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

[Juho]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 9:19 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have some catching up to do here.
> I need to think more about some of the different methods and the  
> proposals I have gotten.
> Some of the methods are new to me.
> As I am a layman it takes time to understand them.
>
> Condorcet methods have not been used in politics yet, I think.
> Are there by any chance other methods to elect centrist presidents?

The most common single-winner methods (plurality, top-two runoff, IRV)  
are known not to be "centrist oriented". For example in the quite  
common set-up where we have two extremists and one centrist with  
slightly less support they all elect one of the "extremists".

Approval and Condorcet are more centrist oriented. They are both also  
old and well tested methods although they have not been widely used in  
public political elections.

One problem with Approval (that was not mentioned yet) is the limited  
expressive power of the Approval vote and resulting problems in  
choosing the right strategy, e.g. when there are three leading  
candidates and one should approve either one or two of them. That is  
problematic e.g when left wing has 2 candidates and is is bigger than  
right wing that has 1 candidate. (In Approval voters are generally  
assumed to vote strategically and not just sincerely list candidates  
that they consider "approvable".)

> If I have understood the discussion correctly, you are still in  
> draft phase.

Many of the presented drafts can be quickly made into concrete and  
exact proposals. Some of the used components are more mature / well  
tested than others. There are some details left to decide, e.g. which  
STV variant (/ which proportional method) or which Condorcet variant  
(/ which single-winner method) to use.

> When some of you feel you have a good proposal at hand in this  
> discussion, feel free to summarize and put forward a draft.

I'm trying t listen to you to understand which one of the proposals  
would be the best for your needs :-). Now my understanding is that you  
still want all the listed requirements to be met and you want to use  
as "well tested" (and simple/explainable) methods as possible. Are you  
btw ok with the idea of limiting the choice of P+VPs to the (already  
elected of simultaneously elected) council members?

>
> Using the same ballots with different vote counting techniques seems  
> like quite an elegant and interesting solution.
> I never thought of that possibility.
> If more than one ballot is to be used, then I prefer to having the P  
> and VP elected before the councilmembers.

There is a small problem here. If one elects the P and VPs first, then  
the voters may not give the already elected P+VPs any votes in the  
second (council) round for strategic reasons (or maybe they are not  
even candidates there any more but considered "already elected"), and  
as a result the groupings of P and VPs would be over-represented in  
the council. This is not ok if you want the council (that includes P 
+VPs) to be proportional. (For this reason my first draft used the  
same ballots for all elections and the second draft elected the  
council first and P+VPs among the council members only after that.)

>
> Just to avoid misunderstandings:
> The president is the party leader as in most political parties  
> around the world.
> He is the main guy simply, the person appearing on television etc.,  
> the one people know best in the streets.
> The president also chairs the meetings of the national council  
> (sometimes I have used the term "board", the meaning is the same in  
> this context).
> Think Gordon Brown or Angela Merkel, small scale :o)
> We have discussed splitting the external and internal funcions of  
> the president, but it is not politically feasible to do.

Two separate jobs then, and someone might be competent for one job and  
someone else for the other. This would make the election process more  
complex. The simplest approach would be to elect these two persons  
among the council members in two separate elections and forget  
proportionality with respect to these two jobs. VPs could still be  
elected proportionally (but they could be close to the two Ps => the  
set of Ps+VPs is not fully proportional).

> It is neither feasible to change the role of the president to be a  
> stricly internal guy or to have him elected by the council.
> The president has to be elected by the delegates as is the case  
> today, if the proposal should have a chance to pass.

This should be ok. (No limitations on who can vote although in some  
scenarios the set of candidates must be limited to the already elected  
(or simultaneously elected) council members.)


There was some discussion on if it is ok to elect a variable number of  
VPs (exact number not known beforehand) or if it is more acceptable to  
modify the traditional methods a bit (an "innovative" addition). The  
option of allowing some deviation from full proportionality in the Ps 
+VPs set (while the council would still be fully proportional) is one  
more alternative to consider (this would keep the methods bit more  
traditional / less "innovative"). The rule of electing a compromise  
president may in some cases distort the proportionality a bit anyway  
(in all scenarios), but the most common case (if we allow extra  
deviation) would probably be one where one of the VPs would be close  
to the P, giving that section double-representation in the P+VPs set  
(but not in the council). You may have to pick one of these  
problems :-), a varying number of VPs, some innovativeness in one of  
the methods, some (more) distortion in the P+VPs set proportionality,  
or maybe some other new (slightly problematic) solution. This might  
already get too complex, so maybe your proposal to propose some  
complete solutions to the problem (and list their benefits and  
problems) after this discussion (that hopefully clarifies the  
requirements) could be the simplest way forward.

Juho



> The vice president's are ordered first and second and third. The  
> number of VP chan vary. The VP are the ones who stand in for the  
> president or party leader (in that order).
> The president and the vice presidents are all member of the board,  
> which currently has seven members.
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zborník
>
> On 4/28/10, Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Apr 28, 2010, at 7:34 AM, Raph Frank wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >> You assume that there is only one VP.
> >
> > Well, if more than 1 VP is possible, then the election could be
> >
> > - Elect council with PR-STV
> > - The condorcet winner (only including the councillors) is President
> > - Elect 2 of the councilors as VPs using PR-STV
> >
> > However, there is still the question of what exactly the VPs and
> > President is supposed to do.
> >
> > If they are to chair council meetings, then it is better to just  
> elect them.
> >
> >> We could have also two and keep track
> >> of which members are elected first, second and third.
> >
> > I still disagree with using order of election in a PR-STV election.
> > It provides an additional incentive for dishonest rankings.
>
> It also encourages strategic nominations. The whole idea of using  
> order-of-election in STV for *anything* should be drowned in a  
> bathtub ASAP.
>
> >
> > It would have most of the same problems that plurality has where you
> > need to vote for one of the top-2.
>
>
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