[EM] STV and weighted positional methods

[Kathy Dopp]

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Virtually all computer scientists?

Yes. Google on the topic or look at the ACM.org web site, the largest
association of computing professionals in the world and see their list
of tens of thousands of computer scientists who've signed on to their
position, or read the work of the Technical Guidelines Development
Cmte of the US Election Assistance Cmsn or the position of NSF funded
project ACCURATE (voting system project) or the position of the
National Institute of Science and Technology or the US Government
Accountability Office, etc etc..

If you followed the field of election integrity at all or you would
know this already. In fact to say "virtually" all is probably an
understatement. It is probably "all", although I leave room for there
being one computer scientist who disagrees.


>
> Voters are always going to have to trust someone.  It's not like
> everyone gets to hand count the ballots themselves.

That is your opinion which is very different than the beliefs of the
founding fathers of the United States who tried to set up a system of
checks and balances whereby the public had to trust no one.

Blind trust is not a principle that is conducive to good democracy.


>
> If the ballots were published, it would be pretty easy to convert them into a result.

Not for the average citizen, who you do not want to be able to double
check election results since you are pushing for IRV/STV the most
difficult counting method that anyone is seriousy proposing to verify
to my knowledge.

> PR-STV does allow that verification, you can make sure that the number  of ballots in each sub-pile is correct and that each ballot is in the correct sub-pile.

So you agree with what I said, to verify the integrity of an STV
election an ordinary citizen would have to be able to observe a
publicly held 100% hand count.

>
> Rank the candidates in order of your choice is a perfectly reasonable strategy.

False - not if you want to avoid having your vote sometimes cause your
1st choice to lose and not if you want to avoid having your last
choice candidate (who may also be the last choice of a majority of
voters) sometimes win because not all voters' second, ... choices were
counted in an equal and timely way.

Really, don't you actually read the examples that are readily
available that are posted on the Net or that people on this list have
provided?

>The issues with IRV are considerably lessened with the switch to multi-seat elections.

100% FALSE statement.  Just read some of the information that is
available to you.  STV exacerbates the problems of IRV because it is
IRV but applied with even more complexity and inequity.

Cheers,
-- 

Kathy Dopp

The material expressed herein is the informed  product of the author's
fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician,
Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll
discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

P.O. Box 680192
Park City, UT 84068
phone 435-658-4657

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

Post-Election Vote Count Audit
A Short Legislative & Administrative Proposal
http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf

History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of
Election Auditing Fundamentals
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf