[EM] Steve's response to Richard Fobes in Election-Methods Digest, Vol 124, Issue 28

[Richard Fobes]

On 11/2/2014 3:58 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
 > ...
 > *>>S: Perhaps you did not notice that APR's 'primary' election is
 > different from the ones currently used in the US. ...

Yes I did notice that your recommended kind of primary is different.

We both agree that the better the primary election, the better the final 
results will be.  This applies regardless of what kind of grouping -- 
political party or association or whatever -- is involved between the 
primary election and the general/runoff election.

 > ...
 > Your suggested ballot is way too complicated!

 >>S: Please suggest how it could be made simpler.

In addition to the recommendations that I wrote in parentheses, take a 
look at the ballots at www.VoteFair.org.  Note that a voter can mark 
just one choice.

And notice that even though the online version is interactive, the 
actual displayed marks, and their interpretation, also work for printed 
ballots that are marked by pen or pencil.  On a printed version, the 
left-most mark in any row is the mark that is counted (the others in the 
row are ignored), and this enables any pattern of written marks to be 
interpreted.

Adding two write-in spots on the same kind of ballot would allow a voter 
to "write in" one or two cross-district candidates, and would allow the 
ranking of those candidates to be merged with the ranking of the other 
candidates.

 > ...
 > Your counting method definitely has the focus-on-the-current-top-choice
 > "blinder" approach that I've already described.

 >>S: I don't remember seeing this earlier description. Please, could 
you explain it again?

Apparently my first attempt to explain this concept was forgettable, so 
this time I'll say that it should become clear by comparing 
instant-runoff voting (IRV) with Condorcet-Kemeny voting (which Markus 
Schulze in Wikipedia has named the Kemeny-Young method).  IRV looks at 
the ballots one choice at a time (the current "top" choice), which 
causes it to fail lots of important fairness criteria.  In contrast, the 
Condorcet-Kemeny method looks fully into every ballot before identifying 
the winner, and therefore seldom fails those important fairness criteria.

If someone is tempted to remark that the Condorcet-Kemeny method fails 
the independence of irrelevant alternatives [IIA] criterion or any other 
specific criterion, note the use of the work "seldom" in the above 
wording.  When the frequency of failures are finally estimated for each 
method, judgments about the fairness of each method will become more 
meaningful than the current checklist [yes/no] approach.  At that time I 
expect to see that the Condorcet-Kemeny method seldom fails the IIA 
criterion.  The fact that one scenario is all it takes to regard a 
method as failing a criterion is not meaningful compared to a 
quantitative measure of "how often?"  As a related point, efforts to 
design a method that avoids one specific failure often lead to the 
method's inability to pass a different criterion.

 > ...
 > *>>S: I need more explanation of why you think APR would make bribing
 > easier. I see APR as being at least as secret and secure as any other
 > system. In fact, it might be argued that it would be even harder for a
 > 'briber' to infer whether the citizens who agreed to vote as the briber
 > wants had actually done so. This is both because each citizen has the
 > secret opportunity to rank any candidates in the whole country (as you
 > have also said) and each candidate has the structural possibility of
 > receiving votes from any citizens in the country.*

This concept is not obvious.  It took me awhile to understand it.

The issue is not that anyone can know how a specific voter has voted. 
Rather a "consultant" or thug would have to deliver lots of "bought" 
votes.  The "payment" to the consultants/thugs might be based on whether 
the candidate wins.  Or the payment might be similar to the "commission" 
approach used to determine how much income goes to someone in a sales job.

This isn't a complete answer, but it's as much as I currently have time 
to write.

 > *>>S: I can see that people in such neighborhoods might be more likely
 > to agree to take such bribes but I do not yet see how APR makes it any
 > easier for a briber to enforce such agreements.*

The cross-district candidate voting, with resulting published numbers, 
is what makes it easier to measure the "success" of buying votes.

