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

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Juho,

just some words to avoid misunderstandings.
I still would like to be able to propose an alternative method, which elects
the council first and then the P and VPs, even though the condorcet winner
is not in there (marked as the "optimal" method (28.4.2010)).
I guess this is what Schulze calls the bottom-up approach.
The top-down approach has the problem of sacrificing proportionality and the
bottom-up approach has the problem of sometimes not electing the president.
Considering the fact that the current election system of the greens is
closer to top-down than bottom-up, a top-down system seems to be more likely
to pass.
Both approaches seem to be appealing.

James Gilmour (4.5.2010) showed an example of a bottom-up method using STV.

Best regards
Peter Zborník

2010/5/4 Peter Zbornik <pzbornik at gmail.com>

> Dear Juho,
>
> You write below:
>  "If the requirement of conservative / already used methods (like STV) is
> not strict, then one could well use some Condorcet method as a basis in the
> serialization."
>
> As STV seems to fail to create a good ordering of the candidates, then it
> might not be appropriate to use and we would need some innovation here.
> The loss of proportionality created by "locked" methods is not critical.
> As I wrote in the requirements, (25.4.2010): "I am looking for a
> approximately proportional election scheme".
>
> You wrote "If term "conservative" means "already widely used and tested in
> politics"
> The term "conservative" is just a label for a method, which is conservative
> with regards to the way the (vice)president(s) are elected.
>
> The locking methods have the appealing property to be easily explained.
> The biggest problem with the "locking" methods, including the proposal by
> M. Schulze, is that their mathematical properties are not well understood
> (here is a place to correct me, if I'm wrong :o)
> Thus, if some desirable properties present in STV (except strict
> proportionality) are not present in the (Schulze) proportional ranking, that
> could then be a real problem for selecting the method.
>
> Of course a combination of locking and STV methods could gain some in
> proportionality, while adding some complexity to the method as such.
> However according to M. Schulze the distortion between Schulze STV and
> Schulze proportional ranking is small.
>
> I would much prefer to use a conservative method for our elections, since
> it would be easier to win approval for it.
>
> However, so, far I have seen no proposal of a conservative method, which is
> available to elect an ordering of (vice)president(s), and a proportional
> council at the same time.
>
> A conservatie approach would be to elect the president using condorcet (or
> an even more wider-used single-winner method) and the rest of the council by
> using STV, electing the VPs from the set of elected council members. This
> approach would most certainly not give us a proportional council.
>
> Some have proposed Minimax method as a base method, since it apparently can
> be used to hand-count votes without a computer.
> As Schulze and minimax seem to have similar properties, minimax could be an
> insteresting option, if it would allow for performing the election by hand
> using a ranked proportional approach.
>
> You write: "maybe election of the presidents among the council members
> after electing the council would do."
> I would not recommend this approach, since:
> (i) it would mean a departure from the current voting procedure, where the
> president is elected first
> (ii) an unambigously elected president and an approximately proportionally
> elected council will be closer to the current way of voting (hence the name
> "conservative") than a sometimes ambigously elected president and a
> strictly proportional council.
>
> You write: "I hope the number of candidates is within reasonable limits, so
> that the approach of ranking all (or all relevant) candidates is not too
> tedious to the voters. "
> Sometimes, there are more candidates than some voters are able to rank. I
> thus assume that if we have candidates A-E, some voters (maybe a majority)
> rank only one or two or three candidates.
>
> The first vice-president is an important guy as he is the second most
> important guy after the president,
> I quote myself (25.04.2010): we have to elect "one or more vice-presidents
> in order of importance,
> i.e. first vice president, second, third etc."
>
> PRIMARY ELECTIONS:
> As for the primary election to the closed party list.
> I wanted and will discuss this issue separately, but as we have opened that
> discussion in a natural way, please let me write some words about it.
> In the Czech Republic we have the PR-list system.
> Not only on national level, but also on regional and city and municipal
> level.
> Thus we have to produce party lists for all these elections.
> A party needs at least 5% of the votes to get into the representative body
> (parliament, municipal council etc.).
> A voter can give a preferential vote to two candidates which are moved
> ahead of the other candidates of the list, if he/she gets at least 5% of the
> votes for the party. The internal ordering of these preferential candidates
> with more than 5% of the votes is decided by the number of votes they get.
> The system for parliamentary elections is a bit different. We can only
> expect the first candidate on our party list to be elected (in Prague,
> the first two candidates).
> As the places in the parliament are distributed separately for each region
> (there are 14 in the Czech Republic have their own candidate.
> In the previous election, the green got 6% of the vote, but only 3% of
> the seats in the parliament.
> Some regions and cities are using some similar way of decreasing the number
> of seats for the smaller parties, this is however not very comon.
