<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252">
<style type="text/css" style="display:none;"><!-- P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;} --></style>
</head>
<body dir="ltr">
<div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" style="font-size:14pt;color:#000000;font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;" dir="ltr">
<p><font face="Times New Roman"></font></p>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 42pt 14pt 0in; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">To everyone:</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 42pt 14pt 0in; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">I would like to respond to the different posts (from
<span>Kristofer Munsterhjelm</span> and James Gilmour) that commented on my post: No Wasted Votes (03/25/2017).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My comments will be marked by “S:”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Firstly, I will offer an improved version of my post, hoping that this will make my later comments more easily understood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I look forward to your feedback.</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">Because I want a more complete democracy, I want to explain: “How Each Citizen’s Vote
Can Fully Count in the Legislature” – no votes wasted. Using California’s legislative Assembly as an example, the system I call Associational Proportional Representation (APR) would allow each citizen to guarantee that their one vote will be added to the
“weighted vote” in the Assembly of the elected member they trust most. The details of exactly how APR would work in practice are available the article I will send you upon request (</font><a><font face="Calibri">stevebosworth@hotmail.com</font></a><font face="Calibri">).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, please let me briefly describe it in the next paragraphs. </font>
</span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">APR elects all the winners at one time, and in effect, uses the whole state (country
or nation) as one electoral district. Its special “associational” structure allows this. No matter through which one of APR’s “electoral associations” a citizen is voting, she can rank any number of the candidates running in the whole state (nation or country).</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<font face="Calibri"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">APR uses a greatly strengthened development of IRV (or Single Transferrable Voting
(STV)). From their local polling stations, each citizen would rank 1-2-3 ... as many of the candidates in the whole state (or nation, or country) as they might wish. Each member would have a “weighted vote” in the Assembly exactly equal to the number of citizens
who had helped to elect them. Well before the general election, APR’s “associational” element would be provided by APR’s special primary election. This “primary” would discover society’s most popular</span><span style="color: red; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">voluntary organizations through which all citizens will rank candidates during the later general
election. During the “primary”, citizens’ would rank any number of these organizations (e.g. political parties, districts, and interest groups) who had applied to the state’s electoral commission to be allowed to send at least one member directly to the Assembly.
Each citizen would be able to rank any of these organizations seen by her to reflect her own worldview, and thus seen as most likely to nominate attractive candidates for her to rank in the general election later. The more non-geographically defined “associations”
so discovered, the fewer but larger would be the average size of the existing geographically defined “associations” (i.e. districts).
</span></font></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">APR’s strengthened STV would</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">1. allow each citizen to rank any number of the candidates running in the state. This
much wider choice of candidates makes it more likely that each citizen’s vote will help to elect a member who is as close as possible to her ideal, and thus her one vote is much less likely to be wasted qualitatively;
</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">2. give each member a “weighted vote” in the assembly exactly equal to the number
of citizens who have helped to elect them. This helps to ensure that no citizen’s vote will be wasted quantitatively; and
</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">3. if and when none of the candidates a citizen has explicitly ranked is elected,
the APR ballot allows her to require her first choice but eliminated candidate to transfer her one vote to the elected candidate seen by him to be the one most likely to represent both him and her most faithfully.</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri"> </font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">These features of APR allow each citizen to guarantee that their one vote will fully
count in the assembly, one way or another, both quantitatively and qualitatively. It also guarantees complete party proportionality in the legislature.
</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<p style="background: rgb(244, 244, 244); margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">At the same time, the average quality of APR candidates in the eyes of voters is likely
to be higher than offered by any other electoral system. This quality is likely to be supplied by APR’s special “primary” election which</font></span></p>
<font face="Times New Roman"></font>
<ol nodeid="1">
<li><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">discovers all the “electoral associations” (geographically defined or not) through
which all citizens would elect all the members of the assembly, and</font></span></li><li><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">determines through which “association” at their local polling station each voter
will be voting during the later general election, i.e. her most preferred “association”.</font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">Each citizen could rank any number of these applicant organizations according to how
closely each reflects their own worldview. She would see her first choice as being the one most likely to nominate the most attractive candidates for her to rank later in the general election. These rankings would determine the most popular group of these
organizations that together are both proportionately supported by all the voters and are able to elect the whole assembly. It is each of these organizations that would be officially recognized as an electoral “association”.</font></span><br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">After the primary, each “association” would nominate candidates to represent its interests
and concerns, i.e. candidates for citizens to rank during the later general election. These arrangements would entirely remove the anti-democratic effects of any gerrymandering or safe-districts.
</font></span><br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">Therefore, in contrast to all the other ways to elect a legislature, APR:
</font></span><br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">1. would not waste any citizens’ votes, quantitatively or qualitatively,
</font></span><br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">2. would entirely remove the anti-democratic effects of any gerrymandering or safe-districts,
</font></span><br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">3. would help make each member see that each of his electors who becomes disappointed
with his performance in the assembly will be easily able to reject him during the next general election in favor of a candidate she sees as more trustworthy.
</font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">S: Please also feel free to request me to send you any of the appendices listed at
the end of the above mentioned article, e.g. APPENDIX 2: Optimal Quality Representation Provided, APPENDIX 6: Working Majorities are Likely in APR Legislatures, APPENDIX 7: Strategy for Introducing APR into the USA. Also, please send these ideas to anyone
whom you think might be interested.</font></span><br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">What do you think? I very much look forward to your feedback, questions or criticisms.
