Question

In Single Transferable Vote (STV), what would be the effects of setting seatsTotal = candidatesRemaining-1 until seatsTotal = seatsDesired when calculating the votesToWinSeat quota?

- The significant processing increase is known.
- Would this have an effect similar to an STV-Condorcet hybrid?
- How would this affect vote strategizing?

Example

A race for 2 seats with 6 candidates.

Typically, you would run the STV process to determine:

1. 2 seats from 6 candidates.

What if you instead ran the STV process to determine:

1. 5 seats from 6 candidates.
2. 4 seats from the remaining 5 candidates.
3. 3 seats from the remaining 4 candidates.
4. 2 seats from the remaining 3 candidates.

In typical STV, votesBeforeSharing > votesTotal / 3 across all eliminations.
In the What If, votesBeforeSharing > votesTotal / 6 before the first elimination, and the 6 decrements as candidates are eliminated.

I'll probably be making a lot of these, since I'm very indecisive. But here's the idea: most seats elected by free cumulative panachage (voters have as any votes as seats and can spread them across party lists, seats are proportionally allocated by party using the votes to rank candidates) in 10-member districts, with a small national closed list topup to ensure overall proportionality. Would this be better or worse than MMP with local seat removal?

Im trying to make a presentation on different voting systems and im a bit confused by the rigourous terminology. Both terms are thrown around a lot and all definitions i understand basically mean the same thing: the presence of a non-winner affecting the end results.

Some questionable sites claim they are not the same, but they all fail to provide adequate explanations.

So I know it's a sequential-elimination Condorcet Borda variant wherein candidates at or below the average Borda score are eliminated. The part that confuses me is where everyone says just "the ballots are recounted as if only the uneliminated candidates were on them." Does this mean you recalculate the average and eliminate again until one candidate has majority of all points in play (as seems to be shown on electowiki), or something else?

Zweitmandat is a version of MMP (can be done with any MMP version, including AMS) in which, rather than party lists nominated before the election, lists are assembled after the election from the best losers. This could be done by total vote number, vote percentage, or smallest margin of defeat. What are your thoughts on the system and which version do you prefer? I personally like smallest margin of defeat, but total percentage works too. Total vote number could get iffy because it's usually impossible to make every district have the exact same number of members.

I wanted to add a poll bot to my friends' discord server, but I thought that I should add one that gave me the option to run polls with different voting systems. Is there a discord bot that can allow me to choose from a bunch of different voting systems and implement a poll? At the very least are there discord bots for approval voting, ranked choice, Condorcet, etc? Also, would there be bots for multi-candidate positions, like STV and open list?

MJ is especially popular in France, where it has been used for a primary election, and it has been proposed for single winner seats in MMP for European Parliament elections. Its inventors are well regarded electoral scientists. Yet it's rarely discussed by English speaking electoral reform advocates. Personally I like it but I understand that the tie-breaking mechanism can be controversial. What do you think are its pros and cons?

From what I understand, you have a certain fraction of memebrs elected by FPTP, and a certain fraction elected from party lists, but the list seats are apportioned based on all of the votes not cast for candidates that won their constituency. What is the logic behind this? Why would this ever be used instead of one-vote MMM or MMP?

So I like MMP but not the flexible seats part. So is it better to guarantee local representation at the expense of proportionality, or to guarantee proportionality at the expense of local representation?

(Note: I would propose that if any districts are denied a representative on the overhang seats, they would be assigned a representative in the same way as PPP, and list seats would only be used once all districts have a representative).

In my "campaign" for adoption of Method of Equal Shares for participatory budgeting, I have come accross the concern that it would incentives tactical voting and strategic project submission/pitches. Now the interesting part is that this was from a big advocate of Approval voting otherwise, somewhat of a perfectionist in that the system "must be designed with the incentives in mind first", i guess even superceding it's proportionality consideration. While I'd love to continue that conversation, it's certainly a big one, but I a probably underqualified to address this particular aspect of PAV, MES and the like.

I am not a big fan of Approval voting precisely because to me it feels strategic. I know you can define strategyproof in a weak way that is isn't, but as for perception, I think the strategy in Approval is not less, if not more present in the mind of voters, and of this I think empirical evidence is what could change my mind. Kind of like we know top2 runoff has an extra type of tactical voting (pushover or turkey-raising or whatever we are calling it now) compared to simple FPTP but voters don't neccessarily percieve it that way. Most think you can vote honestly in the first round and "compromise" in the second, although we kind of know it's the other way around theoretically. You can do two types of tactical votes in the first round and then second round is sincere.

Now what is the case with Proportional Approval types and MES? Would people feel like they have to vote tactically? Is it well grounded in theory? Even more important, would tactics be more prevalant than in the alternatives (block approval voting, block knapsack voting)? (I doubt it more objectively, but subjectively could it feel that way?)

What would be the best Participatory Budgeting system that IS designed on voter and project proposer incentives?