>
> Elections to the party list:
> The 5% limit means, that we normally can estimate the minimum number
> of elected representatives of the representative body.
> It is also no problem to estimate the maximum number of elected
> representatives we can get.
> It might happen that the estimates go wrong (but not very often)
> The leader of the list is the guy most often representing the party.
> Some gender rules apply for the elections.
> At the first sight, the proportional ranking method does not seem to be
> bad, except for the special case of two and maybe four elected candidates.
> The persons voting for the candidates to the list are either regular
> members (council elections) or delegates elected by the local members
> (regional and national elections).
>
> If the proportional ranking system gives or is expected to give us
> trouble, the following hybrid system could be more appropriate (while
> sacrifcing simplicity):
> 1. Estimate the minimum (Min) and maximum (Max) number of seats that can
> realistically be gained in the election. Estimate how many persons a
> delegate reasonably can rank, N. Use one ballot
> 2. Elect Min candidates to the list using a proportional method. Rank these
> candidates internally using proportional ranking
> 3. Elect the next candidates say up to the Max or Nth place (whatever is
> smaller) using proportional ranking.
> 4. For higher places, use some deliberative method (party council of the
> appropriate level decides). Here I have no specific idea on how to proceed.
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zborník
>
>
>
> 2010/5/3 Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk>
>
>  On May 3, 2010, at 3:51 AM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> if the single-winner president or the proportionally elected VPs
>>> sometimes are not a member of the set of proportionally elected
>>> council members (which is likely),
>>>
>>
>> Possible but maybe not very common.
>>
>>
>> then I would also like to ask you
>>> for a proposal on the last "conservative" method, thus it would not be
>>> optional, as I wrote below.  Thus, in all I ask you for three
>>> proposals.
>>>
>>> Motivation:
>>> I can imagine that there could be a method, which elected the rest of
>>> the council members after the the president and some or all vice
>>> presidents have been elected using proportional ranking (see the
>>> proposal of Markus Schulze for an example).
>>>
>>
>> Word "after" sounds a bit dangerous because of strategic voting. Voters
>> that have gotten their representatives as president and vice president may
>> get a second set of representatives if the election of the rest of the
>> council is independent of the election of the presidents. In order to
>> maintain good proportionality in the full council one could reverse the
>> order of the elections (council first) and limit the choice of the
>> presidents to the council members, or use the same ballots to elect both
>> presidents and the council. (I note that later on you seem to propose using
>> the same ballots in both elections.)
>>
>> If term "conservative" means "already widely used and tested in politics"
>> then maybe proportional ranking based methods fall outside of this category.
>> But if you allow some fresh winds then such "locking" methods could be used.
>>
>> Since the first vice president seems to be a more important position than
>> the second and later vice presidents similar locking could be used
>> throughout the hierarchical chain of presidents. In my first proposal I
>> locked only the president and let the vice presidents be equal. Proportional
>> ranking (in methods that aim at electing good compromise candidates first)
>> would do the same trick to all vice president positions. The other council
>> seats are equal, so proportional ranking is not useful there. But since the
>> distorting effect of such "compromise oriented proportional ranking" may be
>> considered just noise in the last seats it is not impossible to use
>> proportional ranking to elect all the presidents and council members at one
>> go.
>>
>> (What I mean by "distorting effect" is that if you have left, centre and
>> right, and centre has less first place support than the other two, then a
>> good approach may be to elect C if one elects only one representative. But
>> if one elects two then one could pick L and R (to be proportional). This
>> means that the proportional ranking (or locking) approach always makes a
>> mistake, either in the case of one or two representatives. But in the case
>> of electing the presidents it may be well justified to elect C as president
>> (the most important job, expected to represent all sections of the party)
>> and then elect either L or R as the first vice president. And the other one
>> as third. Fair enough although the "team of two" is not proportional.)
>>
>>
>>
>>> Such an election method would sacrifice a proportionality in the
>>> council in order to elect the president unambigously and to achieve
>>> proportionality between the president and some of the vice presidents
>>> (at least the 1st VP).
>>>
>>> The election of the rest of the council members would be done to
>>> maximize the proportionality of the elected council, maybe by using a
>>> modified version of STV, where the pre-elected president and vice
>>> presidents would be considered elected to the council at the start of
>>> the STV election, using the same ballots as for the  proportional
>>> ranking election. Less important VPs (like for instance a fourth VP),
>>> would be elected from the council.
>>>
>>
>> As noted above, and if you want to emphasize simplicity, using the serial
>> / proportional ranking approach to elect also the council members would not
>> be a big distortion in the proportionality of the whole council. Note also
>> that already electing the president outside of the ("otherwise to be")
>> council would mean a minor (and not probable) distortion to the
>> proportionality of the full council. My thinking is thus that if we want to
>> serialize the election of all the P+VPs anyway, then one alternative is to
>> use that same basic method all the way (since the resulting additional
>> distortion will be smaller towards the end of the chain).
