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

[Juho]

On May 5, 2010, at 1:36 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:

> Dear Juho,
>
> I wrote (4 May 2010):
>
>> This is my proposal:
>>
>> --Use the Schulze proportional ranking method.
>>
>> --The top-ranked candidate becomes the president.
>>
>> --The second-ranked candidate becomes the vice president.
>>
>> --If the first two candidates happen to be male, then,
>> when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
>> your considerations to female candidates.
>>
>> If the first two candidates happen to be female, then,
>> when you calculate the third-ranked candidate, restrict
>> your considerations to male candidates.
>>
>> The third-ranked candidate becomes the 2nd vice president.
>>
>> --The fourth-ranked candidate becomes the 3rd vice president.
>>
>> --The fifth-ranked candidate becomes the 4th vice president.
>>
>> --If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be male,
>> then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
>> your considerations to female candidates.
>>
>> If 4 of the already elected candidates happen to be female,
>> then, when you calculate the sixth-ranked candidate, restrict
>> your considerations to male candidates.
>>
>> The sixth-ranked candidate becomes the 5th vice president.
>>
>> --The seventh-ranked candidate becomes the 6th vice president.
>
> You wrote (5 May 2010):
>
>> In the description of Markus Schulze there were two steps
>> where the male/female proportionality was handled. That
>> approach works if there are separate requirements for the set
>> of three first (vice)presidents and the rest of the council
>> members. My understanding is that in the Czech Green Party
>> there are no such requirements on the presidents. In that
>> situation it may be better to push the forced male/female
>> election to the end of the list.
>
> I prefer my proposal because of two reasons.
>
> First: In my proposal, the fourth and the fifth candidate reduce
> the distortion of proportionality that might be caused by the
> specific choice of the third candidate. The seventh candidate
> reduces the distortion of proportionality that might be
> caused by the specific choice of the sixth candidate. In your
> proposal, there are no candidates who reduce the distortion of
> proportionality that might be caused by the gender requirements.

In all the proposed serial election based methods the later  
representatives do balance the imbalances caused by the earlier  
choices. The most crucial balancing move is the last seat since that  
reslt will not be fixed any more (Raph Frank addressed this problem in  
his proposal). The last seat (or two if a bigger fix is needed) can  
fix more or less well all the earlier imbalanced decisions. If we  
assume that there are many enough male and female candidates left at  
the end of the race then the need to balance both political  
proportionality and male/female proportionality at the last step is  
not much more difficult that balancing the political proportionality  
only.

Another reason why I wanted to avoid making the male/female balancing  
decisions at the beginning of the process is that the first elected  
seats are more critical/important than the others. I understood that  
Peter Zbornik wanted to guarantee that the president will be elected  
from clean table with no additional restrictions like limiting the  
choice to the already elected council members. For this reason  
probably we should also avoid distorting the election of the president  
with the male/female rules. For similar but milder reasons also the  
second vice president could be elected so that the most preferred  
(proportional) candidate wins, and the male/female questions could be  
solved when electing the regular council members.

Pushing the male/female decisions to the end also guarantees in  
general that the most liked candidates will be elected. It is possible  
for example that the third representative is clearly the most liked  
candidate of the third largest grouping (or the third most liked  
candidate in general). The male/female rule at the third position  
could force this candidate (X) to be replaced with a much less liked  
candidate (Y) of opposite sex. And if Y is ideologically close to X  
then that choice could reduce the support of X in the counting process  
so much that X will not be elected in the council at all. Use of the  
male/female rules at fixed positions in the list may thus be harmful  
in the sense that best candidates will not be elected. Also the  
political proportionality may suffer if some obvious candidates (maybe  
from some well defined quota size separate grouping) are not elected.  
If we want to move the male/female decisions up from the last seats  
then for example the Meek and two quotas based solution (that Raph  
Frank proposed) would give better (less violent) results than using  
fixed positions on the list to fix the male/female proportionality.  
When we compare that Meek based approach to the end of list approach,  
the Meek approach is less violent in its choices (if the change occurs  
at the third position, then the male and female candidates are  
probably almost as strong there) but on the other hand it lifts the  
distortion from the last seats to the more important seats (one could  
exclude the P+VP positions if one wants to elect strictly the best  
candidates there but spread the distortion more evenly among the  
regular council members).

>
> Second: I formulated by proposal in such a manner that it can
> also be used to create party lists. Here, the gender requirements
> say that, for every possible number M, at least M of the first
> 3*M places must be filled by male candidates and at least M of
> the first 3*M places must be filled by female candidates.

Yes, the approach in your proposal would meet such requirements for  
the closed party lists. In the council election the number of seats is  
however fixed so there is no need to use the same approach there. For  
the closed list case one could use your approach or (if needed) some  
smoother approach e.g. following the Meek philosophy or electing the  
best set out of all possible sets of representatives that meet the  
male/female criterion.

In summary, the end of the list approach is simple and wipes out the  
problems of not electing the best candidates at the beginning of the  
list. It may make more violent decisions among the last  
representatives that e,g, the Meek based approach. If one wants to  
spread the violent decisions wider, then one could spread them to the  
regular members only (not P+VPs) and in some smooth way like the Meek  
based approach. (This summary is based on the assumption that there  
are no male/female requirements on the P+VPs, and that there is a  
requirement that especially the P+VPs should be the very best but  
still proportionally elected.)

Juho



>
> Markus Schulze
>
>
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