On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:46:07 +0100, "James Gilmour"
<jgilmour@...> wrote:

>> 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?

AFAIK, whether an election is counted as a "Choice Election" or an
"Instant Runoff Voting" is itself a parameter setting.

>> >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.

Cambridge only has true surpluses if a candidate has more than a quota
of 1st preferences. In Cambridge, the surplus that is transferred is
based on a sample of ballots. So if a candidate has 1250 1st
preferences and the quota is 1000, the surplus of 250 of 1250 ballots
is selected by using every 5th ballot. In the Republic of Ireland,
the surplus to be transferred would be determined after sorting the
ballots by next continuing preference, and taking 1/5 the ballots from
each sub-parcel (deliberately ignoring exhausted ballots).

In Cambridge, the distribution of ballots from a 1st preference
surplus (after the surplus has been selected) or from an excluded
candidate is the same, when the ballot reaches a candidate who has
achieved a quota during the transfer.

>> 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.

Quite possible. Cambridge has used STV (1930s?) for a long time, and
only in the 1990s switched to computerized counting. The particular
section of Massachusetts law that permits a city or town to use STV
has been repealed, so I don't think that another town in Massachusetts
coudl adopt STV, or that Cambridge could change its counting method
without a change in Massachusetts law.

On the Cambridge web site, there is a link to something about a
Cincinnati counting method. Cincinnati, Ohio at one time used STV and
then switch back to FPTP (in the 1950s perhaps). So perhaps Cambridge
borrowed the method from Cincinnati.

>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.

A curiousity of the Cambridge method is that the first step is to
randomize the order in which the ballot boxes from different polling
places are opened and processed. This is apparently still done, even
though the rest of the counting is computerized. Of course, this will
affect which ballots are used to reach quota, and which are
transferred on to the next preference.

>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"!

Alternatively, it would be difficult to change given that the
Massachusetts legislature has eliminated the option to use STV.

It may also be that when a clerk is following a procedure that says to
take every nth ballot, they don't recognize it as being a random
sample, since the randomizing occured when the ballots were shuffled
up before counting; and you would do the same shuffling if it were a
simple FPTP election.

>> >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.

I tried to find some earlier versions of the Northern Ireland rules,
and I didn't find any that did not have the same rule requiring
multiple exclusions.

Does NI use different rules for local elections? The election for MEP
and also the Assembly would be by British law, but what about for
local elections? Does any NI law exist in force that was passed by NI
Parliament?

>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.

I imagine that the Greens would favor Parsley.

http://stickinout.bigcartel.com/product/ian-parsley

>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.
--
Jim Riley