<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Raph Frank wrote (1 Feb 2009):</DIV>
<DIV><BR>"PR-STV is designed to be similar to a process you could follow in a<BR>town meeting like situation.<BR><BR>1) Each voter votes for 1 candidate<BR>2) Work out the Droop quota<BR>3) If any candidate exceeds the quota, that candidate is appointed to<BR>the committee<BR>-- Select some of the voters (equal to the surplus) who voted for the<BR>candidate and allow them to move their vote<BR>(This selection could be made at random, or by deweighting all of<BR>those people's votes)<BR>4) If no candidate reached the quota, eliminate the candidate with the<BR>fewest votes<BR>-- Allow those voters to move their vote to other candidates"<BR></DIV>
<DIV>A simpler and more intuitive way of looking at it is that it aims to simulate an election</DIV>
<DIV>among school-children in which children vote by standing behind their preferred candidate</DIV>
<DIV>with their being some time during which voters can change their mind and vote for a different</DIV>
<DIV>candidate. At the end of the process the N candidates with the greatest number of voters<BR>standing behind him/her wins.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Each voter has one vote they can do what they like with. The idea is that strategic voters with </DIV>
<DIV>more than just a first preference will abandon candidates they can see have no hope of being </DIV>
<DIV>elected, and (in the multi-winner version) candidates they can see are assured of being elected<BR>without their help. At the end of the process any candidate with more than a Droop quota is</DIV>
<DIV>assured of being elected (without anyone needing to know what a "Droop quota" is.)</DIV>
<DIV><BR>STV tries to simulate that in a regular way that is hopefully deterministic (as in most versions), </DIV>
<DIV>and guarantees all voters Later-no-Harm and of course doesn't have the same possibilities of <BR>bluff and gamesmanship possible in the live version.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>At one point in history in (I think) Britain, some local councils were elected by voters writing </DIV>
<DIV>their name below the candidate of their choice on a public notice-board. This of course was </DIV>
<DIV>STV-like for late voters because when they voted they could see which candidates had no </DIV>
<DIV>hope or were already assured of election. <BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Chris Benham</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR> </DIV><!--endarticle--><!--htdig_noindex--></div><br>
<hr size=1>Make Yahoo!7 your homepage and win a trip to the Quiksilver Pro. <a href="http://au.rd.yahoo.com/homepage/mailtagline/*http://au.docs.yahoo.com/homepageset/?p1=other&p2=au&p3=tagline" target=_blank>Find out more</a>.</body></html>