[Lnc-business] commentary on Scottish STV

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

This is fantastic - and exactly the kind of analysis we need.  It is much
different to talk about it, and then to do it, which is why I am eager for
us to try things.

Though I think each of these will elect 9 since they don't require
majority.  If we require majority, then certainly I think 3-4 is pretty
accurate.

What we will be able to do now with this data is run it through many
systems and parameters.  I think it will be eye-opening.

On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 2:32 AM Alicia Mattson via Lnc-business <
lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:

> I have a number of comments I wish to make about the Scottish STV voting
> system, but I don't have time to write it all up this evening.  I will
> start with these comments and add more details to these thoughts later.
>
> It is one thing to read the theory and rules for a voting system on a
> webpage, but it's another thing to print out the paper ballots and enact
> the process yourself to see the effects of each step.  Last night, I took
> the 7 ballots cast up to that point, printed them out on paper, and put
> them in piles on the floor to manually experience how it works.
>
> It didn't take long before my eyes got wide.  Then a little later my jaw
> dropped as I realized more and more implications of the process.  When I
> was done, I paced around the living room in a bit of a rant as I put my
> realizations into words.
>
> Clearly, this voting system was envisioned for situations in which the
> number of ballots being cast VASTLY outnumbers (by orders of magnitude)
> both the number of seats being filled and also the number of candidates.
>
> In our case, however, if everyone had voted it would have been 17 ballots
> cast to choose from more than 40 candidates to fill 9 seats.  I only saw
> ballots from 12 people on one election and 13 on the other, making the
> ratios even worse.  This seems to be in the range of worst-case-scenario
> for this voting system.
>
> With these ratios, the process devolves into essentially a casino game of
> chance necessitating random candidate eliminations early in the process.
> After the first round of vote distributions, we might as well just tell the
> candidates to play Russian roulette...or for fewer dead bodies we could
> just draw names out of a hat.
>
> If I correctly understand the process, then it's mathematically impossible
> for the number of ballots cast in these two elections to elect more than 6
> candidates to each committee.  Looking at the vote distribution, we'll
> elect at least 3 but no more than 6, depending on the outcome of some
> random selections, so we're in for re-balloting anyway.
>
> More specifics later...
>
> -Alicia
>


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