I want to create a google form for a survey of 5 options but I think, if using approval voting, maybe there will be bias because people do not realize multiple votes are allowed. I think enforcing exactly two or three options will be less biased, but it is less fair and I do not know if the tradeoff is worthy. I also do not wish to use ranking or score voting.

Make it candidate-centered. Here's my idea: candidates campaign as candidates (i.e. themselves, rather than for the party) in local areas. On election day, voters vote for a party, as in standard list-PR, but the write the names of up to five candidates in their area (areas would be equally populated) below the party name. After seats are apportioned, the candidates with the most votes are used to fill the seats. There you go. It's kind of like Proportional Past the Post (yes I know it has other names that were used before but I like PPP), but constituencies aren't guaranteed equal representation, rather they are used to make candidate-centered PR manageable with a national list.

And here's why: I think a two-round jackpot is a good system.

Now, to address criticism:

"Well, if a majority is guaranteed, then why not just do party block voting?"

Because the proportional seats give small parties a chance to increase their visibility and give them a shot at the jackpot. If it's just basically FPTP for a single seat (as national PBV would be), then you still get two-party consolidation. The proportional part of a jackpot system maintains a multi-party aspect.

"Well what about coalitions?"

Certainly coalition governments can work, but not always. Italy abandoned pure PR for a reason, that being that the competitive political culture made coalition governments nearly impossible. In fact they had a similar system to what I'm proposing on the books, but it was gutted by the Constitutional Court and repealed before ever being used.

"How will this help in countries with entrenched two-party systems?"

It probably won't. I'm not saying this is the best system for every case, just that in many scenarios where a multi-party culture is already present it's a good alternative to pure list-PR.

• Senate is chosen by sortition.
  • Senators serve for staggered 8 years term divided into 4 generations with two years separating each generation
  • Every two years, the oldest generation leaves and new generation is selected by lots
• Senators can serve more than one term if reselected by the lottery
• Number of senators per province = Population of province/10000 or so
• Council of 12: of the Senators selected, another 12 are chosen by lots to serve on a special council
  • Via unanimous dissent can reject a bill if deemed unconstitutional
  • One assenting voice can accept a bill
  • This replaces the Governor General
  • Serve for 2 year terms
  • Legally allowed to smear poop on the desk of the Prime Minister or any Member of Parliament to mark dissatisfaction
• Voir Dire mechanism: If the Council of 12 upon unanimous agreement finds that a Senator is not fit for duty before their first time in office, then the Prime Minister can choose for that person's seat to be reselected.
  • Up to 10 people at a time can be unselected in this manner every 2 year cycle
• Another class of individuals without vote called Sortellectuals are selected to be the theoretically impartial experts that guide the Senators
  • They are responsible for continously educating and providing guidance for the Senators
  • Universities submit rosters of those with masters and PHds among various disciplines and for each relevant discipline, experts are chosen by lots.
  • Similar staggering process to Senators chosen
  • There are financial incentives for passing classes or exams that the sortellectuals deem important
• Can submit bills if 2/3 of the Senate give a signature for supporting a potential bill
  • This preserves that the main law-making body is the elected branch.
• Committee on Corruption (CC): Has special investigatory powers and is always on guard for finding corruption, including any pre-existing anti-corruption governmental bodies
  • Rotated every 2 year
  • Can investigate any person or organization in Canada without a warrant
  • Can fine any person, organization in Canada
  • Council of 12 Members cannot serve at the same time on CC
• Most committees appointments are four years unless the committee is dissolved before then
• If a bill that originates in the Senate is passed unanimously, then it bypasses any need for readings in the elected house;
  • However, all bills that originate in the House of Commons must go through the regular readings
• Random circular seating plan
  • Every year, a new seating plan is created
• Board of governers, trustees etc. of government institutions must go through the Senate first before they are appointed
• Can impeach up to one Member of Parliament per year
  • 2/3 approval of the Senate with unanimous agreement by Council of 12 or
  • 4/5 approval of the Senate (not needing unanimous agreement by Council of 12)

Hello everyone, I have some questions for you all about Method of Equal Shares, particularly in the context of electing a committee. 

For the purpose of understanding, I've already constructed an example, that I hope may help. Let's say, in the fictional town of Digme, there is an election being run. Voters cast ballots that allow for equal ranking (every candidate ranked at the same level or above are treated as approvals). There are 14 candidates running (A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3, D1, D2, E1 and F1). When elections were announced, the city also announced that there would be a fixed quota of 3202 to be elected. The results of the vote were as followed:

Looking at only the first ranks in the initial rounds, the candidates initially had the following support:

Below is a poll of different winner sets that I've come up with already. The explanation for each one will be down below in the comments.
Poll: Which winner set is the "best" one for this example?

View Poll

I am trying to write an explainer for extensions of Condorcet winners, like Smith sets, etc, in a sort of learning-by-doing way. Unfortunately the resources I am using are not always easy to understand and sometimes they do a wonderful job at confusing me.

