[EM] Proportional Representation Systems I'd Support

[Kathy Dopp]

On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
<abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
> Kathy, it seems that, to a degree, your thinking about proportional
> representation has been colored by the problems of STV as applied to
> single-winner elections. Let me suggest that you back up a bit and reflect
> on the purpose of representation in decision-making as distinct from
> decision-making itself. Single-winner elections represent a decision.
> Proportional representation does, it might seem, need to make decisions,
> too, but they are decisions of a different kind.
>
> Let's start with imagining ideal representation. There have been various
> proposals that would, in some aspect or other, be ideal. It was proposed
> (for a city at one point about a century ago), that those elected to a city
> council would have as many votes in council process as they received in the
> election. Without getting into gory practical details, could you agree that,
> to the extent that this could be done, it would be a kind of ideal
> representation?

Well that would certainly be a way of overcoming any effective
minority representation in legislatures by always making sure that the
representative elected by a majority made all the decisions. Not sure
if I agree necessarily with giving more votes to one legislators than
others, and that idea certainly is in sync with the way IRV/STV gives
more effective votes to some voters than other voters during the
counting process.

>
> However, for a peer assembly, there is another variation. The original used
> STV, but that actually complicates it as far as a qualitative understanding.
> Imagine that it is vote-for-one. If it is desired to create N seats, perhaps
> N is considered an ideal size for an assembly, and there are V voters, who
> vote for the candidate they most trust, we can assume. Any candidate who
> gets N/V votes (Q, the Hare quota) is elected.
>
> But there is a problem, obviously. There might be no such candidate, if
> there are enough candidates. And some candidates will get more than Q votes.
> Is it fair that they have the same voting power in the Assembly as another
> who only got the minimum?
>
> Lewis Carroll, studying STV in 1884, noticed that most voters really only
> had enough information to pick their favorite. So he got the idea, what if
> with any exhausted ballot (all candidates on it have been eliminated -- or,
> for that matter, elected, but by more than the quota of votes, so there are
> "excess votes") the candidate could recast the vote at will, "as if it were
> his own property.") So those holding votes could put together, collectively,
> assemblages of Q votes, electing seats that didn't make it in the first
> pass. He considered that this revoting power would be in the hands of the
> favorite on the ballot, I believe.

I personally prefer party list systems where the voters know in
advance what candidates will get any excess support, and where voters
can suggest a reordering of the list itself, rather than allowing
candidates to choose, although I suppose allowing candidates to choose
could be done in a fair, auditable way as well.

>
> Would you agree that, if this were done, it would be fair, that every voter
> would be fairly represented in the Assembly? Some directly, some indirectly.

Not sure what you mean by "this" exactly, but maybe so.

> The electors, I call the candidates holding the votes, vote publicly, so
> every voter knows where his or her vote went, and exactly whomo it elected.
>
> This is very, very different from a contested election, in which some voters
> lose. In this, all voters win. (Except for what can be called the "dregs,"
> which reduces to a very small problem with Asset Voting like this, and what

Well the benefit of Asset voting over party list voting might be that
the ballot is simpler and perhaps, I don't know, it'd be an easier
sell. Although there are lots of party list systems internationally
that seem to work well, and I haven't heard of existing asset systems.

> you would do is, if you want N seats, you'd allow the election of "as many
> as N + X seats." Where X is a variable determined from experience to
> represent the level of non-negotiable differences among the electors. If by
> some miracle they all agree, you actually get N + X seats, a small problem,
> maybe even not a problem at all.

Huh?  Wouldn't funding, office space, facilities in the legislaturs be
a problem if no one knows in advance how big the legislature will be?
Never heard of variable-sized legislatures before. Doesn't sound very
saleable.

>
> But look what happens to the votes: This is an STV election! The only
> difference is that the vote transfers are in the hands of chosen electors,

If the STV method is used within asset voting, then I oppose it
strongly because STV has all the same counting flaws as IRV including
nonmonotonicity, unequal treatment of voters' votes, and not being
precinct summable.

