Jim
Apologies fro being so long in replying, but I didn't loose sight of it because
you have raised several interesting issues.

>
> I was not dismissing it as simply a mix-up in the parameter settings.
>
> As I noted, the same software (apparently) was used in
> Burlington, VT two months ago for a single seat IRV election.
> There were no parameters related to quotas and surpluses,
> not because they used a different STV algorithm, but because
> they used the "Instant Runoff
> Voting" rather than the "Choice Voting" algorithm.
>
> That is, the problem in Aspen was NOT one of setting the wrong
> parameters for handling surpluses. It was one of setting the
> election to be conducted as an STV election, rather than an
> IRV election. The program provided an entirely different
> designations for an "Instant Runoff Voting" and a "Choice
> Election".

So the fault was to select the wrong version of the program. That surely was as
irresponsible (criminally irresponsible ?) as
setting the wrong parameters would have been. Has anyone been held properly to
account for this blunder?


> The problem was not necessarily obvious in Aspen. After all,
> the news release that you referenced was issued 3 weeks after
> the election, and the (updated) election results at
> http://www.aspenpitkin.com/depts/38/
> are less than transparent.

I deliberately did not comment on the reported situation in Aspen though I was
aware of it because I received information about it
from three different sources: anti-IRV campaigners, pro-IRV campaigners, and an
insider who had been involved in running the program
at Aspen and elsewhere. So no further comment here.


> >Cambridge MA transfers surpluses only of first preference votes. Their
> >version of STV-PR (uniquely, I think) prevents surpluses from arising
> >at subsequent stages (rounds) and so there is no provision in those
> >rules for dealing with consequential surpluses.
>
> There is a different way of understanding this. Cambridge
> transfers votes one by one. This could be considered simply
> a more granular version of the practice under ERS rules or NI
> rules of transferring parcels of ballots with unique transfer
> values separately. IIUC, if the distribution of a parcel at
> one transfer value causes a candidate to reach quota, then
> votes from the parcels with a lesser transfer value are not
> transfered to the newly elected candidate.

Here you are referring to transfers on exclusion, when the "unusual" Cambridge
rule is for transfers of "surpluses", as you go on to
describe.

> In Cambridge, there are effectively instantaneous surpluses
> of one that are immediately dealt with, either by
> transferring to the next continuing preference; or if there
> are no more continuing preferences, by dislodging an earlier
> transfer from the stack of votes.

I think this is very good explanation of the Cambridge approach. I suspect that
it may be a more primitive (earlier) version of
dealing with "surpluses" in whole ballot counts, but I have no evidence for the
history.

But there are two problems with it in relation to introducing undesirable
elements of chance.
Firstly, what happens to my ballot depends on where my ballot comes in the
sequence of transfers that leads to a "surplus". If my
ballot is earlier in that sequence, it sticks with the newly elected candidate
when s/he attains the quota. If it comes later in
that sequence, after s/he has attained the quota, my ballot is immediately
transferred to my next available preference.
Secondly, if my ballot has no next available preference, they put it into the
quota pile and take out another ballot that has a
further preference marked.
The random nature of these operations could significantly affect the outcome,
and to a greater extent than in the Dáil Éireann whole
ballot rules.

This approach may once have seemed a reasonable way of dealing with "surpluses"
in whole ballot counts, but I can't see any possible
justification for continuing to use a method with so many random elements -
except that "We don't want to change"!


> >Cambridge MA is not alone in transferring all transferable votes, even
> >after the required number of winners has been identified. This is done
> >in the manually counted STV-PR elections to the Dáil Éireann because
> >the rules on refunding candidates' money deposits are based on the
> >proportion of the votes each candidate has AFTER all votes have been
> >transferred. This adds otherwise unnecessary rounds (stages) to the
> >count.
>
> Isn't this more commonly done at earlier stages where
> consolidated exclusions of trailing candidates is avoided in
> cases where a candidate might reach the sub-quota (1/4 of a
> full quota?) to save his deposit. At the end stages, the
> continuing candidates usually have a fairly substantial share
> of a quota.

I have no idea how common this requirement is. There are comparatively few
jurisdictions around the world using STV-PR for public
elections and I suspect they all have different rules on candidate nomination,
e.g. requiring a deposit, circumstances in which the
deposit will be refunded. The sample would be small, but I haven't attempted to
collect the evidence for an assessment of "common".

However, I have looked again at the rules for the Dáil Éireann STV-PR elections
and they contain a paradox, as do the Northern
Ireland STV-PR rules for the European Parliament election. Both sets of rules
require transfers "to the bitter end", if necessary,
to see if the one runner-up could secure enough votes to retain the deposit, but
both sets of rules mandate multiple-exclusion at
earlier stages even if some candidate would thereby be denied the opportunity to
secure the magic proportion of votes to retain the
deposit.

Such an anomaly almost certainly arose during the count for the recent 2009
European Parliament election in Northern Ireland (I was
there). See:
http://www.eoni.org.uk/european_election_2009_-_result-3.pdf

You'll see that at Stage 1, the Sinn Féin candidate was elected, but transfer of
her surplus was deferred for Stage 2 as it could
not affect the order of the bottom two candidates and the next above. The NI
STV-PR election rules for this election mandate that
when two or more candidates can be excluded together, they MUST be excluded
together. So at Stage 2, the Green Party candidate and
the Alliance Party candidate were excluded together, and both lost their
deposits: £5,000 from each party. Given the politics of
Northern Ireland, had these two candidates been excluded separately, it is
highly likely the enough of the Green Party votes would
have transferred to the Alliance Party to bring the Alliance Party candidate
above the magic 25% threshold to retain his deposit -
that would have saved that small party £5,000. They did appeal to the Returning
Officer to make the inevitable exclusions
separately, but he had no discretion in the matter, so they went out together
and both lost their deposits.

This does seem highly anomalous in view of the requirement to transfer "to the
bitter end" just to protect the runner-up, but the
real solution is to abolish the requiring for money deposits as we have done in
many other UK public elections without adverse
effects.

James
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.36/2272 - Release Date: 07/30/09
05:58:00