Topics created by AnnieK

Hopefully it's now been sent.

@anniek said in Good simple semi-PR methods?:

A group I'm tangentially connected to has decided to switch from sequential proportional approval voting to cumulative voting (voters are given a number of points equal to the number of seats, and each voter can give any amount of their available points to one or more candidates). I'm concerned because I have heard that cumulative voting is susceptible to vote-splitting and bullet voting. Where can I learn more about these effects in cumulative voting?

The main problem with cumulative voting is what happens if they don't do bullet voting. Cumulative voting produces kind-of-proportional representation if voters are strategic and perfectly informed, because minority groups can coordinate to bullet-vote. However, too much honest voting by these groups can easily result in a bare majority sweeping all the seats; in other words, requires some very complicated coordination (especially in small elections).

I don't think there are any proportional methods simpler than SPAV except party-list representation, or possibly sequential Ebert (although I'd consider sequential Ebert about as simple as SPAV).

Have you asked what makes this group think of SPAV as "too complex?"

@sarawolk said in "None of the Below":

If 'None of the Below' wasn't able to stop the count then it could only block one seat from being filled. I agree that's a simpler and more transparent implementation, but it seems like the intention is to be able to block multiple candidates if needed.

I think I mentioned in my post above that you could have "none of the below" (NOTB) standing effectively as multiple clone candidates. For example, it's a 5 seat election using score ballots. Whatever score someone gives to NOTB counts towards 5 clone candidates. So it's effectively a party vote for the NOTB party.

Or if it's ranked ballots, it would just take up 5 spaces in your rankings. So if your rank was 1. NOTB; 2. John Smith, it would actually be 1-5. NOTB; 6. John Smith.