[EM] STV and weighted positional methods

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Kathy Dopp wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com> wrote:

> Computer scientists have already mathematically proven that counting
> IRV/STV is an exponential problem in computer science. Far far more
> difficult and time-consuming to count accurately than other voting
> methods. I am fairly certain that your assertion about counting time
> is incorrect.

Do you have any sources for this? My election methods program implements 
STV (both conventional and Meek), and seems to return winners quite quickly.

Are you referring to that it's not summable (thus communications between 
districts require data that's worst case exponential wrt the number of 
candidates)? Or are you referring to the equivalent for space, that in 
the worst case, there may be an exponential number of voters, each with 
a different order, and so counting is worst case exponential wrt the 
number of candidates?