[EM] Proportional election method needed for the Czech Green party - Council elections

[Peter Zbornik]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:20 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>wrote:

> At 04:24 PM 4/25/2010, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am a member of the Czech Green party, and we are giving our statutes
>> an overhaul.
>> We are a small parliamentary party with only some 2000 members.
>> Lately we have had quite some problems infighting due to the
>> winner-takes-it-all election methods used within the party.
>>
>
> You are familiar, I presume, with http;//
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
>
> For a small party to be effective, it must be coherent. Every time a
> "winner" takes all, i.e., forces a large minority (or sometimes an actual
> majority due to poor voting systems) to either support the winner or leave
> the party (or at least not support the winner), it weakens the party. A
> string of these can devastate it.
>
>
> I am sitting in the working-group for the new party statutes, and
>> would like introduce proportional elections instead.
>> So I thought I might find some help in this forum in formulating my
>> proposal.
>>
>> There are several practical different types of elections in the party,
>> which need to be addressed:
>> 1. election of council members
>> 2. election of delegates to regional and national rallies, where the
>> regional and national council members are elected
>> 3. election of candidates to the ballot - primary elections
>>
>> In this letter, I would like to ask you to propose good proportional
>> election system for the election of the council members.
>> A council exists at all levels in the party organization: national,
>> regional and local.
>>
>> SCENARIO 1: COUNCIL ELECTIONS
>> We have to elect the following:
>> 1. Election of the party president
>> 2. Election of one or more vice-presidents in order of importance,
>> i.e. first vice president, second, third etc.
>> 3. Election of the rest of the council members
>> Normally the council has five or seven members.
>>
>
> The best way to handle council officer electinos is within the council
> itself, and repeated ballot is the standard way to do it; these officers
> should serve at the pleasure of the council, they are servants of the
> council. Thus ordinarily majority vote is adequate, and simple.
>
> How you elect the council determines whether the council is representative
> of the members or of only certain powerful members. Since a political party
> cannot compel its members to vote or to donate to the party, it will do best
> if it truly satisfies the members that it is *their* party. However, some
> members, being very active, come to think that they know best for the party,
> and as long as they are reasonably popular, it can seem like what is good
> for them is good for the party. But the influence of the party will be
> limited, roughly, to their personal power, rather than to the normally
> increased power of a coherent group that seeks consensus and that is open to
> new members and their ideas.
>
> If the organization has local councils that are open to attendance and
> participation and that seek consensus rather than simply making quick
> decisions by majority (they can still make decisions that way, including the
> decision of how much consensus is enough), the party will be a living thing,
> open to new growth. But the natural tendency of organizations is to devolve
> into oligarchical structures that self-limit, and that expand, then, only
> under certain conditions, as when a candidate, say, becomes personally
> popular among the general public.
>
> It's remarkable to me how rarely do organizations arise that truly attempt
> to change the dominant paradigms of political structure. Mostly they imitate
> what they have seen operating in more powerful parties, or, occasionally,
