[EM] Test elections

Richard Lung voting at ukscientists.com
Mon Nov 29 14:38:45 PST 2021



Hello Kristofer and All,


Can't at present find reply I did make to your test elections.

 From memory, the nominal winner was B followed by C. But the real 
winner was A because A had almost a quota -- to half a vote -- that was 
not a statistically significant shortfall.

Your example reminded me of a methodological short-coming I had long 
forgotten. I can't remember why I decided to ignore  it,  but it must 
have been something along the lines that, for practical purposes, the 
election count generally over-rides the exclusion count. In your example 
it doesn't because it is a mere 3 candidate single- winner case -- the 
case of minimal democracy. FAB STV is designed for a minimal 4 or 5 seat 
case, and preferably more. I hadn't considered the hand count as a 
possibly separate case.

I didn't even bother to pursue the option of statistical significance. 
In your example, Formal winners B then C (technically) do not come any 
where near the elective quota, at any statistical level of significance. 
I may have been wrong not to discuss a significance requirement. It 
depends on how actual binomial stv turns out.

A statistically significant binomial stv vote requires at least 30 
voters ( approx 2^5 binomial  distribution). Thus your second example 
cannot be given a significan count with binomial stv, which involves a 
parametric statistic. Very small smples are only amenable to 
non-parametric statistics.

However, I mentioned this issue of Kristofer very briefly at the end of 
my latest publication:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1116612

Am very tied-up for reasons already given.

Regards

Rchard Lung.



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