As a related point, if lots of voters in lots of districts vote for one 
specific celebrity politician, that indicates that the voting method is 
allowing lots of unrepresentative legislators to get elected.

 > ...
 > *>>S: Of course, this may be so, but I’m still looking for any flaws in
 > APR.I have not yet found one from the point of view of a citizen who
 > wants ‘**an electoral system that would allow them to guarantee that
 > their vote will proportionately increase the voting power of a
 > representative (and) they most trust in their country’s legislative
 > assembly, [and also a system] that will give them every incentive to
 > vote, to vote for candidates they like, never having to vote tactically
 > or negatively.’**

Ultimately what voters want is wise and fair laws and effective tax 
rates (etc.).  (A higher-level goal might be the overall economic 
prosperity of the nation/region, but that is difficult to correlate with 
legislative decisions.)

It's possible that a voting method can focus attention on achieving 
specific numbers -- such as how many wasted votes there are, or how many 
"unrepresented" voters there are -- and yet fail to achieve the higher 
goal of wise and fair laws and tax rates.

In other words, the more carefully someone has to word the measure by 
which their method is best, the less likely it will achieve the real, 
underlying goals.  In your case, your words:

 > ..." their vote will proportionately increase the voting power of a
 > representative" ...

are the ones that other, possibly better, methods might fail to achieve.

Again, each time someone carefully crafts a definition, others can 
ignore that definition, or come up with a competing definition that 
favors a different method.

Again I'll say that I understand why the method appeals to you, and it 
might be a great method in some situations.  But I suspect it will 
become corrupt over time.

Here I'm thinking of an alternative community (at a hot-springs resort) 
that used (and might still use) consensus voting, which many people 
think is the best kind of voting.  Yet a couple of selfish people (and 
in particular, one lazy person) came to realize that they could withhold 
their approval on unrelated issues and thereby force the other members 
to make concessions that the selfish person wanted.

Sometimes a great sounding decision-making method turns out to have lots 
of non-obvious flaws that make it unworkable in government situations.

Experience is the ultimate judge.