>>
>> This kind of a method provides a complete proportional ranking of the
>> elected council members. This is quite unnecessary towards the end of the
>> list, but what is interesting at the beginning of the list is that there is
>> no need to define the exact number of vice presidents since one can just
>> pick as many of them from the chain as needed.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Thus, the rest of the council members would be elected in such a way,
>>> that the council would be as much proportional as possible given the
>>> pre-elected P and VPs.
>>>
>>> The advantage of this method is, that there would be no ambiguity
>>> relating to the legitimacy of the elected president and the most
>>> important VPs.
>>>
>>> What methods would you recommend for this scenario?
>>>
>>> Would there be a software that could be able to handle this problem
>>> (possibly after some slight modification)?
>>>
>>> I think the scenario above (i.e.first proportional ordering of P and
>>> some VPs, then balancing election of the rest of the council to
>>> achieve proportionality in the council and finally possibly electing
>>> some less important VPs from the elected council) is the variant which
>>> would come closest to the way the elections are done in our party
>>> today, while attaining proportionality.
>>>
>>> Right now the scenario above seems to be the optimal solution, which I
>>> would like propose to the party.
>>>
>>
>> Based on my discussion above I propose to consider both approaches,
>> locking the presidents one by one and then using some proportional method to
>> determine the rest of the council (using the same ballots) as you propose,
>> and using one proportional serial method to elect all members of the
>> council.
>>
>> If the requirement of conservative / already used methods (like STV) is
>> not strict, then one could well use some Condorcet method as a basis in the
>> serialization. This would also remove some the STV elimination process
>> related problems. Markus Schulze proposed a Schulze method based
>> proportional ranking approach for some uses. Also others like Ranked Pairs
>> based are possible. I'm interested also in use of minmax(margins) due to its
>> simplicity, explainability and good behaviour with sincere votes. But on
>> this question I might be in the minority on this list, so also others than
>> minmax(margins) must be ok :-).
>>
>> I ask the members of this list to comment if the benefits of using one
>> serial proportional method to elect both P + VPs + council members outweigh
>> the problems of using that approach. (This may mean also use of and problems
>> of "serial proportional Condorcet" vs. STV vs. "full proportional Condorcet"
>> (e.g. CPO-STV) in different parts of the method.)
>>
>>
>>
>> Some further notes.
>>
>> I note that the criteria (of individual voters) to elect the council
>> member vs. criteria to elect the presidents and vice presidents may be
>> somewhat different. Maybe this difference is so small that there is no big
>> problem to use the same ballots for both purposes. If that is a problem,
>> then maybe election of the presidents among the council members after
>> electing the council would do.
>>
>> The serial proportional approach that locks the choices one by one
>> (starting from the most important one and then continuing downwards) suits
>> very well the need to elect the presidents. I note that the requirements are
>> somewhat different if this approach is used in the primary elections to
>> elect the candidates for the actual election. I understood that in the
>> parliamentary elections the used election method is closed list based but
>> has also some open list characteristics (http://electionresources.org/cz/).
>> For the closed list part the order of the candidates needs to be determined.
>> A serial proportional approach (proportional ranking) yields one such order.
>> As noted above (in the L-C-R example) the serial approach and
>> proportionality are in conflict. But the open list method forces us to use
>> one. The list could be optimized so that it gives the ideal result with the
>> number of representatives that the party expects to get. One would thus
>> ideally not start the locking process from the first candidate but by first
>> determining the set of the expected number of candidates and then work out
>> the the shorter and longer lists. I believe the Czech Green Party is trying
>> to get its first seat, so in this case the optimization could start from one
>> representative, but in the future things might be different. The problem is
>> that if one expects to get two representatives, then the two first
>> candidates on the list should maybe be L and R and not C and A. If the
>> numbers of representatives is higher these problems will mostly fade away.
>>
>> I hope the number of candidates is within reasonable limits, so that the
>> approach of ranking all (or all relevant) candidates is not too tedious to
>> the voters. There are different ballot formats with different properties
>> (and different possibilities to read the ballots by computers).
>>
>> You mentioned also the possibility of additional requirements (in the P.S.
>> mail). It is possible e.g. to elect certain minimum number of males and
>> females. In the serial approach that was discussed above one simple approach
>> would be to just eliminate all remaining male or female candidates at some
>> appropriate in the serial process when all the remaining representatives
>> must be of same sex. That approach would maintain proportionality is all
>> dimensions quite well. Note that many political elections implement also
>> regional proportionality in addition to political proportionality. Also
>> within the party one could require that all regions are represented well
>> enough. One could in principle follow the same approach as with males and
>> females, but if one adds too many such rules then the election of last
>> representatives may have some problems like some not having any northern
>> young females left. But that is already another topic that we might discuss
>> later.
