[EM] Vote and count conservation laws

[Richard Lung]

One of the deep questions is how the sciences seem to follow the same 
structure of measurement, notably given by SS Stevens and widely 
accepted. I wrote a book about it, Science is Ethics as Electics, and 
made some progress since.

To continue, on a different tack:

Scientific statements are conditional statements. They are of the 
nature: If…, then… The Andrae/Hare system expresses the scientific or 
knowledgeable condition: if given the same number of orders of choice, 
in a preference vote or ranked choice, as the number of seats, 
thenelective proportions or quotas of votes may be personally determined 
by the electorate.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Andrae system and, independently, the 
Hare system, or quota-preferential method, thus established electoral 
equality, as a condition of liberty.

This was half a century before physics united the conservation laws of 
mass and energy, into a single mass-energy conservation law.

The continent of Europeand its colonies disunited the liberty-equality 
condition of the Carl Andrae law, by abolishing the preferential 
suffrage of a number order vote. The illiterate x-vote, which only 
expresses a single order of choice, cannot determine a proportional 
count, which is a multiple equality of ratios of votes to seats. The 
X-vote for a representative was demoted to a vote for the abstraction of 
a “party.” The Andrae system was demoted from a scientific or 
knowledgeable statement of an observable conditional relationship, to a 
“metaphysical” statement. Of this, David Hume held: “commit it to the 
flames.” Or, such a statement, is, as Karl Popper would grandly say: 
“outside the realm of scientific discourse.”

The English-speaking countries electoral reform also did not fare well. 
The irrational count of simple plurality has been retained. In recent 
decades, electoral reforms, to so-called proportional representation, 
have seen a preponderance of x-voting party dogmatism.

The history of electoral reform has not been so much progress as 
regress. Whereas physics has united its conservation laws of mass and 
energy, politics has dismantled electoral liberty in equality.

The modest gains, against great adversity, of the quota-preferential 
method, or single transferable vote proportional representation, have 
demonstrated that STV possesses the character of a good scientific 
theory. This is its explanatory power, whose range is not possessed by 
the usual electoral methods. For example, STV, the quota-preferential 
method, possesses the power of primaries, and prefered coalitions, 
within general elections.

However, the democratic advantages of STV are not desired where they are 
dimly appreciated, and not dimly appreciated where they are desired. The 
Andrae/Hare system perhaps was half a century ahead of its time. At a 
conservative estimate, its progress must now be over a century behind 
the times, causing an unstable imbalance between the natural and the 
moral sciences.

Scientific progress is not sufficiently regulated by effective elections 
in the common interest. There is a real possibility that parasitic 
vested interests kill the host body of humanity.

To name only two cases, both full of propaganda, the fossil fuels 
industry threatens an irreversible greenhouse effect, like Venus. And 
nuclear fission threatens, at least, all vertebrate life with 
radioactive fall-out, thru the military extermination industry, or its 
pseudo-civil atom plants by-product, at present, terrorising the world, 
in Zaporizhzhia




