<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On 5.7.2012, at 21.22, Michael Ossipoff wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><br>Juho:<div><div> </div><div>I didn't understand yet fully how the voter can vote. Is it possible to vote A>B>C and (separately) give the national party vote to party P? (where A is the "independent" of party P) </div>
<div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>In a topplng-up system, you can participate in two separate elections: </div><div> </div><div>1. You can vote for who will win in your district. That can be any one of several kinds of local district election:</div>
<div>.....a) A single-winner election, such as in Germany</div><div>.....b) A multi-winner district PR election,as in a number of topping-up countries</div><div> </div><div>(1b is usually list PR, but there is no reason why it couldn't be STV. Candidates could be designated as party candidates, or not. People could have the option of voting "above the line", as in Australia, meaning that they simply mark a party's published ranking.)</div>
<div> </div><div> </div><div>2. You can vote for a party (or an independent running like a party) in a national party list PR election.</div><div> </div><div>Then, the number of seats won by a party, nationwide, in the local district elections is augmented to bring it up to the amount allocated to it</div>
<div>in the national list PR election.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>My question was about your proposed STV based method that includes topping-up. It seems that the local (1.) and national (2.) votes are fully independent.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><div> </div><div>But the answer to your question is "No". You speak of "...an independent of Party P" . That is a contradiction in term. There is no such thing as an independent of a party. </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This gets a bit complex since I picked term "independent" (with quotes) from your mail. I thought that you referred to the idea of declaring some of the party candiates as independent for strategic reasons (that I discussed in the earlier mail).</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>
<div> </div><div>The following two paragraphs answer your concern:</div><div> </div><div>But your concern probably is that a party could deviously ask a candidate that they like, and who is, for all intents and purposes, a party candidate of theirs, to run as an independent, with no official party designation, and no mention of a party connection, by hir or the party. </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes, that's my concern. Except that I expect most party P voters to know very well that this candidate that pretends to be independent actually is set by party P. Most voters of this candidate would thus be supporters of party P. (And those voters would vote for party P in the national vote.)</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>
<div> </div><div>That's ok. If s/he gets votes, nationally, they're from people who _didn't_ vote for the party nationally. And if s/he gets votes from people who don't care for the party, so that hir votes + the party's votes add up to more than the party would otherwise get, that's ok too, because whatever s/he gets from non-party preferrers means that s/he has appealed to people outside the party, and is liked more generally. There's nothing unfair about such a candidate.</div>
<div> </div><div>.</div><div>You continued:</div><div> </div><div>If this is possible</div><div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>It isn't. But what I said in the previous paragraph is possible, and is completely fair to all.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>But I interpret you again so that it is possible to cast a fully separate local vote (to an independent candidate) and a national vote (to party P (that is not formally associated with the candidate of the local vote)).</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>
<div> </div><div> </div><div>You continued:</div><div> </div><div>, and party P supporters vote this way, and many "independents" of party P</div><div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>There is no such thing as an independent of party P.</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I used quotes (like you did) to refer to the candidate that is formally independent in the election but that in practice has strong ties to party P.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>
<div> </div><div>You continued:</div><div> </div><div> will be elected, then party P is likely to get many representatives that are "independent", and the number of its "non-independent" representatives is smaller that its proportional share (that is derived from the national party votes), and therefore party P will get some extra seats in the top-up process. Party P will thus get its proportional share of the seats + several "independents" (that the method does not consider to be party P representatives, although in practice they are). That would mean that the method is vulnerable to running some candidates (likely winners) as "independents" to get more seats.</div>
<div> </div><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>That's what you said before. Re-read the two paragraphs above that are immediately below the words, "The following two paragraphs answer your concerns."</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>There was some confusion above since the terminology got mixed up. My question is still the same. Do you think that the strategy that I described applies to your proposed "local STV + national party vote" method? The strategy was that party P declares (deviously) some of its (well known) strong candidates as independent candidates in the election, and hopes this way to reduce the number of locally elected candidates that would be formally counted as party P candidates, and as a result the topping-up process would give party P additional seats.</div><div><br></div><div>(The strategy is related to the decoy lists of the mixed-member proportional representation articel in Wikipedia. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation#Decoy_lists">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation#Decoy_lists</a>)</div><div><br></div><div>Juho</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>
<div> </div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br>End of reply. What follows below is just a quote of some previous discussion, including your post.</div><div> </div><div>Mike Ossipoff</div><div> </div></font></span></div>
</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><br> </div><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Juho Laatu <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:juho4880@yahoo.co.uk" target="_blank">juho4880@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><div class="h5">
<div>On 4.7.2012, at 23.10, Michael Ossipoff wrote:</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>But if your independent that you vote for locally doesn't win a district seat, s/he might still win an at-large seat in the national list PR allocation, because, as I said, there's no reason why an independent shouldn't be able to run as a 1-candidate "party". So, if you really want to elect hir, then vote for hir in your district STV election, and also in the national PR allocation election. We're assuming that s/he's a candidate in your district, which is why you can vote for hir in your district STV election.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>Here you refer to a separate "national PR allocation election". Is your plan maybe that the voter casts one ranked vote in the district STV election and one party vote in the national party election?</div>
<div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>Yes. It would just be the usual topping-up enhancement, but for STV in the districts.</div><div> </div><div> </div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div> </div><div>You wrote:<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div> </div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid" class="gmail_quote">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div></div><div>Note that this kind of methods may easily allow such free riding where parties list some of their strong candidates (that will be certainly elected) as independent candidates in the districts. This makes the total number of seats of that party appear smaller that it in reality is. And that may lead to more top-up seats to this party.</div>
<div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div>[endquote]</div><div> </div><div>Nothing wrong with that. Every party supporter who votes for the "independent" is one who doesn't vote for the party nationwide. So the party's national count will be less.</div>
<div> </div><div>But what if the "independent" is someone who is popular with people other than the party's supporters too? Fine. Again, nothing wrong with that. It's fair and right that s/he gets that other support. The party isn't being unfairly helped. Hir extra nonparty support counts for hir as an independent, and not for that party, because s/he appeals to people other than party supporters.</div>
<div> </div><div>Mike Ossipoff</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div><div><div>I didn't understand yet fully how the voter can vote. Is it possible to vote A>B>C and (separately) give the national party vote to party P? (where A is the "independent" of party P) If this is possible, and party P supporters vote this way, and many "independents" of party P will be elected, then party P is likely to get many representatives that are "independent", and the number of its "non-independent" representatives is smaller that its proportional share (that is derived from the national party votes), and therefore party P will get some extra seats in the top-up process. Party P will thus get its proportional share of the seats + several "independents" (that the method does not conseder to be party P representatives, although in practice they are). That would mean that the method is vulnerable to running some candidates (likely winners) as "independents" to get more seats.</div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>Juho</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></font></span></div></div></div><br>----<br>
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