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the candidates <snip> running in the same multi-member constituency. You
cannot compare all candidates of the same party because, to
my knowledge, all candidates of the same party do not run in
the same constituency."
Of course, STV allows comparison between all candidates running in the
constituency,
including those of other parties... the "only" did not apply to them.

SPPA does allow comparison of all candidates of the same party, even between
different constituencies because their electorate are "equivalent", which
means
they use samples of the whole electorate with the same proportions of any
possible specific group of interest.

I really agree with James about what follows so I'll move to the other post,
where I believe we disagree...

Stephane.

James Gilmour wrote :

> Stephane wrote (in part):
> > STV only allows comparison between the candidates of a same
> > party running in the same multi-member constituency. You
> > cannot compare all candidates of the same party because, to
> > my knowledge, all candidates of the same party do not run in
> > the same constituency.
>
> This betrays a misunderstanding of how STV-PR works, and indeed, a
> misunderstanding of the whole purpose of STV-PR.  So far as the voting
> system is concerned, the parties are totally irrelevant.  It is the
> candidates as candidates that matter.  The purpose of an STV-PR election
> (no matter how large or small the electoral district = number of members
> elected together) is to elect the N candidates who are "most"
> representative of those who voted, as expressed through the preferences
> marked by those voters.
>
> PR of political parties is obtained only to the extent that the voters
> vote the parties' tickets.  When the voters do this, party PR results.
> But when the voters are motivated to seek PR of something other than the
> parties, party PR does not result.  Thus PR of political parties may be
> an outcome of STV-PR, but it is never the objective.
>
> > (I do not think their is a limit for
> > the number of candidates of a party, however it would not be
> > strategically optimal to have more than n+1 candidate I think
> > where n is the number of seats of the constituency,
>
> There is no reason why there should be a limit on the number of
> candidates nominated by any party in one district, but for practicality
> it is usually set at the number of seats in the district (e.g. in
> Northern Ireland).  I cannot see any circumstances in which it could
> possibly be an optimal strategy to nominate as many candidates as there
> were seats in the district - no party is going to win all the seats in a
> public election.  That would maximise voter choice (which I favour), but
> the party would rarely have anything to gain from so indulging its
> supporters.  The larger parties, ie those that expect to win two or more
> seats in a typical STV-PR district, usually nominate at least one more
> candidate than the number of seats they expect to win.  The small
> parties that hope to win one seat, but often don't win any, usually
> nominate only one candidate.  There is nothing to be gained by their
> nominating two or more, and their may be something to loose  -  see
> earlier posts on vote averaging and vote management.
>
> > and I
> > think a candidate cannot run in several constituencies at the
> > same election).
>
> This avoids the problem of a candidate being elected in more than one
> district.  But electoral law allows one person to be the elected
> representative for only one district.  So the problem is obviated at
> nomination.
>
> James
>
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