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Ooh! Ooh! I voted!

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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    Piste wrote: »
    From that post you linked I can say you're much younger than I thought you were!
    This is exactly the reason I don't buy the "Oh, we're just after leaving our teens, give us a break!" excuse.
    Have you changed your username since? Just that The Economist would be a slightly unusual username for an 18 year old:pac:
    Correct: this isn't my original nick. (Still had a subscription when I was 18, though.)

    Edited to add:

    Madam, – I was in the RDS during the election count and I witnessed first hand that one vote can make a difference. Votes were being counted for a local election area in Dublin and two candidates from the same party were running neck and neck from the outset. Throughout the count they were scarcely 10 votes apart and towards the end it became apparent that only one of them would be elected, on the last seat. Every transfer was going to make a difference and in the end one of them had two votes less than the other and was duly eliminated. His transfers brought his party colleague over the line and into the council.

    The gap of two votes means that if one voter had placed him as a higher preference than the other candidate, then it would have been a tie. One more vote and he would have taken the seat in place of his colleague.

    The eliminated candidate called for a recount, but the gap of two votes was still there after all the votes were checked and counted again.

    In every locality there must be similar stories. However, in most circumstances a single vote is unlikely to make a big difference to the outcome. Rather than this being a problem, I suggest it is entirely the point. Voting is one of the most important examples of collective action: we vote together, as families, communities, co-workers and other groups of shared interest. Elections are all about voting collectively, not as individuals, and choosing candidates who best serve our collective interests.

    Next time, I hope more people vote – for whatever reason. – Yours, etc,

    NAT O’CONNOR,
    Tyrconnell Road,
    Inchicore,
    Dublin 8.


    We all voted the way we voted last week and nothing will change that. However there is a referendum on the way and it's reasonably likely that the government will fall in the next year or so. Please at least consider the consequences of your vote, even if it's only a third or fourth preference.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,794 ✭✭✭JC 2K3


    But transfers are a lottery..... It's retarded.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    JC 2K3 wrote: »
    But transfers are a lottery..... It's retarded.

    No they're not.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,791 ✭✭✭electrogrimey


    No they're not.

    +1


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,362 ✭✭✭K4t


    Used the age old and proven "eeny meeny miny mo"......"O, you look nice".... "You're smiling, you get no.1"...."why does this man not have a picture? Im not voting for him"...."blaaaah this is boring, I've never even heard of libertas but it sounds fun, theres no.2 for ya"...
    !
    Oh dear :rolleyes:

    The dangers of democracy right here.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 495 ✭✭tolteq


    For the first time :D

    And what a crappy, anticlimatic experience it was. Wander in, a few auld fellas around the place, grab the paper, into the booth.

    Used the age old and proven "eeny meeny miny mo"......"O, you look nice".... "You're smiling, you get no.1"...."why does this man not have a picture? Im not voting for him"...."blaaaah this is boring, I've never even heard of libertas but it sounds fun, theres no.2 for ya"...

    Ah, teenage logic. It just wasn't as exciting and I'm-changing-the-worldish as expected :rolleyes: Blaaahhhh.

    Did yez all vote?!

    yawn. how about reading the political literature next time?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,794 ✭✭✭JC 2K3


    No they're not.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Transferable_Vote#Differing_counting_methods
    The simplest methods of transferring surpluses under STV involve an element of randomness; partially random systems are used in the Republic of Ireland

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meek%27s_method#Hare_method
    Initial surplus

    Suppose candidate X, at a certain stage of the count, has 190 votes, and the quota is 200. Now X receives 30 votes transferred from candidate Y (after Y was either elected or eliminated). This gives X a total of 220 votes, i.e. a surplus of 20 to be transferred. But which 20 votes will be transferred?

    [edit] Hare method

    20 votes are drawn at random from the 30 received from Y's transfers. These 20 votes are each transferred to the next available preference after X stated on the ballot, skipping those that have already been elected or eliminated. In a manual count of paper ballots, this is the easiest method to implement; it is close to Thomas Hare's original proposal in 1857. It is used in all universal suffrage elections in the Republic of Ireland. This is analogous to what happens in the children-voting example above. Some people consider it fair in that, with 200 required for election, the group of 230 with first-preference Y get to influence other preferences, whereas the group of only 190 with first-preference X should just be satisfied to get their candidate elected. But some other people feel the group of 190 should get more influence on other preferences (as in Meek's method below). Also, exhausted ballots are excluded, so if more than 10 of the 30 votes have no preference stated after X, then it is impossible to select 20 to transfer and so some votes must be wasted.