Richard Fobes


On 11/2/2014 3:58 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
>>  From: election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com
>>  Subject: Election-Methods Digest, Vol 124, Issue 28
>>  To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>>  Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:02:36 -0700
>>
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>>
>>  Today's Topics:
>>
>>  1. Re: Associational Proportional Representation (APR)
>>  (Richard Fobes)
>>
>>
>>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Message: 1
>>  Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 13:23:38 -0700
>>  From: Richard Fobes <ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org>
>>  To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>>  Subject: Re: [EM] Associational Proportional Representation (APR)
>>  Message-ID: <54514CCA.9060701 at VoteFair.org>
>>  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
>>
>>  On 10/27/2014 9:12 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
>>  > Hi Richard,
>>  > ...
>>  > I have attached PDF versions of all the attachments you wished not to
>>  > open because of anti-virus reason.
>>  >
>>  > I look forward to our continued dialogue.
>>
>>  Steve, the following comments are based on reading the PDF file that
>>  describes your method. (Thank you for sending a PDF version.)
>>
>>  Yes, you are correct in saying that improved primary elections would
>>  yield more-representative candidates for the general election.
>>
>>  The simplest way to improve primary elections is to use approval voting.
>
> *>>S: Perhaps you did not notice that APR's 'primary' election is
> different from the ones currently used in the US. It does not decide
> which one of the several candidates will represent a party in the final
> election. Instead, it allows citizens to rank as many of the applicant
> organizations that wish to elect at least one rep to the legislative
> assembly. These rankings determine through which 'electoral association'
> each citizen will be an official elector during the general election.
> Presumably, each citizen would give his top-rank to the organization he
> believes will field the most attractive candidates from his point of
> view. These APR rankings do not use 'approval voting' but a modified
> form of STV.*
>
> *As EM has not yet had the time to decide whether or not to add the
> content of my draft article describing how APR would work (‘Positive
> Voting Guaranteed’), I would be happy to send it to any reader who
> requests it (stevebosworth at hotmail.com).*
>
>
>>  This means just changing the instructions to allow more than one
>>  candidate's name to be marked. (I don't support the use of approval
>>  voting in general elections, but I would be happy to see it used in U.S.
>>  primary elections.)
>>
>>  Your suggested ballot is way too complicated!
>
> *>>S: Please suggest how it could be made simpler. At the same time,
> please note that it currently allows an elector simply to rank one
> candidate if they do not want to rank more. Even in this case, APR
> allows this elector's vote to continue to count in the legislative
> assembly even if his chosen candidate is not elected. It would be added
> to the 'weighted vote' of the rep who is the top-choice of this
> eliminated but chosen candidate.This is one way that APR also uses
> ‘Asset Voting’.*
>
> Also, the marked ballots
>>  would not be machine-readable. I can see ways to overcome these
>>  barriers, and still collect the information you want. (The
>>  cross-district votes can be handled like write-in options within a
>>  fill-in-the-oval 1-2-3 ballot; you don't need a separate section for
>>  "bullet" voting [for just one choice].)
> *>>S: Thank you.*
>>  Yet the counting method you recommend has serious shortcomings.
>>
>>  Your counting method definitely has the focus-on-the-current-top-choice
>>  "blinder" approach that I've already described.
>
> *>>S: I don't remember seeing this earlier description. Please, could
> you explain it again?*
>
>
>>  > The reason you didn't understand my reference to "rounding" is that I
>>  chose an analogy that was not different enough from the topic. So,
>>  please ignore my "rounding" analogy.
>>
>>  You offer a definition of a "wasted vote" and then claim that your
>>  method is the best way to eliminate wasted votes. This tactic -- of
>>  defining a term and then claiming your method maximizes or minimizes the
>>  defined term -- is often used in election-method discussions, yet it's
>>  pointless because advocates of competing methods simply do not accept
>>  the definition you offer, and instead offer a competing definition.
>>
>>  Finally, yet most importantly, I'll point out a serious issue that you
>>  seem to have overlooked.
>>
>>  After your counting method is used, the number of voters who support
>>  each winning candidate becomes public knowledge ? because it determines
>>  the "weighting" of each legislator's vote. This knowledge, combined
