From: (Gerry Gryschuk)
Subject: Re: Voting Systems (was Re: Proportional representation)
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 10:39:16 GMT

From article <1dhp3kINNrif@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca>, by mathew@unixg.ubc.ca (Mathew B Englander):
> In article <1992Nov6.123920.21484@access.usask.ca> (Gerry Gryschuk) writes:
>>Anyway, yes this method would be flawed. However a simple fix would be to
>>set a fixed number of "points" to the place a person voted a candidate.
>>Simply base it on the number of candidates running and no problem should
>>arise. That is in your examples a first place vote is worth 3, second 2 and
>>3rd 1. In this case C wins both times and by a wider margin in the second
>>scenario as she should. The math is left as an excercise for the reader.
>>
>>I believe this might be the way Australia does it, I could be wrong though.
>>I do know they use STV of some sort.
>>--
> I believe Australia uses STV to elect their senators. Ireland uses
> STV as well. However, what you have described here is not any sort
> of STV at all, but a Borda count. It was invented by someone named
> Borda, and I believe also by Lewis Carroll, independently.

Hey I just thought of it on the spur of the moment, so do I get credit
for thinking of it "independently" as well? :-)
> 
> The Borda Count is much better than STV, but is flawed in a couple
> of ways. For one, it is very susceptible to strategic voting. For
> example, suppose there are four candidates: A and B represent
> mainstream parties, while C and D represent extremist parties, and
> have little chance of winning. There will be a large number of
> voters whose first choice is A, but would rather see B elected than
> either C or D.
> 
> The "true" preference ranking of these voters is, let's say, 
> A, B, D, C. 
> 
> However, under a Borda Count it's in their interests to vote
> A, D, C, B. This is because only A and B have a real chance
> of winning, so by putting B in second place is a detriment to
> the voters first choice of A.
> 
> And of course, if enough people vote strategically this way,
> one of the extremist candidates could win!
> 
> Even if only a few voters use this strategy, A could win when the
> winner "should" be B, or vice-versa.

Thanks for pointing out the problem. Really I appreciate it, but I was
just trying to fix the "problem" with the original situation.

Mind you if people did vote the way you suggest above then they would
deserve whatever government they got.

The best solution of course is to simply take as much power away
from our governmental officials as feasibly possible and give
it back to the people. The thought that some people can be paying over
half their income simply in various taxes is indefensible and should
never be allowed to happen.

If various governments didn't have the considerable power they have to
screw around with the economy the way they do it wouldn't much matter
what group of politicians were in office at the time.
--
Gerald Gryschuk            Saskatoon,Saskatchewan = a place with 9 months
gerry@sask.usask.ca           of hockey and 3 months of poor skating.
Go Habs!!!		              (The Bum rules!!!)
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