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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:05 PM 5/20/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>I was talking about SPA, not SAV. SPA (summable proportional 
>approval) is a summable method which, with very high probability, 
>corresponds to Sequential Proportional Approval, first proposed by 
>Thiele (c.1890). This in turn corresponds, with high probability, to 
>the following simple procedure, which I think is easy enough for 
>anybody to understand:
>
>1. Collect approval ballots
>2. Count the ballots and elect the approval winner
>3. Select a droop quota of ballots which approve the approval winner 
>and discard them. First discard ballots which only approve 
>already-elected candidates; then randomly select the rest. If there 
>are not enough ballots, discard all available.
>4. If the council is not full, repeat from step 2.

Yeah, and to avoid the random selection problem, which could wreak 
havoc with auditing, you'd keep all the ballots and just devalue them 
proportionally to give them the proper remaining vote strength. I.e., 
if there are N ballots, with quota Q, the ballots would now be worth 
(N-Q)/N, but not less than zero.

That's more complicated, to be sure, it requires maintaining sets of 
devalued ballots. This could be done centrally, in fact, by 
categorizing ballots into vote combinations, but that's also a lot of 
data to transmit. Ultimately, with computers for analysis, and public 
ballot data -- another reform I'm very interested in -- the analysis 
could be done easily.

Asset has other values that would make it superior, with what is now 
being called SAV to determine the votes held by the candidates. SAV 
woudl determine winners but only those who win with a direct quota. I 
called it FAAV, Fractional Approval Asset Voting.

With Asset, the fractional approval does not create a problem with 
voting power, it's safe to vote with complete sincerity, and 
vote-for-one works fine. In fact, I only suggest fractional approval 
to avoid discarding ballots, and because some people object to the 
idea of transferring all their voting power to one person, though, in 
fact, that's what's going to happen in the Assembly!

(Unless this becomes direct/asset democracy, which allows the 
"electors" to continue to exercise voting power when they so choose, 
seats are only elected for representation in deliberation and default 
voting power.)