</font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">Steve (stevebosworth@hotmail.com)</font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri"> <b>From:</b> Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km_elmet@t-online.de><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, April 2, 2017 1:00 PM</font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">[….]<br>
K:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I've been very busy of late, so I haven't been able to respond to your<br>
other mail, but I'd like to note a few things.<br>
<br>
- You could use MJ instead of IRV. Since APR prior to weighting is<br>
basically "elect candidates by IRV a bunch of times", and you've stated<br>
that MJ is better than IRV, APR should be better if you replace it with<br>
"elect candidates by MJ a bunch of times". All you need is another way<br>
of counting which voters contributed to which candidates' election. My<br>
party list-type Bucklin method will do the job, for instance.</font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri"> </font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I agree that MJ is much better than IRV for electing a single-winner, but unlike ARP, it does not allow the electorate to segment itself into up to 435 group who separately support up to 435 somewhat different worldview present in the population most
enthusiastically.<br>
<br>
K: - Due to the cloning problems I've mentioned before (e.g. Libertarian<br>
</font></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><font face="Calibri">example), it's advantageous to a party
to field multiple candidates and<br>
spread the votes among them, because doing so will push competing<br>
candidates with less support off the council, in effect reducing their<br>
weight to zero. If everybody does that, you get plain old STV. So it's<br>
not clear that weighted votes buys you anything in the face of strategy.<br>
(E.g. two seats:<br>
X1: weight 100<br>
X2: weight 100<br>
is preferable to<br>
X1: weight 200<br>
Y1: weight 80<br>
from the point of view of party X, because the former outcome pushes<br>
party Y off the council entirely.)</font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="color: red; font-size: 14pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><font face="Calibri"> </font></span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">S: Starting with your example of countrywide ordinary STV, the electorate of 280 citizens perhaps
ranked the candidates as follows:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>100: X1>X2; 100: X2>X1; 80: Y1>Y2.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, 80 citizens’ votes would be wasted. The same problem would remain even if an APR like primary election were also used earlier to allow all citizens to rank their corresponding applicant organization to
become official “electoral associations” as follows: 100: aX1>aX2; 100: aX2>X1; 80: aY1>aY2.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, the only 2 organizations that would become “associations” would be aX1>aX2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Again, some voters would not be represented at all in the legislature.</font></span><br>
<br>
<font face="Calibri"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">However, I would like to explain how this “problem” would predictably evaporate if APR were applied
instead to the election of a legislature, e.g. the countrywide election of the US House of Representative.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this case, the least popular “association” would have to have no more than 1/435 of all the voter in the country expressing their preference to become a registered voter through that “association”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If all the organizations ranked by a citizen happened to failed to meet this requirement, he or she would, by default, remain a registered voter within her local geographically defined “association” (i.e. here Congressional District).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, like all other APR voters, she could still rank any number of candidates in the whole country whom she sees as reflecting her own priorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Therefore, her one vote would be added to the “weighted vote” of the one congressperson ranked highest on her ballot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the event that none of the candidates she had ranked were elected, the APR ballot still allows her to require her first choice but eliminated candidate to transfer her one vote to the congressperson he sees as most likely to represent both him and
her most faithfully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means that no citizen’s vote is wasted with APR.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Thus, it is highly likely that each American citizen would see at least one of the 435 congressperson in an APR House of
Representative as reflecting his or her own hopes and concerns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Again, that congressperson’s voting power in the House would have been increased by that citizen’s one vote.</span></font><br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">
</font></span><br>
<br>
<b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">From:</font></span></b><font face="Calibri"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
James Gilmour <jgilmour@globalnet.co.uk><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, March 9, 2017 12:18 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> 'steve bosworth'<br>
<b>Subject:</b> RE: "How Each Citizen's Vote Can Fully Count in the Le</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">gislature"
</span></font><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">Steve,</font></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">J: Thank you for the copy of your paper. I have seen proposals for “proportionately weighted voting”
before, but I’m afraid none of them grab me. I don’t think any proposal of that kind would have much traction in taking forward practical voting reform, certainly not in the UK …. I think most UK electors would expect “one person, one vote” (in the election)
and then “one representative, one vote” (in the assembly).</font></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">I am not concerned with achieving the highest possible degree of proportionality. Other factors
have to be taken into account. I do not seek the degree of proportionality that could be achieved by aggregating votes over the whole country. [….]</font></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thank you for reading my article and making it clear both that you are not personally "concerned with achieving the highest possible degree of proportionality" and that you believe that it would not "have much traction" in the UK or Canada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Correctly, you also say that "other factors have to be taken into account". However, exactly what "other factors" do you have in mind? How do these require or justify not giving each citizen's one vote equal power within the legislature? Does this
rejection only stem from APR’s departure from the existing traditions and practices that you “like”? Can you or anyone else also justify your rejection of APR’s “highest possible degree of proportionality" using a rational argument based on principle?</font></span><br>
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">I look forward to all feedback.</font></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">Thank you,</font></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><font face="Calibri">Steve</font></span><br>
</li></ol>
<p></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>