> they choose alternate structures that seem better but that are inefficient
> and ineffective. Structure determines what elements in the party rise to
> power, just as it does for the overall society, so new political movements
> that use traditional structures recreate traditional problems with new
> faces.
>
>
> CURRENT SYSTEM:
>> Currently the president and the vice presidents are elected in several
>> two-round run-off elections
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system).
>>
>
> Bad idea. Elect a representative council and let it elect the officers. Use
> elections like that and you are limited to fixed terms for officers. The
> model is the old King model, really, all we changed was that we elect Kings
> for fixed periods. There is a reason for this model; a King can make rapid
> decisions; but that requires a dedicated army responsible to the King. In
> democratic structures a president is a servant of the members, not the other
> way around. And the members can change the president at any time.
>
> That is, any direct democracy can vacate the office of chair and elect a
> new chair, at will (following the rules for meetings). The purpose of a
> chair of a democratic meeting is only to ensure orderly process, so that
> members can be heard and decisios aren't railroaded through. A dominating or
> over-controlling chair in a real democratic organization is quickly gone, a
> chair who knows how to facilitate consensus, who is trusted to be fair, can
> serve without limit.
>
>
> The rest of the board members are elected by block-voting
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality-at-large_voting) in the
>> following way:
>> 1. A candidate who gets 50% of the vote is elected
>> 2. In the second round, candidates with less than 25% of the votes are
>> eliminated
>> 3. In the third round, candidates with less than 30% of the votes are
>> eliminated. Now only 40% of the votes is enough for election.
>> 4. New elections are arranged for the rest of the mandates, where
>> candidates who got at least 20% of the votes in the previous election
>> rounds can run as candidates in new elections:
>>
>
> Cumbersome and guaranteed to be divisive. It's not representative, it's
> majoritarian. Any faction that can muster 50% can control the entire
> council. To them, that might sound great, but if the goal is a united party,
> it's not. The party will gradually alienate members, who will either shift
> to other alternatives or who will remain with lessened enthusiasm. It will
> not build strength, except erratically.
>
>
> DELIVERABLES FOR IMPLEMENTATION:
>> In the end, if proportional elections are to make their way into the
>> party statutesm, then I have to deliver the following:
>> 1. a proposal of a text to the statutes, describing the election rules
>> and procedures
>> 2. a motivation of the proposal which shows why it is better than the
>> present one.
>> 3. a vote counting computer program which works
>> 4. preferably a ballot scanning program
>> 5. preferably some good examples that the system works in real life.
>>
>
> Proxy voting works for businesses, but it's often deprecated for membership
> organizations where there is no ownership interest. My sense of that is that
> this keeps voluntary organizations weak, because the members don't "own"
> them.
>
> Delegable proxy worked for Demoex in Sweden, but it was a limited
> application for a limited time, and I don't recommend it where secret ballot
> is involved, except as a voluntary (informal) structure to facilitate
> amalgamation under Asset voting.
>
> The best PR system in terms of producing decent factional representation is
> STV-PR, and others can explain how to do it. There are programs that exist.
> But with 400 ballots, counting ballots is trivial.
>
> Has it occurred to you to wonder why, with 2000 "members," you only get 400
> ballots? I can tell you, it's pretty simple.

