[EM] British Colombia considering change to STV

[Raph Frank]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Juho Laatu <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Candidates have a default tree-like
> order of inheritance. Vote C121 will
> be counted as a vote to candidate
> C121, group G12 and party P1. This
> vote has the same meaning as vote
> C121>G12>P1>ANYONE.

One slight issue here is that you need to use an equal ranking version
of PR-STV.

There is no 'standard' version.

My preference is to use a different method of counting for election
and elimination.

Election: Vote is shared between all candidates at current rank
Elimination: Vote is given to each candidate at current rank at full strength

But, (ahem), I digress.

> Vote C121>C211 is the same as vote
> C121>C211>G21>P2>ANYONE. Note that
> I assumed that the last ranked
> candidate determines the order of
> inheritance (unlike in the Maltese
> proposals where the first preference
> determined the party). If the voter
> would like the first preference to
> determine the order of inheritance
> she could vote e.g. C121>C211>G12.

It might be better to just have a default + override method.

> We may allow also not giving any
> support to the party of the last
> ranked candidate. In this case the
> vote could be C211>G21>P2>C111>ANYONE.

I guess it depends on what the rules are.

So the  'ANYONE' choice allows voters to force their rankings to end?

> A bullet vote with no inheritance
> could with this ballot style be e.g.
> C555>ANYONE. Vote C555>C666>ANYONE
> would be a traditional STV vote that
> may become exhausted after C555 and
> C666 have been eliminated (or elected).

It depends on what is the most convenient.  Do we automatically assume
that the voters want to expand their vote to include the tree or do we
assume that the would rather bullet vote unless told otherwise.

Also, there is an issue with inheritance between parties.  If the
votes are being combined using a PR-STV method, then you might want
your vote

C111

expanded to

C111>G11>P1>PX>PY...

Where party X and Y are parties picked by P1.

> The examples above show what kind of
> votes would be possible in general.

I think this is a a reasonable system.  It combines the
convenience/info of a tree system (for those who want that) with the
precision of PR-STV (for those that want that).

> From a
> traditional STV point of view the
> group and party names are actually
> just abbreviations of candidates
> in those groupings.

Right.

> This approach may easily get too
> complex for such traditional STV
> ballot style where all candidates
> are explicitly listed.

It depends on how many candidates are running.

It still suffers from the counting problem if the plan is to have
national level elections.

It would in fact be more complex than PR-STV ballots as there are
additional choices.

I think Adb Lomax's ballot imaging system could resolve this though.

> vote could be simple a
> list of (maybe hand written) codes,
> e.g. "13 63 23" where numbers could
> refer also to groupings.

It might be easier to have the parties allowed to register codes.

In Ireland, all the parties have a 2-3 letter code.

FF -> Fianna Fail
FG -> Fine Gael
Lab -> Labour
GR -> Green Party
SF -> Sine Fein
PD -> Progressive Democrats (dead)

That still runs into the problem of the sub-groups.  Ideally, they
should also be simple codes, like

FF-So might be the socialist wing of FF
etc.

Ofc, the exact code matters less if your poster suggestion is used.

> One could have large posters of
> candidates instead of listing them
> all in the ballot sheets.

Right, these could in included in each of the polling booths (with
each party verifying that they are correct in the morning of the
election)