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

[Juho]

(Second try. It seems that the first message didn't get through.)




Here are some comments to multiple mails in this stream.


On Apr 27, 2010, at 2:45 AM, I wrote:

> Draft of a method:
>
> - collect ranked votes
> - use Condorcet to determine P (Condorcet tends to elect a  
> compromise candidate that all voters find reasonably good)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs  
> (some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
> will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
> - use STV (using the same ballots) to elect members of the board  
> (some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
> and VPs will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)
>
> One could elect P and VPs also later. In that case one could elect  
> them from the members of the (already existing) board. Otherwise the  
> process would be similar.
>
> If one needs to elect new members to the board to replace old ones  
> one could use the old ballots + special rules that will not  
> eliminate any of the sitting board members.



On Apr 27, 2010, at 9:19 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> Why not:
> - ranked votes
> - STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first and  
> second, one of them will be VP.
> - Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use  
> original ballots or have the council revote.)
> - VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second  
> councilmember.

This method picks P and VP among the candidates that would be elected  
as council/board members.

>

You assume that there is only one VP. We could have also two and keep  
track of which members are elected first, second and third.

The election of the VPs differs from my draft where the quota for  
council election is different from the quota for electing P+VPs. This  
may lead e.g. to electing VPs in a non-proportional way from some  
small groups that have only one candidate (while the larger groupings  
distribute their first preference votes to several candidates).


On Apr 27, 2010, at 11:36 AM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

> I would prefer to have the P. elected by the same people electing  
> the board. The P. is indeed the person most often representing the  
> party on the outside.

Ok, to be included in the requirements.


On Apr 27, 2010, at 2:55 PM, Raph Frank wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 1:54 AM, Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> A fully separate P election would make the board less proportional  
>> - unless
>> the elected P would have voting power only if he/she is already a  
>> member of
>> the board.
>
> I think if there are a reasonable number of members, then the
> non-proportionality will only be slight.

In a competitive political environment often also one member makes a  
big difference, and more so if the size of the board / council is  
small. This election is however within a party and I have understood  
that there are no clearly defined segments within the party, so the  
competitiveness is probably not as heavy as in an environment with  
clear border lines between parties. (I leave it to the Czech Green  
party to decide how accurate proportionality they want.)

> I think both the President and VP should be centerists.  The President
> should definitely be a centerist, so making the VP a non-centerist
> gives that faction more power.

I think this is not in line with the targets that Peter Zbornik gave.  
The set of P+VPs should be proportional. I proposed to elect a  
centrist P but complement that by electing the VPs so that the whole  
team becomes proportional (as much as possible after possibly electing  
a P from a small but widely approved grouping).

> Each voter casts a ranked ballot
>
> 1) The condorcet winner becomes President
> 2) The runner-up becomes Vice-President
> 3) Use PR-STV to elect the remainder of the council
>
> This is simple and doesn't does require special rules to protect from
> elimination.  The same ballots are just processed three times.

This method has the benefit of simplicity but P+VPs and the council  
are not proportional. (The council is to some extent proportional but  
not fully, depending on the size of the council and the number of P 
+VPs.)


On Apr 27, 2010, at 3:01 PM, Raph Frank wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com 
> > wrote:
>> Why not:
>> - ranked votes
>> - STV for council. Keep track of which members are elected first  
>> and second,
>> one of them will be VP.
>> - Condorcet winner among the councilmembers is P. (You could use  
>> original
>> ballots or have the council revote.)
>> - VP is first councilmember, or, if that person is P, second  
>> councilmember.
>
> The order of election with PR-STV shouldn't be used to determine VP,
> all seats are equal.
>
> However, I think your idea to run condorcet after the PR-STV election
> is a good idea.
>
> I would change it to:
>
> - ranked ballots
> - PR-STV elects the council
> - Excluding non-elected candidates
> -- Condorcet winner is President
> -- Condorcet runner-up is Vice President

Here the set of P+VPs is not proportional.




Going back to the first draft but to the version where "one could  
elect them from the members of the (already existing) board".

People seemed to like the idea of electing P+VPs among the board/ 
council members. This is not a major limitation since with good  
probability the P+VPs might be members of the (independently elected)  
council in any case. This approach makes the rules of the method  
somewhat simpler. This approach may also be handy if one has to re- 
elect the P+VPs later for some reason without re-electing the full  
council (since the P+VPs election method could be the very same method  
in all cases).

The rules could then be:

- collect ranked votes from the full electorate
- use STV to elect the members of the board
- (optionally) nominate the P+VP candidates among the board members
- (optionally) collect new ranked votes from the full electorate
- use Condorcet to determine P
- use STV (using the same ballots) to elect the group of P and VPs  
(some special rules are needed to guarantee that the already named P  
will not be eliminated in the process but will be elected)

This version thus elects the P+VPs from the council members. The first  
version allowed also others to be elected as P+VPs.

One may skip the first part of the process (election of the board/ 
council) if needed.

Or one may skip just the very first row and use the old ballots  
instead of collecting new ballots when some representative has left  
the board/council and that seat must be filled. One could use special  
rules to keep all the old representatives in.

One could use any STV and Condorcet variants here, or if needed, why  
not also other (proportional and single-winner) methods than STV and  
Condorcet.

Peter Zbornik said that using only one set of ballots would be nice to  
have but not a requirement. This method allows both options.

This approach uses now only well tested existing methods except that  
the last step requires special handling of the already elected P. If  
one wants to get rid of this new/special feature, then an alternative  
approach could be to first elect the set of P+VPs using STV and only  
after that use Condorcet to elect one of them as P (using the same  
votes). This approach would however always elect P from the few (=size  
of the set of P+VPs) strongest groupings, not e.g. an independent or  
minor group candidate that all major groups and others too consider to  
be a good/balanced/neutral representative of all the groupings (all  
the leading ones and others too).

(And one more variant would be to elect the strongest (most votes  
after the last STV round) of the P+VPs as P (instead of using  
Condorcet to do elect P). This would of course favour the largest  
grouping when electing P.)

Juho