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Voting matters — To advance the understanding of preferential voting systems

Issue 28, February 2011

(Complete issue in PDF, 448KB.)

Editorial

There are four items in this issue:

The first paper, by Frank Bezzina and Anton Buhagiar, develops a version of the single transferable vote that, with a high probability, and particularly in a two party environment like that of Malta, achieves national proportionality for representatives elected from districts of five representatives each. Their method accomplishes this by selecting only four of the five representatives in the usual way, and then selecting the remaining representatives in a way that achieves national proportionality.
In the second paper, Ross Hyman describes a way of adapting any of the wide variety of rounding methods that have been developed for proportional representation based on party lists, to count an election for multiple seats when every voter has provided an individual ranking of the candidates.
In the third paper, Simon Gazeley develops a sophisticated new procedure for selecting the candidate who least deserves to remain in contention, when one candidate must be excluded.
The fourth paper is a report by Michael Mernagh of his investigation into the question of whether Irish voters are more likely to elect candidates whose names are earlier in the alphabet and therefore higher on ballot papers.

Postscript

This is the first issue of Voting matters that I have edited. I plan to continue the practice, with which the journal started, of reproducing old documents that are relevant to preferential voting systems. Documents emerging from relevant committees of the Electoral Reform Society will also be considered for publication. But I expect that the preponderance of the items published will, like all four items in this issue, be new contributions from persons conducting their own inquiries. I also plan to continue publishing occasional reviews. Issues will continue to appear when there is sufficient material, and not according to a schedule.

Nicolaus Tideman

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

Frank Bezzina and Anton Buhagiar: STV 4+: A Proportional System for Malta's Electoral Process. (p1-14, PDF 84KB)
Ross Hyman: Divisor Method Proportional Representation in Preference-Ballot Elections. (p15-31, PDF 212KB)
Simon Gazeley: STV with Elimination of Discounted Contenders. (p32-35, PDF 37KB)
Michael Mernagh: What's in a Name? A Political Myth? (p36-50, PDF 405KB)

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