>>  with the ability to vote for legislators in other districts, makes it
>>  financially profitable for "consultants" and thugs to bribe voters to
>>  vote for the legislators whose "backers" provide the most money.
>
>
> *>>S: I need more explanation of why you think APR would make bribing
> easier. I see APR as being at least as secret and secure as any other
> system. In fact, it might be argued that it would be even harder for a
> 'briber' to infer whether the citizens who agreed to vote as the briber
> wants had actually done so. This is both because each citizen has the
> secret opportunity to rank any candidates in the whole country (as you
> have also said) and each candidate has the structural possibility of
> receiving votes from any citizens in the country.*
>>  Perhaps you think this kind of bribery is easy to detect and deter.
>>  It's not.
>>
>>  For several years, while I was writing my creative-problem-solving book,
>>  I lived in a low-income part of a university town and learned a lot
>>  about what goes on in a neighborhood that gets lots of police attention.
>>  The police (and fire) events are just the tip of the iceberg. The
>>  selling of votes would easily become commonplace in places where people
>>  are desperate, vulnerable, illiterate, poor, abused (without exceeding
>>  the legal limit), etc.
>
>
> *>>S: I can see that people in such neighborhoods might be more likely
> to agree to take such bribes but I do not yet see how APR makes it any
> easier for a briber to enforce such agreements.*
>>  If my reactions seem to be excessively critical, and not supportive,
>>  consider that the best voting methods are the ones with the fewest
>>  flaws. There is no such thing as a voting method with no flaws!
>
> **
>
> *>>S: Of course, this may be so, but I’m still looking for any flaws in
> APR.I have not yet found one from the point of view of a citizen who
> wants ‘**an electoral system that would allow them to guarantee that
> their vote will proportionately increase the voting power of a
> representative (and) they most trust in their country’s legislative
> assembly, [and also a system] that will give them every incentive to
> vote, to vote for candidates they like, never having to vote tactically
> or negatively.’**
> *>
>>  Regarding this issue, if you are not familiar with the table in the
>>  Wikipedia article titled "voting systems," then please become familiar
>>  with it, because it portrays the most common "fairness criteria" [my
>>  term] that I and others here refer to.
>
> *>>S:Yes, those criteria in that Wikipedia article are very useful, but
> I do not yet see how they lead to a sustainable criticism of APR from
> the above citizen’s point of view.*
>>
>>  In your article you claim that your method is better than plurality
>>  voting. I agree with that claim. But that's not saying much. Every
>>  method promoted here can make that claim.
>
> *>>S: Yes.*
>>
>>  You claim that your method is not vulnerable to gerrymandering. I do
>>  not disagree with that claim. Yet I'll point out that there are a
>>  variety of ways to eliminate gerrymandering.
>
> *>>S:Yes, but APR would also eliminate the anti-democratic effects of
> safe-seats resulting simply by chance.*
>
> In other words, your
>>  suggested approach is not the only way.
>>
>>  I understand why you like the method you propose. It has some nice
>>  counting characteristics. Yet a voting method has to be workable, and
>>  that involves issues such as machine-readability, incorruptibility,
>>  ballot simplicity, invulnerability to strategic voting, etc.
>> >*S:I agree.However, apart from the questions of machine-readability,
> ballot simplicity, and strategic voting already addressed above, APR
> would seem to be more ‘workable’ in the following way:APR’s ‘primary’
> election’s determination of the ‘electoral associations’ would be
> administratively straight forward – less arbitrary and perhaps cheaper
> than existing methods for deciding the boundaries of the relevant
> geographically defined electoral districts.Also, I do not yet see how
> APR is any more ‘corruptible’ than the best competing systems.*
>
>
>>  That's all I have time for now. If you have further questions, or you
>>  don't understand what I've said here, just ask.
>>
>>  Most importantly, thank you for taking the time to learn about the many
>>  subtle issues that affect voting methods.
>>
>>  Richard Fobes
>>
>>
>>  On 10/27/2014 9:12 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
>>  >
>>  > Hi Richard,
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > Thank you for your additional comments and observations below.I will
>>  > insert my responses into your text using *bold print*.
>>  >
>>  > I have attached PDF versions of all the attachment you wished not to
>>  > open because of anti-virus reason.
>>  >
>>  > I look forward to our continued dialogue.
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > Regards,
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > Steve
