[EL] Single-Transferrable Vote

Fri Jan 25 14:40:41 PST 2019

I am missing where the congressional apportionment math used in the back rooms of the Census Bureau relates to the question of how complicated a system the voters are open to using to decide how to mark their ballots. Of course we don’t ask anyone to vote using the Method of Equal Proportions. The only folks that need to learn it are the Census statisticians and Clark and Kim to predict and to check the work of those Census statisticians.

Separately, thanks for the clarification on Cambridge. I did not realize that. Is there awareness in the city that the 2nd round winners are essentially chosen by random drawing? 

Bigger-picture, I think the Cambridge situation proves my point: if the fractional-transfer approach – which is the only way to avoid a potential random drawing election result – is too complicated for MIT voters, how does one support an argument it would be practical nationwide? Or are single transferrable vote advocates actually suggesting letting random draws heavily influence the makeup of Congress? (I know all the lawyers on this list are salivating at the business that would generate, but . . . )

Regarding the Belgium modified-straight-party-voting system, I am not aware of any jurisdiction in the US, nor any opinion poll, that has found American voters have any interest in voting for a party list rather than for individuals, even in the Belgium modified system. (And of course party leaders like a party-ticket system where party leaders decide who gets on the ticket in what order). 

Actually, let me correct myself: Americans did change our election system nationally to straight-party-ticket voting for one office: the electoral college. Anyone think that’s a good example to cite when trying to enact an election system change? 

More seriously, I think the idea of replacing candidate names with party label voting is a complete non-starter in the US. It may be fun for academic papers to ponder, but I agree with Professor Mulroy (whose pro-STV article started this conversation) that: “Most PR systems have voters vote for parties rather than candidates, eschew primary elections, or foster the instability of parliamentary systems, making them unsuitable for America.”

*	Doug

Douglas Johnson, Ph.D.

Fellow, Rose Institute of State and Local Government

at Claremont McKenna College

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

direct: 310-200-2058

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of Edelman, Paul
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 11:35 AM
To: John Tanner <john.k.tanner at gmail.com>; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Single-Transferrable Vote

The US has over 80 years of using the Hill method for apportionment.  Any guesses on  how many people understand it?

Paul H. Edelman

Professor of Mathematics and Law

Vanderbilt University

paul.edelman at vanderbilt.edu <mailto:paul.edelman at vanderbilt.edu> 

615-322-0990

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> > On Behalf Of John Tanner
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 1:30 PM
To: Jack Santucci <jms346 at georgetown.edu <mailto:jms346 at georgetown.edu> >
Cc: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu <mailto:law-election at uci.edu> >
Subject: Re: [EL] Single-Transferrable Vote

Well, the Belgians have had nearly 120 years to get used to the H’ondt system, so most of them probably understand its operation

On Jan 25, 2019, at 2:16 PM, Jack Santucci <jms346 at georgetown.edu <mailto:jms346 at georgetown.edu> > wrote:

Doug and Vlad et al,

It sounds like Doug is describing a fractional transfer method, which is not what Cambridge (MA) uses. From a candidate with surplus, ballots are randomly chosen for transfer. Others on the list know these details better than I.

To Vlad's point, how many Belgians can explain the mechanics of a D'Hondt seat allocation under that country's closed-list PR system? I suspect most cannot. Rather, a sufficient set of parties is happy enough with the system to avoid referring to "lottery effects" and other confusing mechanics. Parties simply tell their voters to vote for the party -- not unlike what we saw here, when many cities had STV.

Jack

On Jan 25, 2019, at 13:42, Kogan, Vladimir < <mailto:kogan.18 at osu.edu> kogan.18 at osu.edu> wrote:

Doug raises a very important point. I think the educational challenge in terms of explaining the system to voters is only a piece of it. Imagine also the voter education challenge in actually learning enough information about a sufficient number of candidates to be able to rank them in a way that makes your vote effective. I think that challenge is impractically difficult for a significant minority of voters, especially for lower-salience down-ballot races, and this explains why we see such high rates of  <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fu.osu.edu%2Fkogan.18%2Ffiles%2F2014%2F12%2FElectoralStudies-2fupfhd.pdf&data=02%7C01%7Cpaul.edelman%40law.vanderbilt.edu%7Cc11e43abb8204a6fea5108d682fb9ea3%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636840414542236800&sdata=VyskEtAIFq7JX3pbG%2Bs7tygzdhvHjNVp7TSjpM6Bf2U%3D&reserved=0> ballot exhaustion when IRV/RCV is used in local elections.

An important, and I think woefully understudied, question is whether this affects certain voters more than others. The answer has obvious political and legal implications.

From: Law-election < <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of Douglas Johnson
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 1:34 PM
To: 'Rick Hasen' < <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu> rhasen at law.uci.edu>; 'Election Law Listserv' < <mailto:law-election at uci.edu> law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Single-Transferrable Vote

While single-transferable vote sounds nice in the simple description below, I encourage list readers to consider how it works in practice, while keeping in mind how hard states are working to remove obstacles to voter participation and causes of voter confusion with our existing very simple elections. Now swap that current simple system for this:

If there are 5 seats open and 1,000 votes cast, then it takes 201 votes (1/5 + 1) to meet the “quota” that guarantees a win.

Now imagine a candidate receives 287 first-place votes. The candidate only needs 201 (70% of 287) votes to win, so 86 votes, or 30%, of the candidate’s votes will be allocated to the voters’ 2nd choice. But not all of the 287 voters have the same 2nd choice. So for each of those 287 voters’ ballots, the 2nd choice receives 0.3 votes (30% of one vote). So a candidate who was listed 2nd on 95 of those 287 ballots would gain 28.5 votes toward the 201 vote target in the second round of vote-counting (and yes, we would now be announcing fractional votes).

I suppose it is no surprise that such a complicated system is used in the city that is the home of MIT, but can you imagine the voter-education challenge explaining all of this anywhere else?

-          Doug

Douglas Johnson, Ph.D.

Fellow, Rose Institute of State and Local Government

at Claremont McKenna College

 <mailto:douglas.johnson at cmc.edu> douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

direct: 310-200-2058

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