    Your transfer will only make a difference if it's randomly selected. Retarded.


  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 8,064 Mod ✭✭✭✭Jonathan


    JC 2K3 wrote: »
    Your transfer will only make a difference if it's randomly selected. Retarded.
    How do decide what portion of the surplus is transferred?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,148 ✭✭✭✭KnifeWRENCH


    It wouldn't work at educating those who don't know how to vote though, because they'll pick Home Ec/Woodwork/Physics instead. It might be a good idea if we want to get people into stuff like policy jobs, though.

    Yeah, I agree it won't necessarily educate those who don't know how to vote, I was just saying it would be an interesting and ,potentially, a very beneficial subject to do at LC level.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    JC 2K3 wrote: »
    Your transfer will only make a difference if it's randomly selected. Retarded.

    Wikipedia has misled you, young padawan.

    Your statement "[y]our transfer will only make a difference if it's randomly selected" is wrong.

    Suppose the quota is 9,000 and I get 10,000 first preferences; leaving me with 1,000 surplus. You suggest a random number of these are transferred. That is not true.

    Every one of my votes is looked at again and it is found that 50% of them have you as number 2, and 20% have Piste as number 2. The distribution is not random. You then receive 500 of the available votes and Piste gets 200. Here your statement that your transfer only counts if randomly selected is not true at all, it's proportional to the nearest vote.

    Where the "randomness" comes in (it's not actually random, I'll get to that in a sec) is to see what happens to the third preferences. So let's say you only needed 400 of the 500 votes that I transferred to you. The question then becomes which 100 votes are transferred. This is somewhat random, but it's not really, for two reasons:
    1. If randomly selected from the votes, on average the selection will represent the true preferences
    2. Transfers are non-random. In fact you can predict them remarkably well e.g. FF transfers to FF and not to FG. This makes even the non-random distribution less random
    Finally it's important to note that in this case, you're only talking about transferring 100 votes which in our little example is 1% of quota. Typically these votes don't tip the balance either way (though they may) because typically nobody reaches quota at the end and rather it's a "last man standing" situation.

    So if the third preference bundle selected does not represent the full sample, and if the votes don't follow the usual FF-FF transfer routine, and if the numbers of transfers are high enough to tip the balance; then yes you a bit of a lottery system. That's why candidates may request re-count third preferences as an extra back-up system.

    So, no, I wouldn't call the PR-STV method of transfers either random or retarded.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,269 ✭✭✭cocoa


    Where the "randomness" comes in (it's not actually random, I'll get to that in a sec) is to see what happens to the third preferences. So let's say you only needed 400 of the 500 votes that I transferred to you. The question then becomes which 100 votes are transferred. This is somewhat random, but it's not really, for two reasons:
    What does 'somewhat random' mean? Speak plainly and honestly, either they are chosen randomly and without a specific method, or they are not, there is no 'somewhat random'. Just because you may believe that external forces guide the hand of chance doesn't make random any less than random...
    1. If randomly selected from the votes, on average the selection will represent the true preferences
    2. Transfers are non-random. In fact you can predict them remarkably well e.g. FF transfers to FF and not to FG. This makes even the non-random distribution less random
    So you're saying that 1. Ok, they're random, but 1 time out of 6 a dice will roll a three... and 2. Herd mentality is in fact rampant, which would seem to me, as I mentioned before, as a block to crowd wisdom...
    Finally it's important to note that in this case, you're only talking about transferring 100 votes which in our little example is 1% of quota. Typically these votes don't tip the balance either way (though they may) because typically nobody reaches quota at the end and rather it's a "last man standing" situation.
    Seems a bit of a turn-around from your original declaration that every vote counts...
    So if the third preference bundle selected does not represent the full sample, and if the votes don't follow the usual FF-FF transfer routine, and if the numbers of transfers are high enough to tip the balance; then yes you a bit of a lottery system. That's why candidates may request re-count third preferences as an extra back-up system.