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >> Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 22:01:14 -0700
>>  >> From: ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org
>>  >> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>>  >> Subject: Associational Proportional Representation (APR)
>>  >>
>>  >> I'm responding (via Bcc) to Steve Bosworth's earlier reply to my
>>  >> responses, which he repeated in a direct message that is copied below.
>>  >> I no longer have a copy of the forum message, so please pardon the
>>  >> creation of a new thread about a conversation in progress. For context,
>>  >> see below.
>>  >>
>>  >> Steve, I only had time to quickly look at your two flowcharts (which
>>  >> were in PDF format, in contrast to your ".doc" documents which I don't
>>  >> open for antivirus reasons), but ...
>>  > *S:Please see the new PDF attachments.*>
>>  >> I saw that your Associational Proportional Representation (APR) method
>>  >> involves eliminating a candidate based on having the fewest number of
>>  >> votes (after possible transfers of votes).
>>  > *S:The first candidate eliminated could not have received any transfer
>>  > votes because all elected candidate keep all the votes they have
>>  > received.These determine the weighted vote each rep will have in the
>>  > assembly.*
>>  >> I favor methods that look deeper than each voter's currently top
>>  >> remaining choice. I don't like methods that only look at one voter's
>>  >> currently "top choice" at a time. Why? They have the same weaknesses
>>  >> as plurality voting and instant-runoff voting (IRV), which look at
>>  which
>>  >> candidate gets the most, or fewest (respectively) "votes."
>>  >> *S:In the context of APR, I do not understand why looking at each
>>  > elector?s ?top choice? as the first step in the count would be
> weakness.*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > ***APR allows each elector to guarantee that his vote will be added to
>>  > the voting power of the rep in the assembly either that he had directly
>>  > ranked or that his first choice but eliminated candidate had ranked (a
>>  > special use of Asset Voting) ? every vote can be positive, no vote need
>>  > be wasted.Do you see any scientific basis for anyone to say that an APR
>>  > assembly would not be as representative as possible of all citizens?*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >> Methods that involve the transfer of each voter's vote are open to
>>  >> strategic manipulations. You asked for more specifics. As a partial
>>  >> answer, the election results are vulnerable to strategies that control
>>  >> which candidates are nominated.Usually this manipulation involves
>>  >> campaign contributions (with the real source of funds for "spoiler"
>>  >> candidates being hidden).
>>  >
>>  > *S:Perhaps you will see that APR provides no incentive to vote
>>  > strategically, e.g. APR?s special ?primary? election would greatly
>>  > reduce or eliminate the ?manipulation? you have in mind.In this primary,
>>  > each citizen could choose the ?electoral association? through which,
>>  > several months later, he will record his rankings of as many general
>>  > election candidates in the country as he may wish. Each would try to
>>  > become such a voting member of the association believes is most likely
>>  > to field the most attractive candidates.*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *This seems to remove any incentive to fund any ?spoiler candidates?.*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >> All voting methods fail some fairness criteria, so yours does too.
>>  >> Which ones? I don't know. That requires time-consuming analysis.
>>  >> Although your method is not instant-runoff voting, it is similar enough
>>  >> that I suspect it would fail many of the same fairness criteria
>>  that IRV
>>  >> fails.
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *S:Perhaps you will find that a careful reading of the attachments
>>  > alleys your suspicions in this regard.*
>>  >>
>>  >> Of course you can correctly claim that there are no fairness criteria
>>  >> for proportional methods,
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *S:I see APR as satisfying the following ?fairness criteria? entirely:*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *1)**Each citizen has the same range of options both during the
>>  > ?primary? and the general election.*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *2)**One of these is to guarantee that his vote will be added to the
>>  > ?weighted vote? of the rep he most trusts, or which his first choice but
>>  > eliminated candidate most trusts.*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *3)**The voting power of each party in the assembly would be exactly
>>  > proportional to its support by electors because this power would result
>>  > from combining all the weighted votes of its members.*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > yet I believe your method involves underlying