So I came up with the example of:

1:A>E>D>B>C>F

1:C>D>A>F>B>E

1:B>E>F>C>A>D

We have Condorcet loser (F), and the Smith set is everyone else, and this is the same as the Schwartz set. The uncovered set is within this, since A covers B (I hope I say that correctly). Now do I understand correctly, that Smith sets can be nested in oneanother, but uncovered sets cannot? Since D is in their, E is still uncovered. B ut if we remove D, then E is out of the uncovered set. Does this process have a name? What is the miminal uncovered set called? Is it in any way related to the essential or bipartisan set (and are these the same thing)?

Speaking of which, is there absolutely no difference between the uncovered set, Landau set and Fishburn set?

Also, if we change to C=A in the example, then A becomes weak Condorcet winner, also the entiretely of the Schwartz set, so now it's subset of the uncovered set.

Why is the Schwartz set not more popular than the Smith set, or the uncovered set, or whichever is smaller? Can they be completely disjoint? The uncovered set seems very reasonable for clones but the Schwarz set seems to be the stricter Smith set, where possible, but since as far as I understand, it just deals with ties, so I see how in practice, it's not that important. But it also seems like the relationship Schwartz/weak Condorcet ( according to: https://electowiki.org/wiki/Beatpath\_example\_12) is not exactly the same as the Smith/Condorcet, so then what is the real generalization of weak Condorcet?

Thank you for replies on any of these points or if someone can point me where I should study this from.

View Poll

This is an argument I've heard before against proportional representation, and I want to dissect it some.

(To clarify, I strongly support PR systems in general)

The underlying implication here could be that because each representative technically represents a segment of the electorate, they are only required to serve that segment and not the whole district.

Alternatively, it could mean that since no representative feels responsible for the whole, they'd be more inclined to pass the buck on to someone else representing their district.

This is ultimately a cultural issue. In a healthy democracy, a representative would want to help all of their constituents when possible, not just the ones who voted for them. (Speaking as an American)

In countries with proportional representation, how does this dynamic usually play out? Do PR representatives feel responsible to their whole district, or just part of it?

Voters rank parties in order of preference.

After this, a winning party is determined as in BTR-IRV.

That party receives 50%+1 of the seats or however many is needed for a bare majority.

All other parties below 3% are eliminated, and votes for them are transferred to the highest-ranked option that was neither the winning party nor eliminated.

The remaining seats are proportionally allocated using the Sainte-Lague method, with the party that won the jackpot starting with the jackpot seats included so that it will not win more seats than the jackpot unless it is proportionally justified.

This was based on the previous PR-IRV system suggested in a post proposing it for the Greek Parliament.

In a recent question someone said that PAV is so computationally complex that it is rendered infeasible even for computers . This made me wonder, outside of STV, if any Cardinal method is actually usable in an election. There's numerous PR methods and variations and so on and I see all sorts of arguments in forums, reddit comments, websites etc, (that I don't really understand, especially the math) about what voting method is actually proportional and why this isn't and so forth but I don't understand the complex argument's for the most part, and I'm curious if anyone can explain what Cardinal PR they think is proportional and simple enough that it can be justifiably used over STV which has been apparently used in Ireland and Malta since 1921, is quite proportional, and has a pragmatic argument for it's adoption in say, the US House of Representatives.

Voters vote as in regular STV.

Once a candidate passes the quota, their surplus is calculated.

Ballots for the elected candidate are grouped by highest-ranked hopeful*

Successive quotients for each hopeful are calculated using the formula quotient=V/2S+1, where V is the number of ballots contributing to the just-elected candidate ranking the candidate in question as the highest hopeful and S is the number of votes transferred to the candidate in question, starting at zero and increasing by one each time the candidate has the highest quotient.

Each time a hopeful receives the highest quotient, one vote is transferred to them.

This is repeated until a number of votes equal to the surplus have been transferred.

*"Hopeful" is defined as a candidate who has been neither elected nor eliminated.

Other note: Ideally, elimination of candidates would only be done to resolve situations where no candidate has a quota of votes.

I am on a quest to find the objectively best voting system. Here are the criteria:

It must be proportional

It must be candidate-centered and use ranked, approval, score (or graded), or cumulative ballots

It must be implemented in a 3-9 member district

It cannot achieve proportionality by giving winners weighted votes (so no Method of Equal Shares or Evaluative Proportional Representation)

One thing worth noting:

I have come up with a few systems in the process. Here they are (apologies for bad naming):

Quota Judgement:

Vote as in Majority Judgement, elect winners in rounds, remove the Hare Quota of ballots most strongly supporting each winner after each round as in Sequential Monroe.

Proportional Condorcet Score:

Mostly the same as Reweighted Range Voting, but determine the winners by Bottom-Two-Runoff Score rather than standard Score, and use Sainte-Lague rather than D'Hondt-equivalent reweighting (either 1/2+S/M or 1+2S/2M, as opposed to the standard 1+S/M as the divisor.)