[EM] Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts

[Peter Zbornik]

Hi Richard,

I am sending a small P.S. to clarify one of the ideas in my email below.

I think that the most viable transfer from an "old" one-round
single-winner election system to a "new" system. Goes through a two
round system, where the  winner of the election in the "old" system
meets the winner in the "new" system. This is the track for changes of
voting system, which I think will have the biggest chance to get
political support. A FPTP system would thus be reformed so that, the
FPTP winner would meet the Condorcet/Approval/Score/Bucklin winner in
the second round, if the two winners would be different.

I think the reform of a two round system could take two different paths:
1) a three round system where a second run-off is held between the
runoff winner in the second round and the
Condorcet/Bucklin/Approval/Score winner from the first round, if the
Condorcet/Bucklin/Approval/Score winner would be different from the
two run-off candidates.
2) a two-round system, where the FPTP winner would meet the
Condorcet/Bucklin/Approval/Score winner if they are different,
otherwise we would have a normal run-off.

In theory one might imagine a two-round election second round with
three candidates, but then the second-round election system would not
be a run-off election, which would maket the system politically more
difficult to pass.

Best regards
Peter Zbornik

On 8/31/11, Peter Zbornik <pzbornik at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Richard,
>
> maybe a second round could take place between the winners of competing
> methods, say Schulze winner vs Approval or  Bucklin winner or any
> other endorsed method. This would allow for election-methods
> "competitions", and could address potential weaknesses of each method.
> When one of the method would generate a "bad" winner, then the other
> method could still give a "good" winner. For instance, if the Schulze
> method would generate a winner noone has heard of before (the dark
> horse), then in the second round, when he meets the Bucklin or
> Approval winner, he or she might lose the second round, after new
> details of his/her political past come to public knowledge due to the
> increased attention given. The election methods should be different
> for this approach to work. The obvious downside of this approach is
> increased complexity and thus less public support. With this method
> IRV might be used as one of the methods, or the old method could be
> used against the new method.
>
> A second proposal: since most single winner methods have their
> multiple-winner counterpart, the first round could proprtionally elect
> two (or more) candidates, between which the second round would take
> place. This solution would use one method for both rounds, thus
> decrease complexity compared to the first proposal; the solution would
> not require political party candidates; it would provide a solution
> for the French presidential elections. The downside of this system is
> that some of the multiple winner versions of the single-winner methods
> are not used anywhere and exist only on paper and/or in vote-counting
> software.
> Example: 1st round: Schulze-STV elects two candidates for the runoff.
> 2nd round: Schulze-Condorcet is used.
>
> Personally I think the issue of one vs two rounds of elections is a
> neglected issue. For instance, if the Brittish liberals would have
> chosen a run-off elections as the alternative to FPTP instead of IRV
> (AV), then I think they would have found support in the referendum.
>
> A second issue, which I think the statement does not address, is the
> minimal number of seats in each constituency, or in other words, the
> number of regional constituencies in the election to one body, like
> the parliament. If we have a 200 seat parliament and each constituency
> has only two seats, elected proportionally, then we have a
> proportional election system, with a quota of 33%. This is not a
> system I can endorse. I would rather endorse low (max., say 5%) and
> would prefer no quotas, i.e. the quota equals the votes needed for one
> seat with only one constituency - around 0.5% for a 200 seat election.
> Using a party list system, there might be constituencies which do not
> hinder proportional representation, provided that there is a "National
> constituency" of sufficient size, which makes sure that each party is
> proportionally represented in the elected body (Swedish election
> system). The national constituency would level-out any disproportional
> representation of the parties, which might arise from the division of
> the electorate into constituencies. Maybe a similar system could be
> (or most probably has already been) constructed for open lists. The
> voter would cast a vote in his/her constituency and at the same time a
> vote in the national constituency. Question is then how to achieve a
> proportional representation for open lists balancing the regional
> constituencies and the national one. I think it is possible and should
> not be too difficult but don't know how to do it.
>
> Maybe these questions have already been discussed.
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zbornik
>
> On 8/30/11, Richard Fobes <ElectionMethods at votefair.org> wrote:
>> Here is what I've just written for the new section titled "Multiple
>> rounds of voting":
>>
>> ----------- begin ------------
>>
>> In highly competitive elections, multiple rounds of voting are needed to
>> eliminate the weakest candidates so that attention can be focused on
>> electing one of the most popular candidates.  Our supported election
>> methods work as described for two rounds of voting if the first round of
>> voting elects a single winner from each political party, and the second
>> round chooses from among those winners.
>>
>> However, different counting methods are needed if the same voters vote
>> in both rounds. There are election methods that handle such cases, and
>> they use the better ballots we support. However, we have not yet
>> analyzed this category of counting methods sufficiently to express
>> support for any specific methods.
>>
>> We do strongly agree that single-mark ballots must not be used in any
>> round of voting. More specifically, just as the candidate with the most
>> first-choice votes is not necessarily the most popular, and the
>> candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is not necessarily the
>> least popular, the candidate with the second-most first-choice votes is
>> not necessarily second-most popular, and the candidate with the
>> second-fewest votes is not necessarily the second-least popular.
>>
>> Also we agree that "open primary" elections are not fair. In this
>> approach, the candidates who are identified as "most popular",
>> regardless of political-party affiliation, progress to the next round.
>> This approach fails to consider that the majority of voters who support
>> the most-popular candidate are likely to be the same majority of voters
>> who support the second-most popular candidate -- unless the counting
>> method specifically compensates for this redundant influence. The
>> remaining voters, who may almost be a majority, can end up with only
>> getting to choose between the two candidates who are preferred by the
>> majority. Expressed another way, the words "most popular" are ambiguous
>> in the context of choosing which candidates deserve to progress to
>> another round of voting.
>>
>> ----------- end ------------
>>
>> I'm sure I'm missing some important additional considerations, but they
>> aren't coming to me at the moment, so I'll tap into your brains to help
>> refine this section.
>>
>> Of course we aren't offering a fair way to handle French presidential
>> (?) first-round elections (in terms of which two candidates should move
>> on to the final runoff election), but we have nothing specific we would
>> agree on, right?
>>
>> Richard Fobes
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>