surplus diistrubution calculation

Washout

Probaly a stupid question.

But if a canditate is elected on 1st count with 11000 votes and quota is 10000.

How do they get the surplus values.

Do they count all 11000 get the percentages and then divide 1000 by those percentages?

Apologies if I have answered my own. Question

paul71

Washout wrote: »

Probaly a stupid question.

But if a canditate is elected on 1st count with 11000 votes and quota is 10000.

How do they get the surplus values.

Do they count all 11000 get the percentages and then divide 1000 by those percentages?

Apologies if I have answered my own. Question

You have described exactly how it is done, and might I add much more clearly many other peoples attempts to do so.

amacachi

Yes.

Gingy

I could be open to correction here, but I'm pretty sure it's a random collection of the surplus, so theoretically your no.2 could be thrown out and not used.

One of the pros of the e-voting was that it would come out with a fairer percentage of the surplus.

davetherave

I was also under the impression that it was a random sample of, in this case, 1000 of the elected candidates votes from all over the constituency.

The Gregory method, I think does what you have described. Taking all 11000 of the votes and distributing them proportionally as 1000.

goat2

Washout wrote: »

Probaly a stupid question.

But if a canditate is elected on 1st count with 11000 votes and quota is 10000.

How do they get the surplus values.

Do they count all 11000 get the percentages and then divide 1000 by those percentages?

Apologies if I have answered my own. Question

i did not know the answer to that question either, thanks for that, good on ya

delta_bravo

I'm almost certain they pick a random 1,000. Recounting 11,000 papers again simply would take too much time.

Robus

Sorry, better reply to follow

Robus

The second count consisted of the transfer of McCreevy's surplus votes. The question is: how is the destination of these votes decided? The first step in transferring this surplus is to re-examine all of McCreevy votes for second preferences and arrange them according to these stated second preferences in bundles beside the names of the continuing candidates. But, because there are only 836 surplus votes to be distributed only a portion of the votes in each bundle can actually be transferred.

In order to work out how many are to be transferred, the returning officer calculates the ratio of surplus votes to transferable votes in the entire McCreevy vote and applies this ratio to the bundles of votes beside the names of the continuing candidates. Arithmetically this is the same as working out each candidate's percentage share of McCreevy's second preferences and applying that percentage to the 836 votes in the surplus.

Retrospectively we know that McCreevy's running mate Paul Kelly got 61% of all the second preferences and so was entitled to 61% of the surplus or 513 votes. Similarly, the Progressive Democrat candidate, Kate Walsh, got 13% of the second preferences and so was entitled to 108 votes and so on for each of the other candidates.

The next question is: how is it decided which actual physical ballot papers from each large bundle are passed on to each continuing candidate and which ballot papers stay with the elected candidate. Well, what the returning officer does, in the case of Kelly for example, is to take the 513 ballot papers off the top of the large pile of second preferences beside Kelly's name and add those ballot papers (i.e. votes) to Kelly's total, with the same procedure being applied in the case of each of the other candidates.

http://www.rte.ie/news/election2011/mechanicsprstv.html

Capt'n Midnight

Gingy wrote: »

One of the pros of the e-voting was that it would come out with a fairer percentage of the surplus.

Only if you do it by transferring a fraction of each vote.

our current system involves random representative votes being transferred, so in theory a program could work out the most advantageous votes to transfer while still staying within statistical error limits on a very tight marginal.

In Galway there is a recount because of a two vote difference.

Capt'n Midnight

The transfers are picked randomly out of the existing ballot papers.

Then sorted into bundles for the next preference candidate, then bundles being labelled and moved. - this is to facilitate a re-check or recount , so you arent' moving a different set of random votes later on.

Not as fair as doing it by fractions, but a lot easier to do by hand. In a 5 seater some votes could be surplussed 4 times so you would need a good few decimal places to avoid rounding errors.