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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Clarity on
principles</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Dear EM list,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">If a thing needs doing, there is no point in
complaining about it being hard. This was a point made by
Winston Churchill.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">The US Constitution could not ban an election
system, not invented till the next century.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">At least, those who introduced a quota-preferential
bill to Congress apparently didn’t think so. And what the cities
could do, surely the federal government also could.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">State-level suppression of local autonomy in
introducing proportional representation, notably Massachusetts
state banning other cities, in the state, than Cambridge from
using STV/PR, was not a constitutional decision, but only so far
as brute force could go, by way of arbitrary self-will without
principles.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Therefore, the way forward is a principled one. My
advice, such as it is, to any electoral reform proposal, as that
made by Forest, is that it needs to be clear on the principles
on which it operates, so that politicians can be clear to the
public, on the kind of election they are being offered.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">The incorporation of the Borda method in a
recommendation involves the first recognition (by </span><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family: "Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Laplace</span><span style="font-size:
16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT Bold"">) that
lesser preferences count less.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">This was in direct contradiction to the systematic
elimination count offered by Condorcet. The advantage of this
pioneering debate was that it offered a clear choice between
all-inclusive weighted preference count and exclusive unweighted
preference count. Only the former offers the </span><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Laplace</span><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""> requirement to count preference order of
importance.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">One problem I had was that weighted Condorcet
pairing, counting each margin of victory, was about as accurate
as Borda method, as one could tell by inspection, even of a very
narrow contest.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">I have now come to the conclusion that weighted
Condorcet pairing is effectively (on average) a weighted
preference order count, first required by </span><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Laplace</span><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Each voters preference is not suitably weighted by
order of importance. Instead, the lack of weighted orders of
preference for each voter is made up for, firstly by the fact
that all the votes (at any order of choice) are equally or
indiscriminately treated in this manner, but, on average, a
collective order of preference emerges, in the margins of
victory for each candidate pairing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">However, what might be called Condorcet implicit
preference weighting has its limitations. It does not reflect
personal orders of preference for personal representation. And
it changes with who votes in the electorate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Never the less, weighted Condorcet pairing, to some
extent vindicates (collectively) weighted order of preference.
But in doing so, it reinforces the case against unweighted
elimination counts. Hence weighted Condorcet pairing may be
approximately as accurate as the Borda count, both in principle
and in practise for the single member case.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">An advantage of a Binomial count, a rational count
for the exclusion, equally as well as the election, of
candidates, is that it can apply to single-member as well as
multi-member constituencies. (I.e. a binomial count offers the
consistency of a general theory of elections.) The necessary
practical consideration is that<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>all the preferences (including abstentions) are counted,
so it is known how much the voters wish to elect or exclude the
candidates. The consideration of principle is to introduce and
uphold the law of conservation of (preferential) information.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Richard Lung.</span></p>
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