[EM] IRV / RCv advances

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

On 2018-07-17 23:17, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> Richard, thanks for the advice. How to apply it is mysterious to me. So 
> I'll just look at what you wrote, on what I wrote about.
> 
> The essence of genuine democratic representation is choice. I may, for 
> most affairs in life requiring my decision, designate a proxy, when I 
> can't be there to make a decision myself.
> 
> In designating a proxy, the only relevant factor is my choice, my 
> decision to name a person. I may revoke this designation at any time, 
> but it generally stands until revoked (either deliberately or by the 
> lapse of some specified time.)
> 
> Needing to meet a quota is contrary to the fundamental principle of 
> choice in representation, but it may be made as a compromise. So, we 
> decide that, to have a seat in an Assembly, the seat must be supported 
> by a quota of voters, who agree to the person serving in that way, for 
> them, and if this is fully democratic, then those voter choices are not 
> coerced. It is possible for a voter to designate a series of choices, 
> i.e., my first choice is A, my second choice, if A cannot serve, is B, 
> etc. However, this leads to a fairly complex system and Dodgson 
> (Carroll) found a far better way, far more suitable for ordinary voters, 
> who, after all, have busy lives. STV  systems only work because of party 
> candidate lists, otherwise most voters, as Dodgson pointed out, really 
> only know their favorite, and there is a far simpler way, that allows 
> the exercise of choice in a slightly different way.
> 
> Rather, a basic principle of leadership is understanding how to delegate 
> authority. The skill of serving as a representative will be associated 
> with skill in designating someone to serve. In the system I have 
> described, electors will focus on politics and may be able to develop 
> personal relationships with those who end up with seats. That is, they 
> will not merely be depending on media impressions, and the corrupting 
> power of money is politics is largely related to the cost of dominating 
> media coverage.
> 
> So, in an Asset election, the voter need only choose one person, the 
> person the voter most trusts, out of all those willing to serve as 
> public voters. Obviously, anyone who is a candidate is so willing to 
> serve, since votes in the Assembly will be public.

One thing I don't get about this phrasing of Asset is how the problem of 
scale is handled.

If the number of people initially voted for is small enough that they 
can all physically meet, then Asset is easy: everybody who gets at least 
one vote meets and then negotiate to distribute vote assets until the 
vote assets have been concentrated on sufficiently few candidates to fit 
the final council. If the council votes are unweighted, one might 
additionally add a constraint that every candidate needs more than a 
quota's worth of votes.

But now suppose there are a million voters and everybody chooses one of 
their friends as the one they trust. The set of everybody who's 
somebody's friend is unlikely to be small enough that they can 
physically meet. How does Asset proceed from this point? Is it just like 
delegable proxy, where the "initial candidates" name other candidates in 
turn until the set has been narrowed down enough?