PRSTV - Our voting system explained

seamus · 06-02-2020 11:17AM

Ten Pin wrote: »

AFAIK this was true in the past but there was a court ruling that deemed X votes as invalid/spoiled.

Every ballot paper must start with a '1' to be valid.
https://www.thejournal.ie/spoiled-votes-ireland-2014-supreme-court-ruling-4658170-May2019/

https://www.thejournal.ie/dan-kiely-listowel-supreme-court-2509342-Dec2015/

(TL;DR: "X" or a tick and nothing else is OK. Otherwise it must be 1,2,3,4,5,6...)

That's not exactly what the ruling meant.

Ballots marked with an "X" and nothing else, are still valid. The law requires that a ballot is counted if the voter's preference is clear.

So an X beside a candidate's name is clear.

This ruling was based on ballots where multiple preferences were stated, but the sequence started at a number higher than "1", e.g. 4,5,6 instead of 1,2,3.

The initial directions to the returning officers were that the highest number on the ballot should be counted as the first preference because that was a clear indicator of the voter's preference.

This court ruling struck that down, afaik on the basis that the sequence given above indicates a clear fourth preference, but not a clear first preference.

This is in line with the law, which states that in order to be valid, a ballot must have a "1" on it, and only once, or "or any other mark which, in the opinion of the returning officer, clearly indicates a preference or preferences."
This implies that a ballot must have a clear first preference.

In theory, "A, B, C, D", etc would also be valid, but at the discretion of the returning officer.

Funnily enough it does mean that if you mark the ballot 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, etc, then it's legally valid because it has a "1" on it. However, the returning officer would be free to discard the vote after the first count for the lack of a second preference.

seamus · 06-02-2020 11:23AM

I might have covered some of these above.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

1. Let's say by accident I vote 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. Presumably my 1, 2, 3 are counted as normal, and when it counting the 4 it is regarded as non-transferable?

Yep. Your fourth preference can't be determined, so your vote is discarded if it gets to that point, as if you had only filled in 1,2,3.

2. As above, but 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. Can the 5 and 6 be counted?

As above, this is at the discretion of the returning officer, but I suspect based on that ruling that your ballot will be discarded after #3 - unless you given a preference to ALL candidates.

For example, imagine there are six candidates, and you have filled in 1,2,3,5,6,7. Your preference here is clear. You miscounted, but clearly showed your preference.

Now imagine you mark it 1,2,3,5,6 and leave one blank. It's not obvious whether you intended to leave one blank, or intended to give that one your fourth preference and forgot. Your preference is no longer clear, so you'll be discarded.

Brussels Sprout · 06-02-2020 11:27AM

This is a pretty decent visual explanation:

https://twitter.com/news2dayRTE/status/1225097862847090688

OAOB · 06-02-2020 11:33AM

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Some questions -

1. Let's say by accident I vote 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. Presumably my 1, 2, 3 are counted as normal, and when it counting the 4 it is regarded as non-transferable?

2. As above, but 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. Can the 5 and 6 be counted?

3. They count the number of issued ballots for each box and then the first thing they do when they open the box is count the total votes in it. If I fold up my ballot paper, pocket it and walk out unnoticed (very possible if it's busy) then the numbers won't tally. What if anything do they do then?

For scenario one you are correct, your 1, 2 & 3 will count but as your 4th preference isn't clear it will be come non-transferable at this point

In scenario two your ballot paper becomes not transferable after your third preference as the sequence is broken

Your third scenario is actually common enough and is one of the more disruptive things that occurs when tallying the vote.
Basically each box is opened and the number of votes are counted, the counters do not look at the vote preference at this point and are just trying to establish the number of ballot papers in the box. The returning officer will know how many votes should be in each box by the ballot paper counterfoils. If the number of counterfoils doesn't match the number of votes then both will be rechecked (multiple times). If after all the rechecks are done and the numbers still don't tally then it is accepted that the count is correct.
Taking your vote home doesn't have any affect other than to slow the count down by about an hour.