>>  >> algorithms that can be applied to a single-winner method, and that
>>  >> related single-winner method has to fail some fairness criteria.
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *S: I would very much appreciate you explaining this because it seems to
>>  > me that its counting method is clear -- contains no ?underlying
>>  > algorithm? that would not be fair.*
>>  >>
>>  >> As for the method's proportional aspects, the use of sub-groups --
>>  >> called "associations" in this case -- introduces what can be thought of
>>  >> as similar to the mathematics of "rounding" numbers too early (instead
>>  >> of waiting until all the calculations are done, and then rounding).
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *S: Again, perhaps you will find that the ?associations? only help to
>>  > expand the number of attractive candidates from the points of view of
>>  > citizens voting in APR ?primary?.Also, APR never needs or wants to
>>  > ?round? it numbers.*
>>  >>
>>  >> Expressed another way, both the Republican and Democratic parties
>>  in the
>>  >> U.S. are heavily controlled by the same relatively few people, and the
>>  >> result is that voters do not control either political party.
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *S: The fact that APR citizens will elect all the reps in a given party
>>  > would seem to mean that they also have a good chance of largely
>>  > ?controlling? each political party.*
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > I believe
>>  >> that in Canada each party nominates a candidate using voting at a
>>  >> convention, but admission to the convention requires paying a fee, so
>>  >> that too prevents a majority of voters from controlling any political
>>  > party.
>>  >>
>>  >> Looking into the _distant_ future, voting methods will handle
>>  >> calculations deeply in ways that do not involve any extra layer of
>>  >> subgroups or rounding, and possibly without involving political
>>  parties.
>>  >> In the meantime we are stuck with subgroups such as the "electoral
>>  >> college" for U.S. Presidential elections, and parliaments/Congress/etc.
>>  >> that add an extra voting layer (compared to the future when voters
>>  >> eventually will directly vote on issues of concern). Why not begin now
>>  >> to get rid of the need for subgroups?
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > *S: Perhaps you will reconsider some of these hopes in the light of
>>  > Endnote 6 to the attached draft article.*
>>  >>
>>  >> I am not saying that your voting method is bad. It might be quite good
>>  >> for some voting situations!
>>  >>
>>  >> I'm just saying -- since you specifically asked me -- that my
>>  preference
>>  >> is to skip over slight improvements and jump ahead to advanced voting
>>  >> methods that look deeply into ballot preferences (beyond one current
>>  >> "top" choice at a time) and that avoid the need to segment voters into
>>  >> subgroups.
>>  >>
>>  >> For further context I'll say that years ago a group of people within a
>>  >> local food co-op came up with a very carefully designed way of electing
>>  >> a group of "representatives" for the purpose of having them make
>>  >> decisions instead of letting all the members vote on important
>>  >> decisions. In spite of how well-designed and "fair" (neutral) the
>>  >> process was, neither the people who wanted the co-op to sell a few meat
>>  >> items nor the people who wanted absolutely no meat in the store were
>>  >> willing to let such a group make a decision about that issue. The point
>>  >> of this example is that each layer of decision-making -- even if it
>>  gets
>>  >> adjusted at every election based on the ballots -- does not truly
>>  >> provide proportional representation. As for what a truly proportional
>>  >> solution to that "meat" conflict would have been, I'm not sure. Selling
>>  >> fewer meat items than what a majority of voters wanted would still fail
>>  >> to represent the members who didn't want any meat sold. (It was not
>>  >> clear who was in the majority, and probably a middle third of the
>>  >> members would have been OK with certain meat choices but not other meat
>>  >> choices.)
>>  >>
>>  >> Ultimately voters don't care about the process. That's why so few
>>  >> citizens "do the math" to discover why they are not represented by the
>>  >> people "they" elect. This same dilemma applies to all the voting
>>  >> methods discussed here. Here we are not only "doing the math," but we
>>  >> are developing "the math" relating to voting methods. Let's eliminate
>>  >> extra layers and stop using "start-at-the-top" blinders as we look at
>>  >> each ballot.
>>  >>
>>  >> Thank you for your interest in my opinion. I hope this helps, either to
>>  >> refine your ideas or to refine ways to "sell" whatever method you like
>>  >> best. (All of us here are learning how to "sell" our favorite
>>  method(s).)
>>  >>
>>  >> BTW, thank you for creating the flowcharts. They do help clarify your
