[EM] Sequential Proportional Approval - A Better Proportional Representation Electoral Method (was: SAV)

[Jameson Quinn]

2010/5/21 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>

> At 02:24 PM 5/21/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>
>> And for simplicity, the summable method is not the official count, but it
>> is the official grounds for a recount. The statute says: "the official
>> result is the most likely result for [the process described above],
>> calculated using fractional votes. The summed results (correlation matrix
>> and number-of-approvals-versus-candidates matrix) are published ASAP, and if
>> 2 of the 3 biggest local math departments determine that those summed
>> ballots are within N votes of indicating a different result than the
>> official results, then you have a recount." Obviously when the summable
>> results are published before the official centralized count, anybody (or any
>> newspaper) with the algorithm can calculate the almost-certain "provisional
>> winners". That way, you get all of the verifiability and speed advantages of
>> summability, but none of the statutory complexity.
>>
>
> Statutory "simplicity" won at the cost of lawsuits over the meaning of
> "ASAP," "biggest," "local" and "math department."
>

Oh, come on. I clearly wasn't proposing this as actual statutory language.
All of those terms would receive their adequate legal definition, along with
"determine", "most likely", "recount", etc.

>
> With public ballot imaging, lots of things become possible. The election
> commission can scan all the ballots and transmit them for central counting
> at the same time as it publishes the ballot images. Counting ballots by
> hand, sorting, for example, is much easier if it is not the actual ballots
> being counted but images of them. (Printed or otherwise). If the counting
> process can be verified by anyone, and if ballots are serialized (probably
> when the ballot boxes are opened), it's simple to correlate the work of
> people so that public verification can be efficiently done by many people
> doing a little work. Media would probably use computer recognition of the
> ballots, to get fast results, and so would the election commissions. Best of
> both worlds.
>

Publishing aggregate data sufficient to determine, with exponentially-high
probability, the true winner, puts verification within the means of anybody
with a computer (including a cell phone). If you don't trust anybody to
write the program for you, then you also need the ability to write a hundred
or two lines of code (or less if it's ruby/python).

>
> I like Asset because it solves the proportional representation problem,
> nailing it down, leaving no room for real dispute over proportionality, and
> creating transparancy and effectively full representation. It's really an
> extension of the electoral college device, only with unrestricted
> representation (full representation of all who vote) in the college.
> Delegable proxy would do this directly, without a "college," but would then
> lose secret ballot, unless you have computer security systems, which then
> requires trusting those who maintain them (as well as those who programmed
> them).
>
> But short of Asset, PAV seems easy, simple to vote, and only the counting
> gets complex. That's where complexity should be! It's not complex to
> understand, it just requires more complicated handling of ballots, for hand
> counting, and more transmission of information, and I'm suggesting that the
> information should be transmitted anyway, so that the election can be
> verified by anyone (probably in part, collaborating with others,
> independently in various groups that are interested).
>
>
Agreed with all of the above.


> But without Asset, there will always be significant wasted votes, unless
> you force voters to make decisions that they are not ready to make.
>
>
Ummm... I'm not ready to grant you "always". Asset is a good way to avoid
that problem, though.

JQ
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