Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!brazos.rice.edu!bbc From: bbc@titan.rice.edu (Benjamin Chase) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: These new voting schemes Message-ID: Date: 24 Oct 89 04:33:16 GMT References: <4771@ncar.ucar.edu> <6618@ficc.uu.net> <8375@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Sender: root@rice.edu Reply-To: Benjamin Chase Followup-To: news.admin Distribution: na Organization: CPRC, Rice University Lines: 80 In-reply-to: bee@cs.purdue.EDU's message of 21 Oct 89 09:04:21 GMT bee@cs.purdue.EDU (Zaphod Beeblebrox) writes: [Regarding a compressed format for reporting votes ala Alien Wells] >Actually this type of format could be used very easily to report the >modified STV (STV + "NO GROUP") that has been proposed. Instead of Y >or N or -, put down the numerical position of the group in that >voter's preference list. Yes. >If "NO GROUP" is nowhere in the list, then >the others would be reported as -, indicating no support or opposition >for that group. If "NO GROUP" is above a given group, then X is put >in the column for that group, indicating opposition to that name. >Hence the above might look like: You don't need this complication for reporting the votes, and you can make the results more compact. First, just treat the "NO GROUP" group like another group. When reporting votes, there's no reason to emphasize the difference between it and other groups. Next, instead of assigning columns to groups and numbers (&characters, as you have done) to the preference rank, assign a unique number to each group, and assign columns to the preference rank. My assumption is that after voting for the "NO GROUP" group, a voter might not bother to name all the remaining (undesired) names. This behavior is exhibited in the sample votes cast below. Thus: >peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) >rec.arts.wotw >rec.arts.tv.wotw >rec.arts.war-worlds >peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) >rec.arts.tv.wotw >rec.arts.wotw >NO GROUP >sexton@gryphon.com (Richard Sexton) >sci.space.wotw >NO GROUP Becomes: 1=rec.arts.wotw 2=rec.arts.tv.wotw 3=rec.arts.war-worlds 4=sci.space.wotw 5=NO GROUP 1 2 3 peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) 2 1 5 peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) 4 5 sexton@gryphon.com (Richard Sexton) It's reasonably easy for an individual to verify that her vote was counted in the intended way. One interesting thing is the treatment of ballots which do not list all of the candidates, and also omit "NO GROUP" in their ranking. If all of their candidates lose, their ballot is then thrown out, since there is no next candidate indicated for whom their vote should be cast. Thus, their vote ends up counting (I suppose) as an abstention. I _guess_ this is a feature, although one that is probably not obvious to the voter. Thus, this should be mentioned in the voting instructions for this modified STV scheme. >Personally I think that the modified STV is the best system by far. Yeah, me too. Maybe that's because we both seem to have preferences :-). > [Enumeration of STV benefits elided] > It also lets me vote for certain names while expressing no preference > either way on the rest. But, I don't think it will do this. Unless "the rest" refers to those groups that you didn't list on your ballot, or to those that appeared below "NO GROUP" on your ballot. -- Ben Chase , Rice University, Houston, Texas (First one up against the wall when the fish police arrived.)