>>  >> method. (Alas, graphics on websites seem to be the only way to make
>>  >> flowcharts easy to view, so they are not suitable here in this forum.)
>>  >>
>>  >> Richard Fobes
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >> On 10/22/2014 6:54 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
>>  >> > Hi Richard,
>>  >> >
>>  >> > Sorry for the late reply. I've been travelling.
>>  >> > Thank you for your several criticisms, comments and suggestions.
>>  >> >
>>  >> > I've *injected my responses within the text of your email bellow,
>>  using
>>  >> > bold print*.
>>  >> >
>>  >> > I hope you will see that some of the problems you mentioned are
>>  solved
>>  >> > within the full explanation of my proposed system (Associatonal
>>  >> > Proportional Representation (*APR*)) that I have fully described
>>  in the
>>  >> > attached article with its illustrative 2 flow charts and 3 tables.
>>  >> >
>>  >> > In the light of the more complete information provided, I very
>>  much hope
>>  >> > you will be able to find the time to respond to the additional
>>  > explanations.
>>  >> >
>>  >> > Thank you,
>>  >> > Steve
>>  >> >
>>  >> > > Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 09:10:10 -0700
>>  >> > > From: ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org
>>  >> > > To: stevebosworth at hotmail.com
>>  >> > > Subject: Re: (2) "Severity" of failing
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > Steve Bosworth ~
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > Thank you for your interest in my opinion.
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > Getting to the point of your question, your election method
>>  combines
>>  >> > > single-winner voting concepts
>>  >> > *S: No, in effect, APR**is entirely a multi-winner system, e.g.
>>  to elect
>>  >> > the 435 members of the US House of Representatives or the UK House of
>>  >> > Commons. *
>>  >> > with proportional representation concepts,
>>  >> > *S: APR's giving different 'weighted votes' to each rep depending
>>  on how
>>  >> > many citizens had ranked them would provide complete individual
>>  >> > representative and party proportionality.*
>>  >> > > which means that the well-known fairness criteria do not apply.
>>  >> >
>>  >> > *S: I know of no such criteria which APR would not satisfy.*
>>  >> > > Your idea sounds intriguing. Yet it would encounter time-related
>>  >> > > issues,
>>  >> > *S: Please explain.*
>>  >> > especially strategy issues,
>>  >> > *S: Please explain.*
>>  >> > if it were converted into an actual
>>  >> > > election method -- that involves ballots.
>>  >> > *S: Perhaps you will see that these issues have been solved by the
>>  >> > detailed presentation of the 'actual method' and the paper
>>  'ballots' to
>>  >> > be used by APR, and explained by the attachments.*
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > The single-winner aspects basically match instant-runoff voting,
>>  > so the
>>  >> > > same fairness-criteria failures would apply.
>>  >> > *S: No, because it is not an IRV system.*
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > As for the proportional part, your method would tend to elect a few
>>  >> > > celebrity representatives who are supported by "the media"
>>  >> > *S: Given APR's 'electoral associations' as selected by citizens
>>  months
>>  >> > before the general election through APR's special 'primary election',
>>  >> > the relative influence of 'celebrity' and the 'media' might be much
>>  >> > reduced. In any case, the article stipulates that any very
>>  popular rep
>>  >> > who receives more than 10% of all the votes in the country would be
>>  >> > required to publish exactly how he will pass on all of his 'extra
>>  votes'
>>  >> > to his trusted fellow reps.*
>>  >> > and the
>>  >> > > other representatives would tend to be "fringe" types who are
>>  > supported
>>  >> > > by fewer voters. Note that this is a tendency, and would be
>>  reduced to
>>  >> > > the extent that it's noticed, which means that most voters
>>  would not
>>  >> > > notice this tendency.
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > Alas, my time is limited, so I can't offer more feedback at
>>  this time.
>>  >> > *S: Thank you again for your time.*
>>  >> > > I hope this is helpful.
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > If you want more opinions, I suggest that you present the idea
>>  on the
>>  >> > > Election Methods forum.
>>  >> > *S: I keep trying to find out how to do this but have so far
>>  failed. Can
>>  >> > you please explain how one contributes to this forum?*
>>  >> > >
>>  >> > > Richard Fobes
>>
>>
>>
>>  ------------------------------
>>
>>  Subject: Digest Footer
>>
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>>
>>  ------------------------------
>>
>>  End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 124, Issue 28
>>  *************************************************
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