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

[Jameson Quinn]

Peter:

Both RBV and SRBV are "elect-and-discount" methods which have the ability
(unlike STV) to "discount" candidates in any order using the normal
procedure. That means that they could be used in a "top-down" system without
sacrificing proportionality.

I would therefore recommend the following procedure:
1. Use Bucklin voting to elect the president (specifics described below)
2. Calculate the droop quota for the P+VP set. (For 2 VPs and 1 P, that
would be 1/4 of the votes).
3. Discount the president (and their faction) by a Droop quota, then
continue with RBV to elect the VPs proportionally.
4. Now, recalculate the Droop quota for the whole council.
5. Start again with all ballots un-discounted. As in step 3, discount the P
and VPs by the (new) Droop quota, and then continue to elect the council
proportionally using RBV.

Again, this procedure is both fully top-down and, as far as possible,
proportional. It uses one set of ballots for the whole election, and the
ballots are easier to vote than the nearly-full-ranking needed by STV or
Schulze. The procedure is essentially the same throughout.

Here's an intuitive description of the RBV process. Since this description
works with whole ballots instead of fractional ballots, it could potentially
give a different result; however, with a large electorate, that probability
is asymptotically small. To get the real RBV process, replace each instance
of "randomly pick N of M" with "proportionally adjust all M by N/M"
(Similarly, SRBV could have yet another result, but that probability
vanishes with enough voters too.)

Voters vote into three simple categories: preferred, approved, and
unapproved. (They could also be asked to give 0-100 ratings, which are NOT
USED by the system and are simply useful for analysis - to see who would
have won under other systems. Preferred candidates would default to 100,
approved ones to 75, and unapproved to 0.)

Any group of candidates could mutually agree to run as a "slate". No two
slates could overlap unless one contained the other completely. This is
purely for the convenience of voters, who could approve (or prefer or
disapprove) of an entire slate with a single mark. Any candidate explicitly
marked at a different level would be exempt from this "blanket slate"
ranking. There would be no practical difference between a ballot which
approved of a slate and one which approved of all the candidates in that
slate individually.

A typical ballot would approve one or more slates, then single out one or
more candidates and/or subslates from those slates for preference or
disapproval.

Initially, all ballots would be counted only for candidates they preferred.
If any candidates have more than a Droop quota, then elect the one with the
most votes, and randomly pick a droop quota of their ballots to throw away.
Repeat until nobody has a Droop quota. Then, take one ballot at a time, and
count the approvals as well as the preferences on that ballot. As soon as
you get a Droop quota, elect that candidate, and throw away the Droop quota
(all ballots) currently counting for that candidate (that is, including all
preferences and some approvals). Repeat until done.

Let's consider the following simple example, electing a president and a
2-member council.
2 votes: prefer A, approve B, disapprove CDE
1 vote: prefer BD, approve A, disapprove CE
1 vote: prefer C, approve DE, disapprove AB
1 vote: prefer E, approve CD, disapprove AB
Initial preference-only totals are: A=2, B=1, C=1, D=1, E=1

In the example, considered as a single-winner case, chances are that the 1
B/D vote would be "expanded" before both of the A votes or both the C and E
votes, so the likely winner is the Condorcet winner B. With true, fractional
RBV or with SRBV, B would be the definite winner.

With B as president, expanding to a 2-member council would choose C
(probably, with the simplified single-ballot version; definitely, with the
true fractional version or with SRBV).

Both RBV and SRBV are monotonic, proportional, and cloneproof - not
probably, but definitely. Both tend to elect the Condorcet winner, but that
part is probabilistic; neither meets the strict Condorcet criterion.

This message is not intended to be a full description of either voting
system; it's just a taste. I will provide a full description and prove the
claimed criteria and probabilistic criteria later. Note that my current
version of SRBV is summable with O(N**2), though the actual matrix is up to
a constant 6 times bigger than a simple N**2 (one and a half
double-matrices; it would be up to 13.5 times bigger for 3-rank Bucklin).

For dealing with the gender quotas, the 3rd, 6th, etc. candidates could be
gender-restricted. This might involve "opening out" more (fractional)
ballots than otherwise necessary, to consider approvals as well as
preferences. Any excess ballots not used up in electing that candidate would
be "closed down" again, to be reopened gradually, so that the 4th, 7th, etc.
candidates would win with an exact Droop quota (unless there were that many
winners with Droop quotas of pure preferences).
JQ

ps. I believe that mine is the first true top-down, proportional proposal.
However, I still regard the other proposals which have been given as more
than adequate if for some reason mine is not acceptable.

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

> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ----
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>>>>>> info
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Odesláno z mobilního zařízení
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
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