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Voting matters - To advance the understanding of preferential voting systems

Issue 25, September 2008

(Complete issue in PDF, 276Kb.)

Editorial

There are three items in this issue:

Thomas Hare: A New Statistical Method This is a reprint of his classic paper to match the one in the previous issue by H R Droop. Both of these articles raise issues about the voting for the House of Commons which have still not been resolved!
It is hoped that making both of these articles more accessible will enhance the understanding of STV.
Pater Emerson: Review - The Persuadable Voter.
This item is a book review. The editor is now being offered books to review on a regular basis and hence one review per issue is likely to be the norm.
This review of a book by D Sunshine Hillygus and Todd G Shields has a distinct US perspective but should be of interest to all at this time with the November presidential election. Peter Emerson provides some useful insights into both the book and the political background which I hope will be of interest to all.
Philip Kestelman: On Measuring Transferable Voting Proportionality
Philip Kestelman's paper is a significant technical contribution to the tricky question of proportionality. This builds upon his previous paper published in Voting matters in June 2005. The vexed question with STV elections of considering either the first preferences or final count is overcome by listing both in the tables of the analysis.

Although this issue might appear to have less content than usual, the Editor has a number of papers promised or being processed and hence it may well be a shorter gap to Issue 26.

In two months time, the US will hold an election to appoint the most powerful person in the world. Following the hanging-chad problems, the Federal Government has passed legislation to regulate the software in voting machines. These regulations fall far short of the most rigorous software engineering standards, as applied for instance, in Civil Avionics systems (see DO-178B).

We must therefore hope that the result is not close enough to call into question the quality of such software-enabled systems.

(DO-178B - Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification is the mandated standard for software for the civil avionics industry. It has five levels of compliance according to the severity of the failure of the component in question. At the highest level (A) it is probably the most demanding consensus software engineering standard. A level of the standard could be applied to any item of software.)

Readers are reminded that views expressed in Voting matters by contributors do not necessarily reflect those of the McDougall Trust or its trustees.

Papers with citations

Thomas Hare: A New Statistical Method. (p1-12, PDF 132Kb)
Peter Emerson: Review - The Persuadable Voter. (p13-17, PDF 88Kb)
Philip Kestelman: Transferable Proportionality. (p18-25, PDF 144Kb) [27, 27-36, PDF].

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