[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:

>
> My
> system, for example, uses squared rather than absolute deviation (and uses a
> different measure of deviation anyway) and it gives the results that I
> wanted it to when I tested it, including stable results for the largest two
> factions when the size of the third tiny faction changes, and the three-way
> tie from the other example. It doesn't work by ignoring or eliminating
> smaller factions;

Neither does mine (in case you are implying such)  Some party list
systems do work that way however.

>  it just works in a way that produces these results anyway.
> And it too gives exact proportionality where no rounding is required.
>
> And I'm still unsure how to translate your method into approval voting with
> overlapping factions.

It works exactly the same way with overlapping candidate support in
different factions. (i.e. v_i and s_i have exactly the same meanings,
the number of voters in the group and the number of winning candidates
each group contributes to electing.

What is the logic of using squared rather than absolute deviation? and
are you also selecting the slate of candidates minimizing your
formula?