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

[Juho]

On May 4, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

> 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.

(One could derive the order also from STV one way or another. The main  
task of proportional methods is to elect n candidates (proportionally)  
and the ordering is an additional feature. Methods that are based on  
producing the results sequentially by adding one candidate at a time  
(to form a proportional set of size x+1) always fail to produce best  
possible proportionality in all set sizes. But these properties are  
maybe not very critical since most methods allow also derivation of  
the order and provide proportionality that is quite accurate, and can  
be tweaked to do the job more or less well.)

> 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".

In all the proportional methods that we are talking about here the  
level of inaccuracy is roughly below one seat. Maybe "approximately"  
can be taken as a requirement to be in the "roughly max one seat  
distortion" category. This puts more weight on the other properties  
like simplicity and explainability.
>

>
> 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)

I think the mathematical properties of the methods proposed by M.  
Schulze are quite well understood (at least the basic components of  
them, although all the new compositions that he proposed were maybe  
not as "clean"). STV on the other hand could be described as a  
heuristic method (its sequential candidate elimination process  
sometimes eliminates candidates early although they would later turn  
out to be good choices). Also the basic Schulze method could be said  
to contain some heuristics (e.g. winning votes as a defence against  
strategic voting). But in general I'd say that all Condorcet methods  
(not just Sculze) are closer to "well defined mathematics" than the  
STV family of methods (that are more like practical procedures to do  
the job well enough).

> 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.

The biggest concern might be the systematic error in proportionality  
that all sequential cumulative proportional methods must make. But as  
already discussed, for many/some uses this may not be a too big  
problem. And certainly STV also fails some criteria (also  
proportionality related) that other (Condorcet based or sequential  
election based) methods meet.

(Note that the world of election methods is full of all kind of good  
(or sometimes just good looking, or good in most cases) criteria that  
many useful methods fail. And all methods fail some of the criteria.  
Many people on this list might consider some method like CPO-STV to be  
closest to ideal among individual based proportional methods. But that  
method is computationally complex and therefore in many cases can not  
be used. What we need to do is to pick some of the methods and  
evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Despite of the problems there  
is lots of room to improve the methods that are currently in use.)

>
> 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.

In the "roughly max one seat" category.

>
> I would much prefer to use a conservative method for our elections,  
> since it would be easier to win approval for it.

With the requirements that you have we probably need some innovation  
since I'm not aware of any country or organization that would already  
have what you want to have.

>
> 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.

I started this discussion by trying to describe the minimum tweaks to  
existing systems that would be needed to meet the requirements. But  
also other approaches like having a totally new but natural and  
understandable and well studied method should be considered. Maybe the  
level of "unfamiliarity" is the same in both approaches.

>
> 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.

Except that the president would change the balance by one vote. In  
addition the first vice president might be from the same grouping as  
the president.

>
> 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.

Also minmax will probably be complex enough to require computers to be  
used. Maybe its benefits are in the understandability and naturalness  
of the results. Some STV variants can be counted by hand (they have  
been used already before computers were available) but they might not  
be the best STV variants.

In the single winner case (president) the single winner version of STV  
(IRV) can be counted by hand. Most people on this list would however  
not recommend that method.

(Minmax violates some good looking criteria and therefore some people  
don't like it. I think minmax(margins) is very natural and simple and  
has a good set of properties and therefore should be included in the  
set of "best Condorcet methods".)

>
> 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.

Let's record this as a requirement. The president shall be elected  
without limiting the choice to the already elected council members.  
Then we might either distort proportionality by one additional seat (=  
independent election of the president) or elect the council and  
president simultaneously, allowing also other than "otherwise to be  
council members" to be elected as president.

>
> 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.

Candidates A-E are maybe for the single winner case. If there are only  
three or four serious candidates (or the remaining ones are in the  
"don't care" category) then partial rankings are not a problem. In the  
council elections there are probably more candidates and as a result  
the voters should rank more candidates.

(The basic idea is to avoid the situation where one's vote becomes  
"exhausted" after the STV process has eliminated all the ranked  
candidates. Also in the case that some of the ranked candidates have  
been elected the vote may still have fractional power that may  
influence the election of the remaining 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.

I believe this means an _ordered_ list of candidates for the _closed_  
list based election method.

> 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.

I guess this open list style feature could be meaningful the the case  
of the (small) Czech Green Party if many people use this preferential  
voting option (and as a result the ordering of the list will be  
overrun).

> 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.

One slightly simpler approach could be to
1. Estimate the number of seats (n)
2. Elect n candidates using some proportional method
3. Elect the next candidates using some proportional ranking method  
(using the same ballots)
4. Order the first set of candidates by electing first n-1 candidates  
out of the n candidates using some proportional method, then n-2 out  
of the n-1 etc.

The philosophy is just to make the best choice for n representatives  
and then try to work out the next most probable sizes with minimum  
damage to proportionality.

Juho



>
> 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.
>
>
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