    No. It is a lottery system whether the third preference bundle represents the full sample or not, you just happen to have been lucky when it does represent it. This may just be my ignorance of the system, but how does a recount change this?


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    cocoa wrote: »
    What does 'somewhat random' mean?
    The issue here is that there are more than one definitions of random and similarly, from an academic-statistical point of view, a spectrum of randomness. For example if you're doing a vox pop and you ask every sixth person that passes you to fill your survey in, that's random. Alternatively you could ask every blonde person you pass. That's non-random. However it could be that blondes comes evenly from all parts of society so your sample is representative. (I'm using the blonde example to get the point across rather than it being statistically accurate. I can talk more about proxies and instrumental variables etc. if you want, but that's really off-topic.) A really non-random sample would be if you asked anyone who was wearing a fancy suit, because then you'd have a biased sample towards richer people. So every sixth person is random, every well-dressed person is really not random, and every blonde is somewhere in-between. This is what I mean by a spectrum of true randomness.

    There's also the slight problem that the law of large numbers causes the terms we use. "Random" is often used by the public to mean "by chance" or "coincidence" or "unusual" and that kind of thing. But if you take a random sample from a distribution, the distribution of the random sample will converge to that of the original distribution quite quickly.
    Speak plainly and honestly, either they are chosen randomly and without a specific method, or they are not, there is no 'somewhat random'. Just because you may believe that external forces guide the hand of chance doesn't make random any less than random...
    I disagree.

    In our specific case of PR-STV, the first set of transfers are completely non-random, they're exactly proportional (to the nearest whole number) to the actual second-preference. However the third preferences are randomly selected from the second-preferences so there is an element of randomness there. Thus it isn't fully random (it's not just every sixth vote) but it isn't fully representative either. There's a bit of a mix.
    So you're saying that 1. Ok, they're random, but 1 time out of 6 a dice will roll a three... and 2. Herd mentality is in fact rampant, which would seem to me, as I mentioned before, as a block to crowd wisdom...
    I'm obviously not saying that.
    1. Your best estimate of the true distibution of a votes with a subsample of b votes is the distribution implied from the subsample b. Check it out in Excel with the =rand() command.
    2. Herding only matters if the way I vote affects the way you vote. Herding is irrelevant within one ballot paper. Say you want a FG govt and I want FF. It does not matter that you have FG as 1, 2, 3 and I have FF as 1, 2, 3 since it reflects our preferences. Herding matters when I convince you that I'm voting Labour, and then you change your vote to keep Labour out (by voting FF), then I vote FF anyway.

    Seems a bit of a turn-around from your original declaration that every vote counts...
    My original declaration was that Michael Collins died for democracy. Aside from that: yes, every vote counts. I fully appreciate that it is extremely rare that an election comes down to one ballot. However what's really damaging is that if this issue becomes socially acceptable. It does not matter to the world if one person litters; but if everyone takes the view that "oh, it doesn't matter if I litter", then we have a problem. It's a social responsibility imho to vote, even though it's unlikely your particular vote will make a difference.

    No. It is a lottery system whether the third preference bundle represents the full sample or not, you just happen to have been lucky when it does represent it.
    It's not a lottery in the true sense of the word when transfers work the way they do. Say there is one vote to be transferred and there are ten parties. A lottery would be where you pick one of the parties at random and that party gets the full vote. That means you pick the correct party of preference only 10% of the time. However if the preference is 65% to transfer to FF and 30% to transfer to FG, and 5% among the other 8 parties, then you once-off selection is right 65% of the time. As you increase the numbers of votes to be distributed, even to as few as twenty or thirty, the convergence kicks in.
    This may just be my ignorance of the system, but how does a recount change this?
    A different bundle of third preferences may be selected. Because the subsample distributions converge quickly this rarely changes things. As in maybe 1 election out of 100 changes. So as I said initially, the randomness is only important where it's really tight, after a second preference, and where the number of transfers is small enough to not converge; and even then you can re-count. So there is a bit of randomness, as I admitted, but it's a million miles from being "retarded" and it's definitely not true that "you transfer only counts if randomly selected".


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