SR - next Prin. meeting

[Timothy A. McDaniel]

I don't think I've explained preference voting in detail.
The Worldcon Constitution (World Science Fiction Society)
explains the processes succinctly, in the sections of the
Hugo Awards.

Every member of WSFS "shall be allowed to make five (5)
equally weighted nominations in every category".  The
committee puts the top five nominees (six in case of ties)
on the ballot for that category, plus a "No Award" choice.
"Voters shall indicate the order of their preference for the
nominees in each category."  That is, you vote for some or
all of them, numbering them 1, 2, 3, ... in the order you
want them.  For example, your first choice might be
Loewenstein, then second choice is Campoleone, then third
choice is Bob, then None (meaning you'd rather see the other
choices thrown out and do a new ballot rather than have the
other choices approved).

    2.9.2 In each category, votes shall first be tallied by
    the voter's first choices.  If no majority is then
    obtained, the nominee who placed last in the initial
    tallying shall be eliminated and the ballots listing it
    as first choice shall be redistributed on the basis of
    those ballots' second choices.

So if there's a majority of first-choice ballots, this
method works just like a normal vote -- majority wins.
If not, then normal ballots have a problem ...

Consider the following contrived example.  Suppose the
first-choice ballots are (ignoring None):

    Campoleone 197
    Bob 143
    Loewenstein 123
    Gunnora-on-Colorado 2

There's no majority, so the lowest tallyer, Gunnora, is
axed.  Gunnora and Damaris's second choices were
Loewenstein, so the new count is

    Campoleone 197
    Bob 143
    Loewenstein 123+2 = 125

Still no majority, so the Loewenstein choices are removed.
Gunnora and Damaris's third choices now come into play --
they voted for Campoleone.  Everyone else had as second
choice Bob.  Now it's

    Bob 143 + 123 (everyone else) = 266
    Campoleone 197 + 2 (G&D) = 199

Majority.  All hail the Principality of Bob.

(WSFS 2.9.3 deals with No Award.  Basically, if your highest
choices are tossed until you get to None, it sticks there
and doesn't go lower.  Other provisions deal with not having
enough people bothering to vote.)

Advantages to preference voting:

0. It's about as easy as normal voting to count -- just more
   passes.  If you entered each ballot into a computer you
   could automate it easily, but I'd prefer a hand count to
   avoid gross error.  I volunteer to help with the count.
   (I like paper-shuffling.)

1. It's the same as normal balloting if there's a majority.

2. It expands easily to more than two candidates.

3. It's all done in one balloting and people can indicate
   backup choices.  With a normal ballot,
   if you don't get a majority, you have two choices.
   a. Runoff election between the top 2 vote-getters (US).
      Double your cost, and make people tired with another
      vote.
   b. First-past-the-post (UK).  Whoever gets the most
      votes on the first ballot wins (plurality),
      regardless of whether it's more than half the vote
      (majority).  If you have 10 choices, you can win with
      10.1% of the vote, where 89.9% of the people voted
      for someone else and not for you.

4. It rewards less-controversial choices.  Bob wasn't the
   most popular first choice, but it had broad support as a
   second choice, and that made it win.

5. Recapping a previous note: there's no "vote splitting".
   In a regular ballot, two candidates with close positions
   can knock each other out.  Suppose you have, say,

       Anna
       Bob
       Brewster

   where Brewster and Bob are close on a lot of issues.  The
   people so inclined are likely to split their votes
   between them, leaving Anna to get a plurality even if
   Bob+Brewster together get more votes.

   In preference voting, people list Bob as #1 are likely to
   list Brewster as #2 and vice versa.  If Bob is knocked
   out, Brewster mostly gets his votes, and vice versa.
   People don't fear voting for either.

   We might have two Campo- names, say, or two French names,
   so vote-splitting is a concern.

Timo wrote:
> Maybe 15 choices and everyone gets to pick their top 3,
> then narrow to 5 and do over.

This is sort of the Hugo procedure.  There are an infinite
number of choices to nominate and everyone can pick 5, but
then narrow to 5 and do one preference ballot.

Did I make it clear?  Any questions?

Daniel "Peron: It's annoying that we have to / fight
elections for our cause / the inconvenience, having to get a
majority / If normal methods of persuasion / fail to win us
applause / there are other ways of establishing authority. //
Thugs: We have ways of making you vote for us / Or at least
of making you abstain" de Lincolia
-- 
Tim McDaniel (home); Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; 
if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com is my work address.
============================================================================
Go to http://www.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.