[EM] STV and weighted positional methods

[Raph Frank]

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 6:25 AM, Kathy Dopp <kathy.dopp at gmail.com> wrote:
> That is far superior a method to that used in most US states where
> ballots are secretly counted by private companies and the counts never
> checked at a level that would assure accurate election outcomes, or at
> all in most states.

I agree that that is a pretty bad idea.  Elections should be both
accurate and seen to be accurate.

> One must randomly select publicly reported vote counts that tally to
> the total results and manually count 100% of the ballots for each
> randomly selected vote count and compare it to the reported election
> results count.

Ok, so if there was 100 polling stations, you would pick say 5 of them
and then apply to be allowed to count those votes?

If the results are the same as the official count, then it is likely
that all 100 are the same (since you picked them at random, any group
trying to tamper with the results wouldn't have known which polling
stations to leave alone).

This covers tampering where the tampering is small but in a large
number of the districts.

If the fraudsters tampered a large amount but in a small number of
polling station, they would have a higher chance they would get away
with it.

You would also need to include in your check any polling stations with
suspicious results.  For example, if they don't match exit polling or
if their result is an outlier when compared to all the other polling
stations.

This method could also be applied in the IRV case if they use the
central office method (i.e. counts are performed in each polling
station under the direction of a central office).

You would have a list of the results for each round from each polling
station and what candidates were eliminated.

You could then manually check a random set of the polling stations, i.e.

Round 1:

- Sort ballots into piles based on first choices
- count each pile
- make sure they match announced

Round 2:

- Check who was eliminated after round 1
- Split his pile based on 2nd choices
- count all the sub-piles
- make sure they match the announced result

and so on

> Why not use a fairer voting method that is easier to check the machine
> counts since most methods are precinct summable?

I feel that the plurality has massive disadvantages due to giving the
top 2 parties control of the democratic process in a country.

It would be interesting to see what the effects of improved single
seat methods like approval voting and condorcet would have.  I think
they would both be an improvement.  Evidence from Australia says that
IRV doesn't break the 2 party system, but maybe some of the other
single seat voting methods would.

PR is even better at getting accurate representation.

However, again, some methods can have unforeseen effects.  Party list
systems achieve very high levels of proportionality, but reduce the
ability for voters to hold individual politicians to account.  Also,
they inherently assume that parties are the basis of politicial
representation.

PR-STV allows voters to vote purely based on parties, to vote for
individuals or a combination of the 2.  It gives max freedom to the
voter.  I think this is worth a small risk of non-monotonicity, though
that assumes a reasonable number of seats per constituency.

> No, but they can add up all the precinct totals and see that they add
> up correctly and then manually audit a random sample of precincts. It
> is very very trivially simple compared to trying to check the trade
> secret machine counts of an STV election.

I agree that trade secret voting machines are a bad idea.  The count
should be as public as possible.