We have 400 ballots because the local organizations elect their delegats to
the natonal rally, where the national council is elected. The election of
these delegates have its own irks and quirks, this is another scenario,
which I would like to discuss separately.
>
>




> You have a weak membership definition, probably, plus members don't believe
> that their votes make a difference, or, to make a difference, the members
> must become more involved than they have time for. With a truly democratic
> proportional representation system, where an elected council represents
> *all* the members, and actually does so, rather than simply "intending" it,
> every vote counts and the members can tell. They know who represents them,
> personally, so they know who to talk to if they want to see new ideas
> discussed in the Council.
>
> But you have ruled this out from the start. STV-PR requires members who are
> knowledgeable enough to rank more than one candidate. Asset was simply,
> originally, a device for making STV-PR work well with voters who only knew
> who their favorite was, which will be the bulk of your members, unless you
> remain a party that only really represents a few activists who have the time
> to devote, that becomes an oligarchy, the "oligarchy of the active," which
> is self-limiting, because others who might become active can only advance in
> influence if they "join" this oligarchy by agreeing with it. In general.
>
> It is very important to understand that this is a natural phenomenon, it is
> not caused necessarily by greedy, power-hungry oligarchs. It happens with
> the best of intentions, if structure to contain it and limit this effect
> isn't in place, and it would be very rare that a large organization (2000 is
> large in this sense) self-limits. The oligarchy would be surrendering its
> excess power to what they will perceive as the relatively uninformed general
> membership. They quite naturally believe that they know better what is good
> for the party, and they might even be right.
>
> But in a democratic organization, the job of the oligarchy -- oligarchies
> always form! -- is to lead, to facilitate consensus and uncoerced
> cooperation for collective goals, not to dominate and control. They will be
> trusted if they do this job well, we can be sure.
>
>
> CRITERIA:
>> I am looking for a approximately proportional election scheme, which is
>> (i) simple for the party members to understand - this is the main
>> criterion. A complex system like Schulze-STV has no chance of getting
>> required political support
>> (ii) simple to use, i.e. where it is quick to vote and vote counting
>> is also quick (max 400 votes cast)
>> (iii) gives results which leave most party members reasonably
>> satisfied with the result
>> (iv) votes are cast "secretly" on paper ballots, alternatively on some
>> smart electronic voting system that is as secure as paper ballot
>> voting.
>> (v) asset voting is excluded due to lack of political support
>>
>
> In other words, the simplest, easiest-to-understand, fully transparent
> system is ruled out from the beginning, for lack of "political support,"
> which must mean "lack of support from the dominant clique, the oligarchy."
>
> My question is, "Why do you care?" You already know what you are up
> against. You are up against some big frogs in a small pond. If you are going
> to try to improve party process, then, faced with this, you are almost
> guaranteed to end up frustrated, unless you happen to be a very big frog
> yourself. As to your ultimate political goals, if you are going to serve an
> existing party, you would probably be more effective joining a large party
> and becoming active. It can be easier than you might think, and major
> changes have come when people who see the existing problems do this, and
> proceed with caution and wisdom. Think Gorbachev.


