[EM] General PR question (from Andy Jennings in 2011)

[Kathy Dopp]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 5:23 PM, Toby Pereira <tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Perhaps there's a more proportional method than a "truly proportionate
> allocation of seats to voters"! But what I would say is that there are
> several methods that people might deem to be proportional, and so to say
> that yours is *the* method would probably cause some disagreement.

My method is EXACTLY proportional allocation of seats to the
proportion of voters in each voter group (group voting for the same
combination of candidates) out of the total number of voters.  If the
number of total voters or total winning seats is altered, as in your
examples, the proportions for each group changes, and, so, the seat
allocation may change.

In my opinion, a voting method that allocates winners in the exact
proportion to their proportion of the voter population is the best
possible.  I, personally, would not want to eliminate the smallest
voting groups from the calculations of proportions as do some party
list systems that have a lower threshold for inclusion. I.e. I would
include every voter group in the calculation regardless of the number
of voters it has.

I.e. I really like my method of allocating approval vote seats
proportionately, and it has more power than either the remainder,
Sainte-Laguë or D'Hondt methods in that my method also works well for
overlapping candidate support, not merely for party list type systems.

It's hard to argue with my formula's exactly proportional
representation.  The scenarios you suggest are very unlikely and do
not bother me at all.  For instance, it is unlikely there would be a
voting group with just one voter and two other groups whose ratio of
proportions was only two votes away from a different allocation of
seats. In that case, there would, certainly, need to be a recount, as
with any election that is only two votes apart from altering a winner.
Even so, the exactly proportional nature of my formula is hard to
argue with.



-- 

Kathy Dopp
Town of Colonie, NY 12304
 "A little patience, and we shall see ... the people, recovering their
true sight, restore their government to its true principles." Thomas
Jefferson

Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections
http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174

View my working papers on my SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/author=1451051