>>
>>
>>
>>> It wasn't easy to arrive to the model above, but now I think the
>>> problem is well-defined.
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>> Peter Zbornik
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for sending more information on your preferences (and expected
>> preferences of the Czech Green Party). This helps at least me in balancing
>> the different requirements. For example the importance of the first vice
>> president position and the fact that use of one ballot is possible
>> influenced my text above. Now I'm wondering how to balance the requirements
>> of simplicity and ease of understanding of the method vs. use of
>> conservative methods.
>>
>> Juho
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> 2010/4/29, Peter Zbornik <pzbornik at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Juho <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  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.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, the requirements are set.
>>>> People have to understand what they are voting about, if they are to
>>>> support
>>>> the method.
>>>> The people who like the majoritarian system can be expected to spread
>>>> FUD
>>>> (fear uncertainty doubt).
>>>> It has at least to be a method in use in some organizations.
>>>> Maybe I shouldn't have excluded Schulze STV right away, since it is in
>>>> use
>>>> at some places.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Are you btw ok with the idea of limiting the choice of P+VPs to the
>>>>> (already elected of simultaneously elected) council members?
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes as one variant
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 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).
>>>>>
>>>>> Well normally, the VPs are variable and are not regulated by the party
>>>> stautes, thus not regulated by any method which should be specified in
>>>> the
>>>> statutes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It is indeed appropriate, that at least the first VP is from the
>>>> "opposite
>>>> side".
>>>> This gives the party peace and quiet in the party and appropriate
>>>> "balance/division of powers".
>>>> Maybe one might argue, that an election method without this "balance of
>>>> power" is not truly proportional, since not all council members are
>>>> equal.
>>>> I would personally prefer complete proportionality, but I am not sure
>>>> how
>>>> it
>>>> would be greeted.
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, a representative council would be a vast improvement
>>>> even
>>>> with non-proportionality in the P an VP.
>>>>
>>>> Just to comment on the competitiveness in the party. I would say it is
>>>> pretty high. That is why we have the infighting going on. I am not able
>>>> to
>>>> quantify hovever :o)
>>>>
>>>> So I guess we would have two-three proposals in play:
>>>> 1. optimal with proportionally elected P and VPs after council
>>>> elections,
>>>> 2. "traditional" (without proportionality in the P. and VPs. set)
>>>> elected
>>>> after council elections.
>>>> 3. (optional) "conservative" (preserving the order of election today)
>>>> - elect the P. and the VPs (either one-by one or together or first P and
>>>> VPs
>>>> together), Then elect the rest of the council members - using a method
>>>> which
>>>> is not overly complicated, while possibly sacrificing proportionality
>>>>
>>>> I think it is good to have several variants, in order to check them with
>>>> some other members before proposing one specific model.
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>> I aggree, lets not make it overly complex and let us round up the
>>>> discussion
>>>> with some specific proposals.
>>>> A brand new method, however promising, would first need to be tested and
>>>> evaluated using some real-life ballots, so I couldn't propose it to be
>>>> sent
>>>> right into the statutes.
>>>> I guess that is standard when introducing any new "technology", to
>>>> have alpha and beta tests.
>>>> Those of you, who have sent me recommendations of methods only in
>>>> private,
>>>> please send your specific proposals publicly.
>>>>
>>>> I don't know if there is a "standard public database" of real
>>>> ranked-order
>>>> or range ballots on which the different methods could be tested.
>>>> Such a database exists in the data-mining field:
>>>> http://www.kdnuggets.com/datasets/
>>>> Maybe that could be something to consider for benchmark purposes.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe we could test some of the more "innovative" methods in the party
>>>> on
>>>> real ballots.
>>>> This would allow us to evaluate.
>>>> Such a test would need to be consulted with the party first and it would
>>>> take some time.
>>>>
>>>> A motivation why PR systems are better to use in organizations than
>>>> majority
>>>> systems, might be of help.
>>>>
>>>> I am overwhelmed of the interest in this request.
>>>> I quite didn't expect such response, so thanks.
>>>> Please do not have too high hopes on me, it might as well end up that in
>>>> the
>>>> end, it will be decided to leave things as they are.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----
>>>>>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
>>>>>> info
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> ----
>>>>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
>>>>> info
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----
>>>>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
>>>>> info
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>> --
>>> Odesláno z mobilního zařízení
>>>
>>
>> ----
>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
>> info
>>
>
>
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