>
> ASSUMPTIONS:
>> There are several types of board elections in the party, where several
>> types of assumptions apply:
>> 1] 70-90% of the voters are "dishonest" - i.e. they vote strategically
>> as they are told by leaders, who want to maximize the number of
>> "their" people on the board - this is the case for the election of the
>> national party board
>>
>
> Again, tell me why you want to empower a party of sheep?
>
> My real suggestion: organize the remaining 10 % to 30% of members into a
> *real* democratic party. Let the sheep bleat all they want, there is
> absolutely no reason to prevent them, and let them join your new party any
> time they like. Build the new party from the ground up. Use Asset voting
> techniques from the start to elect a representative council, and let the
> asset electors continue to vote until the next Asset election. Your party
> will be politically revolutionary, it could change the whole world, not just
> your country, by becoming an example for others.


> Along the way, if it is open as I describe, the party itself will grow and
> change, it will not be nailed to a founding agenda. It could become the
> first true Party of the People, led by a vanguard who had the vision to form
> that instead of a Party that only empowered a few leaders -- which was the
> error the Communists made.


> Your new Party can decide to endorse the old party's candidates. Or not.
> Depends on whether or not they respect you, right? That is, your new party
> can start as an organized faction with the means and guts to stand up for
> itself. It doesn't need to have a "name." But it will "govern" itself
> through being strong in developing its own consensus, and it could easily
> become the dominant faction in the original party, and, if so, it would then
> be able to transform the original party.
>
> I can tell you, the existing oligarchy won't like it, and they will
> probably try to expel you from the party, which will simply reveal the naked
> truth about such oligarchies. They start out serving a party, but they end
> up serving themselves and their own power.
>
> Your new party will seek to be inclusive, it will not exclude the old
> oligarchs, if they want to join and participate. And to the extent that they
> deserved their positions of power, they will gain power in the new
> structures. Do it carefully, and do it right. If, on the other hand, you
> simply reproduce the conditions that create this excess oligarchical power,
> you might even "succeed," but all you will have done is to change faces.
>
> They will think that is what you are trying to do, they will accuse you of
> seeking your own personal power, because that is how most of them are likely
> to think, they will assume that you are like them. So be ready for that. Be
> ready for people you thought were your friends to betray you and abandon
> you, it can easily happen. Or not, it depends on how much they actually are
> your friends, and how carefully you do your work.
>
> Don't attack the oligarchy! Just build what must be built, and don't depend
> on oligarchical approval for it. Just do it.
>
> Technically, what you need to build, to start, is an FA/DP organization of
> party members and supporters and anyone interested. This organization isn't
> going to be your new party, it's just a glorified discussion group, with
> delegable proxy structure to allow assessmemnt of consensus. The actual
> application of power (as in voting power or collection of funds power or
> political footwork by volunteers) is left with the members, who can decide
> whose advice they want to follow.
>
> A new political party would actually form only if enough members of the
> FA/DP organization think it is time for that.
>
>
> 2] 30-60% of the voters are "dishonest" - the roughly regional election
>> case
>> 3] 20% of the voters are "dishonest" - this is roughly the local election
>> case
>>
>
> I don't think that the characterization as "dishonest" is correct. These
> voters honestly believe that doing what the leaders tell them is the best
> thing. They trust the leaders! (Or they have a concept of political power
> that follows the strong-leader model, i.e., they believe that we must have
> strong leaders to be effective; it's a very old idea, rooted in a reality:
> autocratic structures were more efficient than tribal, collectivist,
> consensus-seeking structures and thus more functional in war, so autocratic
> societies came to dominate. However, autocratic structures are weak compared
> to hybrid structures that incorporate democratic techniques, which is why
> pure autocracies have largely disappeared or are in retreat, everywhere. For
> maximum power, my opinion, we will see tribal, collectivist models return
> that incorporate sophisticated structure that allow them to find and
> amalgamate consensus on a large scale.
>
> It requires synthetic understanding that does not merely rail against the
> obvious abuses of power that arise with oligarchies, but that incorporates
> oligarchical functions into a place in a larger, inclusive structure.
>
>
> Currently I am considering Re-weighted range voting and range voting,
>> since it fulfills the criteria above, but other simple-to-understand
>> methods could be used.
>> Maybe the RRV system will have be reduced to approval voting for the
>> high dishonesty scenario.
>> This would lower its attractivity.
>> A contender to the RRV-range voting system is the STV-IRV system used
>> by the green party of the USA, since it evidently works, but is more
>> difficult to understand than RRV: see
>> http://www.gp.org/documents/rules.shtml#section7
>>
>> QUESTIONS:
>> Please propose a voting system fulfilling the criteria above with the
>> given assumptions, and answer the following questions:
>>
>> 1. if the proposed election system is as simple to understand as RRV
>> and range voting,
>> name what advantages and disadvantages it has to RRV and range voting.
>> Alternatively, which specific variant of RRV and range voting do you
>> recommend for the elections described above (normalization of voter
>> scores, number of categories, given that 70-90% of the voters vote
>> strategically)?
>> To clarify: Asset voting is excluded for this election type, since we
>> have problems with transparency and political support.
>>
>
> Asset is utterly transparent, and the Election Science Foundation steering
> committee election showed that it works, it rapidly negotiated a
> three-member steering committee from 17 voters, with unanimous support.

