[EM] British Colombia considering change to STV

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Tue, 5/5/09, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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

Why only fraction of the vote in the
election case? Doesn't a vote to a
party mean that any candidate of the
party may use it at full strength?
Naturally once someone uses it it is
not available to others at full
strength anymore.

Related observation:
If there are many votes  with "direct
inheritance" (e.g. bullet vote C111)
then the counting process may use the
knowledge that this vote will be in
any case inherited by G11 and P1.
We can sum up this kind of votes to P1
from the beginning and allocate seats
to P1 (in top down style as in list
based methods).

> > 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.

That was my intention. => By default the
vote will be inherited along the given
tree hierarchy. All voting patterns are
still possible (=override the default).
Simplest syntax for most common votes,
complex syntax for the more uncommon
voting patterns.

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

Yes, that was just my style of indicating
that "no inheritance" means the same as
"inherited by all". Just a natural way
of expressing how some intermediate levels
are skipped. Also other syntaxes could be
used (any good proposals?).

> > 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.

The basic idea was to develop a syntax
that makes the most voting convenient.
I assumed that political tree-like
thinking is common. For some voters even
bullet votes (with default inheritance)
may be sufficient. Many others might be
happy with ranking some of some of the
closest candidates, e.g. C113>C119>C112,
and leave the remaining fragments of the
vote to their favourite group and party
(G11, P1).

> 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 "tree assumption" includes also option
to use also party coalitions/alliances, e.g.
A1, P12, G123, C1234. This makes it possible
to group parties (e.g. the left wing). Full
ordering as in your example (P1>PX>PY
instead of P1>PX=PY) would require the voter
to write the inheritance order explicitly in
the ballot. Giving the remaining fragments
to the alliance would be easy (even bullet
voting would do that).

> > 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.

Yes. My assumption was to prepare for
expanding the number of candidates and
groupings. With less than 10 candidates
the voters may be required to rank so
many of them that the vote will be
"complete enough". If one's favourite
party has 10 subgroups with 10 candidates
each, then listing all of them (or all
relevant of them) to guarantee that the
vote stays within the correct party will
be tedious.

> 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.

What is the problem that makes this
too complex? The numerous ties do add
complexity but maybe computers can
handle the counting process.

Btw, one way that this approach might
somewhat simplify things is that the
votes could be shorter than in STV.
(There might be such shortening needs
also to keep the votes unidentifiable
(to avoid vote buying and coercion).
Maybe limiting the number of entries
in the ballot could be used in some
cases for this reason.)

> > 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.

One factor that influences this choice
is difference between manually written
codes vs. use of voting machines.
Simple (handwritten) numbers may be
easy to read without errors and quick
to write. Mnemonic names are easier to
check after one has filled the ballot.

Juho