[EM] electing a variable number of seats

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Charlie,

I recommend that you should use a method to create
a "proportional ranking". A "proportional ranking"
is a complete ranking of all candidates such that,
for every possible number M, the first M candidates
of this ranking represent the electorate in a manner
as proportional as possible.

Proportional ranking methods are sometimes used to
create a party list for "proportional representation
by party lists". Here, the different parties don't
know in advance how many seats they will get.

Proportional ranking methods have been
proposed e.g. here:

1. Colin Rosenstiel, "Producing a Party List
   using STV", Voting Matters, issue 9, May 1998,
   http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P4.HTM

2. Joseph Otten,
   a. "Ordered List Selection",
      Voting Matters, issue 9, May 1998,
      http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE9/P5.HTM
   b. "Ordered List Selection - revisited",
      Voting Matters, issue 12, November 2000,
      http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE12/P1.HTM

3. Markus Schulze,
   a. "Free Riding and Vote Management under
      Proportional Representation by the Single
      Transferable Vote",
      http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze2.pdf
   b. "Implementing the Schulze STV Method",
      http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze3.zip

Markus Schulze