I can provide experience from that election if requested. As the board
> composition was negotiated, it was easy to elect the first member (me). But
> the surprise was that the second-largest vote-getter didn't get a quota to
> secure election, and I held back redistributing some of my excess votes. And
> he decided to transfer his votes to a dark horse, who wasn't expected to
> have much of a chance.
>
> This was the initial vote:
> Clay = 4
> Raph = 1
> Abd = 7
> Sean = 2
> Warren = 3
>
> The final election was Abd, Warren, Raph. There is no way to predict this
> from the initial votes, but the result was fully representative. We could
> have elected someone who didn't get *any* votes! (But who was willing to
> serve.) What the election did was to reduce the set of voters to what I call
> electors, so instead of 17 people negotiating representation, a secret
> ballot election reduced the group to five electors, who then, with public
> deliberation, determined the board composition.
>
> I immediately gave enough excess votes to Warren to elect him, and had a
> little left, and held off. I could have elected Clay, but suspected that
> this wouldn't be the most representative set. (Clay is a hard worker, for
> sure, but that's not necessarily the best characteristic for a board member,
> and the steering committee's ultimate intention is the formation of a formal
> board. This committee represents *all* the members, and Clay transferred his
> votes to Raph, giving Raph a seat (using the Droop quota). Sean was asked if
> he approved, and he did. So every voter was satisfied.
>
> Had Clay not transferred his votes, Sean might have worked with me to
> decide who the final seat would be, but we had elected two members, and it's
> possible for a short-committee like that to make fair interim decisions with
> unanimity, a third member wouldn't be able to outvote that agreement, and
> it's fully fair if any deliberation included all the electors. Basically,
> Warren and I could have settled on any fair process we could agree upon to
> complete the board, and, given that this was the election science
> foundation, I think we'd have allowed the electors to vote in that. Majority
> rule, with consensus being sought first.
>
> Unanimous election of a three member board from five candidates. That's a
> pretty good trick for the first known asset election. Sure, it was a small
> group. But ... there were already factions, effectively. I was astonished,
> frankly, to get 7 votes. I'd not been particularly active for quite some
> time....
>
> Until the next Asset election, the steering committee can, if it wishes,
> consult the other electors as well. Clay obviously represents a substantial
> faction of members, so no way would we ride roughshod over Clay's ideas.
> He'll have almost as much clout as he'd have as an elected member, in
> reality.
>
>
> 2. In which order should the election of the board members be
>> performed in order to insure that all the voters will be reasonably
>> satisfied with.
>> a] how should the elections be done, it the current election order
>> should be preserved (i.e. first you elect the president, then the vice
>> presidents etc.)?
>>
>
> As I wrote, bad idea to elect the president in a general election. What I'd
> do, in fact, is probably to create a robust party member definition that
> doesn't allow someone to simply pack a local group with some friends,
> perhaps some donation is required every year, or some history of service.
> (I.e., there can be general members and voting members, membership-at-will
> can be abused if you have open voting rights: someone wants power in the
> party, they get every friend and relative to "join" the party by registering
> as members, even if those people won't cast any votes in real elections or
> make other donations. They just help their friend or relative get some
> power. But you do want people seriously interested in helping the party, who
> intend to support the party, to easily become voting members.)
>
> Then you have a local meeting where delegates to a national convention are
> selected. And what happens here is that delegates are *selected*, not
> *elected.* They basically are assigned proxies from members who don't plan
> to attend. This can be done through an Asset election. The election results
> would be reported to the national organization: N voting members of the
> party, named, voted. The results are reported, and each delegate who shows
> up can exercise, at the national party conference, as many votes as they
> received. Obviously, not more than N votes can be exercised by the entire
> group! These delegates, though, may also name a proxy to vote for them, as
> well as exercising all the votes they "own," should they not be present. So
> collectively, if the group wants to, they can send a single delegate with
> proxies for the entire group. I bet it would happen a lot. But if anyone
> wants to go, as long as they got one vote, they can attend with voting
> rights.


> (Any member who voted in a local Asset election cannot vote on their own at
> the national conference, because they already gave their vote to someone.
> But a local member who did not vote could go and, if a voting member of the
> Party, could vote directly at the national conference. Or these members
> would also be able to name a proxy. And to prevent possible problems with
> proxy voting, the Party would seriously encourage all voting members to name
> a proxy expected to attend. These are open proxies, though, and if the
> member then attends and votes, they are not effective. Decisions at a
> national conference like this will be fully democratic, representing the
> entire membership, as long as a majority is required for any decision.)
>
> The big problem with proxy voting, as experienced by the Libertarian Party
> in Colorado, is if proxy voting is allowed but it isn't actively encouraged.
> Then someobody figures out that they can go around locally soliciting
> proxies, and they show up at the state conference with a pile of proxies and
> can outvote everyone else, who didn't collect proxies. In other words, if
> proxies arrive unexpectedly, it can warp the decisions. The problem wasn't
> proxies themselves, but a habit of not using them!
>
> One of the European Green parties had a supposed problem with proxies.
> Proxies were being used there. The anarchist faction came out in force for
> the national party meeting, and had more direct votes than others, but when
> proxies were considered, more centrist Greens prevailed. The anarchists
> screamed that this was unfair. But it actually was fair, more fair than
> assuming that those who have more time to show up and attend are the true
> representatives of the party members.....
>
> This participation bias is one reason why straight voting at meetings
> causes extremist factions to prevail in orgranizations, the extremists are
> often much more highly motivated. But as they take over a party, the party
> loses strength, as more moderate members desert it. Winning is losing.


