<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>I did wonder that myself and considered mentioning in the post for some reason didn't. I'm not 100% sure. If it does make a difference you could easily add in some sort of rule to determine how to do it, although the more rules the uglier.</DIV>
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<DIV>You could do it in stages. At the first stage everyone transfers away any votes above the 1/(n+1) threshold where there are n candidates. Any votes that might get transferred to a candidate already above this would automatically go to third choice, fourth etc. Once this is done, it would be clear that some candidates would be stuck at higher than 1/(n+1) votes due to voters not having made enough ranked choices. So a new quota would be calculated and the same process would happen again until no votes can be transferred. All candidates have their votes transferred simultaneously so there would be no ordering to it. I know I've mentioned the word "quota" but it's not a specific set quota like Droop or Hare and it's always up for renewal if it can be reduced further, so I'd still essentially call this quotaless STV.<BR></DIV>
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<B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Warren Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> election-methods <election-methods@electorama.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Sat, 9 July, 2011 21:38:15<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> [EM] Quotaless STV<BR></FONT><BR>--that's an interesting idea.<BR>This may be a dumb question, but is it clear that<BR>when we are "transferring away everything you can"<BR>that order is irrelevant? Or might it be that the order in which the candidates<BR>activate their "transfer it all away" actions, makes a difference,<BR>i.e. can cause the<BR>results to differ?<BR><BR></DIV></DIV></div></body></html>