<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><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">I've replied to Jameson and Kevin in the same post here, so hopefully it's come out alright!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">
<HR SIZE=1>
<B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn@gmail.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> Toby Pereira <tdp201b@yahoo.co.uk><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Cc:</SPAN></B> EM <election-methods@lists.electorama.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Sun, 24 July, 2011 2:50:12<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [EM] PR for USA or UK<BR><BR>>I agree that PRV would give better results, with sophisticated voters, than most forms of PR. However, it does fail my criterion 4 (simple ballots) and do worse >than SODA-PR on criteria 5(smooth transition) and even arguably 1(true proportionality - because separate districts spoil the proportionality). If you don't think >these criteria are reasonable, you should give that argument. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">>I started out with a list of criteria because I think that's the right place to start when you're looking for a practical system.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">>JQ</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">I don't necessarily think sophisticated voters are required in order to ensure reasonable PR under PRV. I think as long as you don't get some candidates who have much better strategic voters than others, it should do OK.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">I would argue that my system doesn't fail on simple ballots. It's not all or nothing. Yes, there are simpler ballots, but if I was rating simplicity of ballots approval style, I'd approve range ballots! But seriously, scores out of 6 is quite simple, and it could be made quite clear that you only need to rate candidates that you have any positive feeling towards. Blanks would count as zero. Some may argue for an average score to be given to blanks, but I think that would actually encourage people to fill out a load of zeros anyway. SODA-PR is probably simpler, but I think the delegable/non-delegable thing would be a bit confusing for voters and so wouldn't be simple in their minds. I know that it's arguably better to have the one vote and let your favourite candidate delegate (given that they probably have similar views to you) than dilute with several approvals, but why not just let candidates
have their own delegation list - i.e. STV - and do away with the approval aspect completely (since you don't approve of voters actually voting approval style under your system yourself)?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Smooth transition - yes, PRV a bigger step from FPTP in some ways than SODA-PR (giving candidates a score is further from a single X than approval-style votes), but the idea of giving your vote to the candidates to delegate is a pretty big paradigm shift in itself, and arguably causes it to fail on this criterion. Still, if we ever were to have PR in the UK, it would probably be STV anyway (don't know about in the US), which I would argue is no more or less smooth a transition than PRV from the starting point of FPTP. So for smooth transition, I don't think PRV fails, because I think it ties with the realistic (UK) frontrunner.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Separate constituencies do spoil proportionality to an extent, yes. There would only be a certain number of seats available in each. If it was six, then a party with constant 10% support across the county would struggle to get anything. What's the alternative? We could have bigger constituencies, but that means bigger ballots, or party lists, but I don't like them. I'm not sure I get your district/co-district thing though. In any case, I think this is a problem of how we sort out districts/constituencies, rather than anything against PRV per se.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Also, I don't get the whole thing about write-ins. Maybe it's a UK/US divide thing, but surely if you want to be elected then you stand for election. Therefore your name would be on the ballot.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">
<HR SIZE=1>
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><FONT size=3><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Kevin Venzke <stepjak@yahoo.fr><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> election-methods@electorama.com<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Sun, 24 July, 2011 5:38:18<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> Re: [EM] PR for USA or UK<BR><BR>>Hi Toby,</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Hello.<BR><BR>>I really don't know what "dishonest results" means. Judging by your<BR>>example below it apparently requires comparing two different methods.<BR>>So, I can make any method give "dishonest results" just by inventing<BR>>a different method that requires dishonesty from everyone. Now every <BR>>other method in the world is cheating.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">I suppose what I mean is that by transferrig your vote for you, STV ends up producing the same result (in my simple case) as PRV with strategic voting, and to me it's an ugly result.<BR><BR>>It's not a bad description that strategy-resistant systems "do the<BR>>strategy for you." This has important results:<BR><BR>>1. The voters do not need to do the strategy<BR>>2. So the playing field is leveled<BR>>3. So votes should have correct effect in proportion to the number,<BR>>meaning the outcome is more accurate. That is, it reflects better the<BR>>overall preferences of the electorate.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Strategy-resistant systems do have certain advantages as you say, but in the single-winner case it would end up reducing range to a Condorcet method, which arguably isn't as good, and ends up pushing out a "better-liked" candidate for one that strictly more people prefer. And this is what I like about range - it's not just about which candidates you prefer to which other ones, but by how much. And as long as strategy isn't performed better by voters of some candidates than others, the fact that there would still be some honest voters would mean that the advantages of range would still remain to an extent, meaning that overall better-liked candidates stand a better chance, and it therefore reflects better the overall preferences of the electorate!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><BR><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">>>On my website I give an example where party A has 68% of the support <BR>>>and party B 32%. There are two seats and so each party fields two <BR>>>candidates. Assuming everyone would vote approval style, under my <BR>>>system, they would win one each. Party A would need over 75% of the <BR>>>votes to win the second seat. I would argue that this is a fair result <BR>>>(75% being bang in the middle between 50% and 100% - the amount to <BR>>>exactly earn one and two seats).<BR><BR>>How is 50% the amount to get one seat?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><FONT size=3 face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">I mean that it's the exact proportional amount without any rounding. One seat = 50% of two seats. That's all I meant. Also 0% is the exact proportional amount for zero seats and 100% is the exact amount for two seats, so they have a linear relationship. So it's not too much of a stretch to say that 75% = 1.5 seats and a reasonable cut-off.<BR><BR>>> Of course party A voters could <BR>>>coordinate themselves and split into two factions of 34% to take both <BR>>>seats, but this would be very hard for them to achieve. STV (Droop <BR>>>quota anyway) would transfer the votes above the quota accordingly <BR>>>so that party A would win both seats, and give what I would regard <BR>>>as the less fair result.<BR><BR>>Ok, but it's not obvious that it is less fair. You are according
a<BR>>privilege to the weaker party just because it is a different party.<BR><BR>I'm not according them a privilege because they are a different party, but because I would see it as logical and fair that 75% is a reasonable cut-off. If a system made the cut-off at 80%, I'd argue that it was unfair in favour of the smaller party.</FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></div></body></html>