The nomination of delegates is an issue, which I would like to discuss in a
separate discussion.
I aggree with your basic line of reasoning.


>
>
>
> b] Is one election enough to give an unambiguous winner, even if the
>> president is elected by the margin of one vote?
>> The talk about RRV not electing the Condorcet winner makes me a little
>> nervous.
>> The election of the president has to be unambiguous, and several
>> elections is not a problem.
>>
>
> If you are going to hold a single-winner election, I highly recommend
> Bucklin-ER with runoff if there is no election in the first round. And, in
> fact, if you are doing elections at a meeting, Bucklin simply is more
> efficient, and you can hold all the rounds you need.

Could you please send a description of this method?


>
>
>
> c] if you reverse the election order, i.e. first you elect the board
>> members, then the president and the vice presidents, and lastly you
>> elect the president? This order of election seems to be more simple to
>> conceptualize.
>>
>
> Sure. But you can, in fact, let the board elect the president. Just make
> sure that the board is accurately representative!


>
> d] what are the main advantages of the your preferred method to the
>> current election system?
>>
>
> Bucklin is really the same as a series of simulated approval elections.
> Approval can fail to elect a Condorcet winner, but only to elect a
> more-widely-approved winner. If Bucklin is terminated with having found a
> majority for only one candidate, this must be a Condorcet winner, if there
> is one. Range is more complex; if you are going to use Range (and you can do
> Bucklin using a Range ballot, and I'd recommend it), then make sure that
> there is an explicit Approval cutoff. Note that some systems using Approval,
> such as Papal elections for a long time, required a supermajority. If you
> are voting at a meeting, you can elect with a supermajority on a ballot, or
> the meeting can, at any time, by majority vote, decide what it wants,
> understanding that an election by a bare majority can, under some
> conditions, harm the unity of the party. If a majority don't mind that, then
> either it isn't going to be a problem, or you have a problem with the party
> itself, a majority don't care about its unity!
>
> What Bucklin does in simulating multiple rounds of approval is to lower the
> approval cutoff. The input ballot is really a kind of Range ballot, and you
> can allow the approval cutoff to slide down as low as you want. With
> standard Bucklin, the lowest rank is "bare approval," more or less "I don't
> mind rating, I'm (minimally) willing to accept this result." On a pure Range
> ballot, you'd want to set an explicit approval cutoff, which I recommend as
> mid-range. The ballot, then, allows determination of majority approval, and
> ratings below a majority are used when needed to assess how far short of
> approval some candidates are, when compromises must be made to complete the
> election.
>
> You can do anything you want if a ratification vote is held and passes by a
> majority. I.e., you could use, even, Plurality and then someone could move
> the election of the leader, and if a majority accept that, it can be
> considered done. But I've mentined the risks.
>
> You can use a Range ballot in the same way.


It sounds intersting to me, but I really need to understand the basics of
approval voting and Bucklin and the combination with a range vote, and how
this will achieve proportionality. The method seems to be really complex and
untried.