On 16/09/2022 04:05, Forest Simmons wrote:
> As a mathematician I love formal analogies among apparently disparate 
> fields of inquiry ... the greater the apparent disparities, the more 
> interesting ... and the greater the potential for cross fertilization!
>
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2022, 6:28 PM Richard Lung <voting at ukscientists.com> 
> wrote:
>
>
>     Vote and count conservation laws
>
>     When all the preference votes are counted in an election method,
>     like Binomial STV, the law of the conservation of (preference)
>     information is fulfilled. In physics, energy concepts are being
>     translated into information concepts. The conservation law of
>     mass-energy is translated into conservation of information.
>
>     Election method or electics may have a corresponding conservation
>     law to information conservation of the vote. As JFS Ross said,
>     every election has a vote and a count. So, the corresponding
>     conservation law would be a conservation of the count. The vote is
>     summed or aggregated to the count, so vote information
>     conservation should cross-over into a conservation of mass action.
>
>     In physics, the basic unit of energy is that minimum packet of
>     energy called the quantum. Energy is never transfered in lesser
>     amounts than these discrete quanta. In electics, these quanta are
>     analogies to the quota count. Candidates are proportionally
>     elected on discrete equal ratios of votes to seats.
>
>     The minimum elective vote is the one vote of self-representation,
>     associated with the ancient Greek city-state. Here, the vote
>     conservation law merges with a count conservation law.
>
>     Self-representation is the case of a minimum Hare quota, where one
>     vote elects to one seat.
>
>     (It may be useful to compare energy quanta with the election
>     quota, tho the individual perhaps correlates better to the atom
>     than the quantum.)
>
>     It is a bit confusing talking about a minimum Hare quota, because
>     the Hare quota gives maximum proportional representation. Indeed,
>     even a minimum Hare quota of one vote gives maximum (proportional)
>     representation to one self-representing voter: one seat for one vote.
>
>     But suppose two voters contesting one seat. The Hare quota is
>     powerless to elect either, unless one or the other transfers their
>     vote. The transferable vote is indeed a possibility, that should
>     be tried, but it may not break the dead-lock.
>
>     Hence, the Droop quota, which adds one unit to the denominator of
>     the Hare quota:2/(1+1) = 1. The Droop quota gives either candidate
>     voter an elective quota. This minimal case would be decided on a
>     random tie-break.
>
>     The Hare quota offers maximum proportional representation, but it
>     does so at a price. To take the extreme case, of a single vacancy,
>     a representative elected, on the Hare quota, has to win all the
>     votes. For example, 100 voters, for a single vacancy, would all
>     have to vote for a single candidate, to be elected. With the Droop
>     quota, a candidate would need only half the votes, to be elected.
>     A double vacancy requires two candidates to each win one third of
>     the votes each, giving two thirds proportional representation. In
>     general, the Droop quota combines a minimal or least proportional
>     representation with voter choice.
>
>     The more seats per district or constituency, the closer that the
>     Droop quota approximates to the Hare quota. But as the seats
>     increase, the increase, in proportional representation of the
>     Droop quota, is at an increasingly slower rate. A triple member
>     constituency ensures three-quarter or 75% representation. That is
>     up from nearly 67% representation of a double member constituency,
>     an increase of over 8%. However, that 8% increase was already less
>     than the nearly 17% increase of representation, between a double
>     and a single member constituency. A four-member constituency gives
>     80% representation, but that is only up 5% from a three member
>     constituency with the Droop quota.
>
>     This (Droop quota) decelerating increase of representation with
>     more seats is formally the same as found in high-energy physics of
>     special relativity theory. As the motion of a physical object
>     significantly approaches light speed, the increasing energy, put
>     into that motion, increases the mass of the body, and only has a
>     decelerating increase in the body speed. In theory, the body would
>     have to achieve infinite mass before it could reach the maximum
>     speed limit of light. Light itself has no rest mass but is pure
>     energy.
>
>     It is possible to make a formal comparison between the motions of
>     massive and massless particles in physics, and minimum and maximum
>     proportions of representation, in election method. The Hare quota,
>     which gives maximum proportional representation, compares to
>     light, which moves at maximum speed. Droop quota representation
>     compares to the motion of massive objects, significantly
>     approaching light speed.
>
>     The Hare quota gives maximum equality of representation. Its
>     analog is light, at maximum speed. The Droop quota sacrifices some
>     of that equality for liberty of choice. Its analog is motion of
>     objects with rest mass. To put the analogy at its most spare,
>     energy compares to equality, and mass compares to liberty. So, the
>     conservation of mass-energy formally compares to a conservation
>     law of liberty-equality.
>
>     Thus, a law of conservation of (preference) vote information
>     corresponds to a conservation law of a liberty-equality count.
>
>
>     Regards,
>
>     Richard Lung.
>
>
>
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