[EM] Satisfaction Approval Voting - A Better Proportional Representation Electoral Method

[Kathy Dopp]

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
<km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:
> Kathy Dopp wrote:
>>
>> No one on this list seemed to find the time to look up this reference
>> to a better additive proportional representation system using approval
>> ballots that I pointed out to this list a couple of months ago, so I
>> took some time today to post it and point to its URL.  Hopefully its
>> authors will not mind my putting a copy of it on my
>> electionmathematics.org web site.
>>
>> "Satisfaction Approval Voting" is a new proportional representation
>> approval voting method, devised by political scientist Steven J.
>> Brams, Department of Politics, New York University and D. Marc
>> Kilgour, Department of Mathematics, Wilfrid Laurier University.
>>
>> Unlike instant runoff voting, Satisfaction Approval Voting (SAV) can
>> use existing ballot layouts, is precinct-summable (additive), and
>> treats all voters equally and fairly. This paper on Satisfaction
>> Approval Voting was presented at the January 2010 Midwest Political
>> Science Association Conference (I was unable to attend the particular
>> panel myself but met the two authors briefly while there.)
>>
>> http://conference.mpsanet.org/Online/Sections.aspx?section=24&session=16
>>
>>
>> http://electionmathematics.org/em-IRV/SatisfactApprovalVoting-BramsKilgour.pdf
>>
>> Hopefully, I will find time sometime this summer to explain this
>> method in a simple way that everyone can understand in case the
>> authors' paper is difficult for some to read.

>
> Is this SNTV with a cumulative ballot? I.e. each voter votes for as many
> candidates as he wants, and each voter gives 1/k point to each approved
> candidate, where k is the number of candidates he approved; then the
> candidates with highest score wins?
>

I believe that may be the case, because a sentence in the paper says:

"For example, if a
candidate receives 3 votes from bullet voters, 2 votes from voters who
approve of two
candidates, and 5 votes from voters who approve of three candidates, his or her
satisfaction score is 3(1) + 2(½) + 5(1/3) = 5 2/3."

and

"the satisfaction score of subset S, s(S), can be obtained by summing
the satisfaction
scores of the individual members of S. Now suppose that s(j) has been
calculated for all
candidates j = 1, 2,…, m. Arrange the set of m candidates [m] so that
the numbers s(j) are
in descending order. Then the first k candidates in the rearranged
sequence are a subset
of candidates that maximizes total voter satisfaction."

and

"Because candidates c and d are the two candidates with the highest
satisfaction scores,
they are the winners under SAV."
--------

What are its flaws that you see?

-- 

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

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

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

View my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=1451051