>
> With maximized strategic voting by a faction, single winner, it's, for the
> faction, the same as a plurality ballot. They may simply vote for their
> favorite, and if they are big enough, that's it. You cannot prevent a
> majority from controlling; any device which attempts to do this, in my
> experience, ends up creating a kind of minority rule. It backfires,
> producing the opposite of the intended effect. So what's needed is an
> understanding of the value of consensus, combined with majority rule. The
> majority decides how much consensus is enough to go ahead, and it decides it
> with each situation, it can continue to discuss and debate as long as it
> wants. Generally, under standard deliberative procedure, a supermajority is
> required to close debate.
>
>
> e] (optional question) if a member of the board leaves his/her
>> position before the end of the election period, and a new member of
>> the organ has to be elected, how should this election take place in
>> order to insure proportionality is retained?
>>
>
> If you have elected with Asset, that vacancy frees up some of the votes.
> The Asset electors who elected that board seat can now elect a new one. The
> details generally would depend on the nature of the board.
>
> Let me assume that the original board was elected using Asset and the Hare
> quota. Typically, there could be an unfilled seat, caused by "dregs" or
> electors who for whatever, so there will be Q votes floating around. In a
> good system, those votes have some power, the board can (and should) consult
> those electors regularly. When a seat is vacated, there should be another Q
> votes freed up. So 2*Q electors can elect one seat, all it takes is for half
> of them to agree. Pretty easy, I'd think. If they don't agree, the seat
> remains vacant.
>
> With Asset, if you want N seats, you might set the quota based on N+1. If
> you get very lucky, you might end up with two extra seats, but the benefit
> is *total representation*! If you are unlucky, you might have more than one
> seat empty, but the unused votes represent a kind of faction that can't come
> to agreement within itself.... (Droop quota *enforces* N+1 but elects only
> N).
>
> If you did fill the board originally, representing everyone, you'd only
> have Q votes left. If these electors, holding these votes, can all agree,
> you can fill the seat. If they can't all agree (or some are unavailable,
> which is one reason why you really do want electors to name a default
> proxy!), then you have a choice: you can leave the seat vacant, or you can
> elect a "short seat," which might only be an observer who is allowed to
> participate in deliberation but isn't allowed to vote. Or that is given a
> proportional vote.
>
> Note that if law requires all members of the board to have a full vote, you
> can go the "observer" route -- a non-voting member -- but then by tradition
> respect the vote of the member. Remember, you want a board that wants party
> unity, don't elect people who just want their own power! As long as the
> majority want unity -- which means consensus -- it's safe. And when the
> majority wants something other than this, I highly recommend jumping ship,
> it's hopeless. Do something better with your life, you won't regret it.
>
> Educate majorities, don't fight them.
>
>
> Specific questions for RRV:
>> f] what is the minimal number of votes a person needs in order to be
>> elected (if all voters except for one put an "X" for the candidate and
>> the last voter puts maximum points, is this candidate normally
>> elected?)
>>
>> 3. If the following exists for your selected election method, could
>> you please provide a reference to:
>> a] a text which describes the election procedure and can be used in
>> statutes (preferably a text in existing statutes)
>> b] an explanation of how the voting system works and an explanation of
>> the vote counting procedure for a person who knows nothing about
>> election methods. For RRV I do not understand the d'Hondt style
>> re-weighting. Why d'Hondt? Why does it give proportional
>> representation?
>> c] an open-source program for windows which makes it easy to count the
>> votes, once you have entered the data in the computer.
>> d] a list of organizations, which use the method
>>
>
> Basically, if you do what others do, you will end up like them! So, to
> simplify this, you can look around and see who you want to imitate, and then
> use their structure. If there isn't anyone you would like to imitate, then
> understand that if you adopt existing structure, you will become like
> existing organizations. Your "superior political philosophy" won't protect
> you from the nature of organizational structures, which create persons to
> fill the roles they facilitate.
>
>
> 4. As we have to count the ballots quickly, I would appreciate a tip
>> on the following:
>> a] A tip of a good and cheap and open source system for creating and
>> digitalizing paper ballots.
>> b] Alternatively a free electronic voting system with the same
>> security level as a paper ballot system could be used, preferably with
>> paper ballot receipts, which would be counted later for confirmation
>> of the vote.
>> If you know of any such system, please let me know.
>>
>
> For the number of voters you are describing, and for usage once a year,
> say, or less, you are trying to set up a sophisticated system to do a simple
> job. There are on-line services which offer voting systems, I believe, and
> some might describe some here, some of thse may be free.
>
> Using a sophisticated voting system to try to amalgamate some ideal
> representation from an instant set of ballots misses the opportunity for the
> election process to be a broad discussion involving all the members, so that
> those elected do know the views and opinions of the entire membership. The
> model, then, becomes, in effect, if you just elect by rapid amalgamation, is
> the strong-leader model, which will create the sheep you described.


I can aggree with the discussion being an integral part of the election, and
I guess this could be addressed too. But that is an other discussion.
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