> instead of being determined by a ranked ballot. Each vote only is used once
> to actually elect. That's the "Single" in "Single Transferable Vote."
>
> For fairness, in single-ballot STV for proportional representation, as a
> ballot is part of a quota for election, the ballot then counts fractionally
> for any subsequent uses.
>
> The non-monotonicity of STV arises in the last seats to be elected, it
> arises from elimination before all the votes have been considered.
> Basically, to ensure that a vote is only counted once (If we imagine that
> instead of N votes being divided up and reduced fractionally according to
> excess votes, the pile of ballots can be physically divided -- and that's
> actually done in some STV implementations -- though it's not as fair as
> uncovering the next preference and casting fractional votes for it, so each
> ballot gets its fair share of representation), it is only allowed that one
> vote at a time be "active." But that's a practical detail.

The nonmonotonicity and non-precinct-summability of both IRV and STV
arises due to its unequal treatment of voters' votes. I strongly
oppose any method that treats voters' votes unequally in the counting
process.

>
> You should realize that those who are elected before eliminations, with STV
> (and this includes IRV!) are obviously appropriate winners.

Yes. I agree with that.

> The flaws arise
> in elimination rounds. Get rid of eliminations, but sequentially pick
> winners, that problem disappears, and you are left with only the problem
> that if you use a single ballot, there will likely be seats where nobody
> gets the quota. So what do you do?

Not sure about that. Depends on if the reallocations if treatment of
votes is equal for all voters or not I suppose.

>
> You can't hold a "runoff election," and here is why: Some voters already got
> their candidate. A runoff under these conditions has no way of knowing who
> "won" and who didn't. You only want those who didn't "win" to be able to
> vote. Asset Voting avoids this problem. Every ballot is available to be
> voted. (I would recommend that every candidate be required to designate a
> proxy, to vote for the candidate if the candidate becomes unavailable.
> Consider how much easier this would be than holding a special election! And
> that choice would be public record, I presume. No surprises.)

If asset voting is *not* like STV and is monotonic, precinct-summable,
fair and equitable etc. I would probably not oppose it, but personally
I prefer the party list system with voter ability to alter the list
order based on Condorcet counts better.

>
> Asset will work with STV, and my prediction is that not too many will use
> additional ranking on the ballot. It probably becomes unnecessary. Asset
> would also work with IRV! It would make IRV into an excellent voting method.
> No majority, no election, runoff of some kind. If holding a runoff is a
> problem, it would be obvious who could be blamed for it! Candidates who were
> unwilling to compromise. If that's a majority, I'd say this electorate has a
> problem! Normally it won't be.

If IRV/STV counting methods are used, I oppose it due to its
inequities and the vagaries the inequities cause.
>
> STV for proportional representation, even with eliminations, is much better
> than multiseat methods in use. But I'm hoping that we can look at ways to do
> it even better, and what Asset would do is to create a penumbra of electors
> that stand between the voters and those who are actually elected to the
> Assembly. They generally represent the voters to those whom they elect. This
> "Electoral College" is *fully representative,* along the lines of that old
> proposal for a city council where the winners exercise the number of votes
> they got in the election. They are public voters.
>
> And there goes the need for campaign financing. Spending a lot of money to
> get elected would become a suspicious action! Rather, increasingly, electors
> would not be candidates with a chance of winning, except in small
> jurisdictions. They would be people, your neighbors for the most part,
> interested in helping see that the people are represented in the Assembly.
> You would know them personally, almost always. You could talk to them. And,
> because it's known who they voted for in the actual seat elections, they
> could talk to the seat holders directly, as people with real political
> power, the power to elect, known and identified.

Don't know about that. It sounds nice. Gotta get back to more coursework.

Kathy
>
>



-- 

Kathy Dopp
http://electionmathematics.org
Town of Colonie, NY 12304
"One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
discussion with true facts."

Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

Checking election outcome accuracy
http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf