is where you and I disagree philosophically -- I think
voters have a right to know that their vote helps, rather than hurts a
candidate's chances of winning.

> Lots of canvassers in Ireland, when they are canvassing, will ask for
> a first choice and if you say you are voting for another party, they
> will ask for the 2nd chocie.

So what?

>
>> I fully understand the mechanics of the wholly unfair inequitable
>> IRV/STV counting methods whereby the supporters of the least popular
>> (first eliminated) candidates get to have their votes reallocated to
>> decide which other candidates are eliminated first and whereby the
>> voters of the early round winners in STV get to cast part of their
>> votes for their 2nd and/or 3rd choice candidates.
>
> IRV does seem an improvement over plurality.  Plurality also can
> result in a winner who doesn't have majority support.

IRV is a big big step down from plurality voting due to its
fundamental unfairness of the way it treats ballots and due to its
removing voting rights, eviscerating election transparency and
verifiability, huge cost increases, etc. etc.

Read my long, but easy to read report on IRV with an open mind:

http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

>
>> and add "if any uneliminated candidates remain on your ballot at that
>> point" to give a more accurate picture of what happens to your choice
>> votes.
>
> Sounds reasonable.
>
>>> Right, there is up to 1 Droop quota of voters who don't get
>>> represented. ?However, this is much better than potentially 49% of the
>>> voters not being represented in a single seat district.
>>
>> In a single seat election, IRV can do much worse than that and elect a
>> candidate whom the majority of voters *opposes*.
>
> So can plurality.  (and again, I don't think IRV is a very good method
> for single seat elections).

STV has all the same flaws as IRV, plus some.

>
> However, it is an improvement (at least slightly) over plurality.

IRV/STV is a HUGE threat to the fairness and integrity of elections as
compared to plurality.

>
>> You do not seem to understand that in IRV you can **never* give your
>> first choice vote to your favorite candidate unless you do not care if
>> your 2nd favorite candidate loses the election and your *least*
>> favorite candidate wins the election.
>
> Under strategy, IRV gives the same result as plurality, with all the
> same problems.

PLUS IRV adds nonmonotonicity, removes voting rights, adds costs and
complexities, and reduces fairness, etc.

>
> I disagree that PR-STV has the problem to anything like the same effect.
>
>> IRV has the *later no harm* criteria where a later candidate can never
>> hurt one's 1st choice vote, but a 1st choice vote can (and very often
>> does) hurt your 2nd choice and cause a majority-opposed candidate to
>> win.
>
> Fair enough.  There is a risk that your 2nd choice may be eliminated
> before your first choice is eliminated.
>
>>> Would you prefer the simple version where the 5 candidates who
>>> received the most votes in the first round win? ?That is monotonic, but is much less fair and gives more power to the parties.
>>
>> Yes, I prefer that method any day as compared to IRV/STV methods, but
>> I believe that there are better Condorcet or range voting methods that
>> are fair and produce desirable results.
>
> However, this method means that if you want to support a party, you
> have no choice but to vote for the party's candidates.

Huh!? Does that statement make any sense?

>
> If a party thinks it will only get 2 seats, it only runs 2 candidates
> (decided internally).  The represents much more power for the party
> than for the voters.
>
> It isn't that I don't see the problems with PR-STV, it is that other
> methods are worse.

I have yet to see any method proposed that is worse than IRV/STV short
of dictatorship.

>
>> True, but none of this negates the true fact that voting for a strong
>> candidate that makes it to the final counting rounds and then loses,
>> often means that your 2nd and later choices are not considered in a
>> timely fashion when they could help those candidates to win.
>
> The proposed solutions for things like that massively increase the
> complexity (say CPO-STV or Schulze-STV).

Absolutely false, In fact most of the methods that solve that problem
are precinct-summable, as are both Condorcet and range and approval
voting and Bucklin methods - and do not remove voting rights and are
FAIR, unlike STV/IRV.

>
>> No. That is not what I said. It only gets transferred if your 2nd
>> choice candidate has not already been eliminated.
>
> ... and you have not indicated lower preferences that are still in the running.
>
>> 1. know that the effect of casting a vote for a candidate will be to
>> help, not hurt, that candidate's chances of winning, and to
>
> I am willing to accept that ranking a candidate higher increases the
> probability of him winning,

Then you are accepting a blatant falsehood because IRV/STV elicits
nonmonotonicity more as the number of candidates running increases, as
has been mathematically proven, and nonmonotonicity, (hurting your
candidates' chances of winning by voting for them) frequently occurs
in IRV/STV.

>even if the result might be that sometimes
> it results in a preferred candidate losing.
> (and I agree IRV is not a very good single seat method)
>
>> 2. have their own vote treated in the exact same equal manner as all
>> other voters' votes.
>
> This is true in IRV and PR-STV.  You get 1 vote and it will be
> assigned in whole or in parts between candidates in accordance with
> your instructions.

Misleading statement at best, as voters get *up to (and sometimes less
down to zero)* votes per round for up to two (and sometimes less down
to zero) candidates. Hardly could be characterized accurately as
"equal" treatment.

>
>> Oh so filling all the seats or actually following the statutes that
>> requires a particular quota is just a "little benefit"?
>
> My view would be that PR-STV in a massive improvement over plurality
> based elections.  It has some problems, but arguing about different
> types of PR-STV ignore the fact that most of them are pretty similar
> in quality and it is a big improvement.

IRV/STV is a massive downgrade to plurality voting and IRV/STV is a
huge threat to the fairness, integrity, and voting rights, costs to
taxpayers, etc.

Cheers,

Kathy