Worth noting that after all the votes are counted they will then be weighed by precisely accurate weighing machines to verify the figure. These scales can identify a missing or extra ballot paper in a stack of 1000. While counting you will often be asked to carry out a recheck on a bundle as the scales are indicating an incorrect amount

seamus · 06-02-2020 11:56AM

OAOB wrote: »

If after all the rechecks are done and the numbers still don't tally then it is accepted that the count is correct.

Is there any official point that a returning officer is in theory supposed to blow the whistle? say if the box is missing 5% of the ballots?
Or is merely down to the returning officer to make a judgement call on it?

And if the returning officer does decide the difference is too big to ignore, what then? Does the consitituency have to go to vote again?

Hotblack Desiato · 06-02-2020 01:40PM

Thanks for your reply.

OAOB wrote: »

Taking your vote home doesn't have any affect other than to slow the count down by about an hour.

I just thought of something, though - Person A is entitled to vote, gets a ballot paper, takes it out of the polling station. Gives it to person B to complete, person B then slips it into the ballot box along with their legitimate vote. B could have threatened, intimidated or bribed A to give them their ballot paper. Is there anything that can be done to stop this? Do the polling clerks watch to see if the person they gave a ballot to puts it in the box?

Hotblack Desiato · 06-02-2020 01:41PM

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

This is a pretty decent visual explanation:

https://twitter.com/news2dayRTE/status/1225097862847090688

They didn't go into proportionally allocating the second preferences

dulpit · 06-02-2020 02:17PM

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.

I just thought of something, though - Person A is entitled to vote, gets a ballot paper, takes it out of the polling station. Gives it to person B to complete, person B then slips it into the ballot box along with their legitimate vote. B could have threatened, intimidated or bribed A to give them their ballot paper. Is there anything that can be done to stop this? Do the polling clerks watch to see if the person they gave a ballot to puts it in the box?

There are 2 workers per box (presiding officer and polling clerk), it is their job to ensure that the people who are given a ballot paper will use it. My mum used be a presiding officer for years, and she had to be very careful when it came to the total numbers of papers handed out and used (e.g. if somebody made a mistake and needed a new paper that involved another from for her).

joeysoap · 06-02-2020 02:52PM

At the last referendum I was asked to post my vote in a different ballot box as someone accidentally posted theirs in my one. To balance it out. I knew the officer. There was 5/6 ballot boxes in the hall. The nearest box to the booth was my one. So I could easily see how it could happen.

rameire · 06-02-2020 04:26PM

I think another thing that gets thrown around by the monster loony raving crazy parties is regarding the implement that can or has to be used to make your preference.
You will see them all over Facemuck demanding a Pen to be used.
I believe there is no law that states a pencil has to be used.
The pencils are used as they are easy to use they hardly ever run out get dry and incase of a wet ballot the pencil mark will still be visible over say a pen mark.

But you may make a mark on your ballot paper with any reasonable writing instrument, be it pencil, pen, blood, crayon or coal.

Conchir · 06-02-2020 04:46PM

A good thread, very easy to follow!

One thing I've been wondering about the past few days. Out of the 18 candidates in my constituency, I only like 4, so will be giving them preferences as normal. Of the remaining 14, I unfortunately don't like any of them. However, there are some who I'm confident will get nowhere close to getting elected (the mad ones who will get a handful of first preferences and nothing else), and others who probably will get close (e.g. the second of FG's two candidates in the constituency).

Is there any benefit to filling out my ballot, putting the ones I'm confident won't get elected in the middle, and those who I think are more likely to get elected at the end? Or should I just stick to my first 4 and leave the rest blank.

I know there have been similar questions asked in this thread, but they seemed to be scenarios where 1 candidate wasn't wanted (not 14/18

). If there was only 1 candidate I didn't like, I wouldn't give them any preference. I also realise that the odds of my ballot going that far down the count are slim, just curious anyway!

Utter Consternation · 06-02-2020 05:14PM

rameire wrote: »

I think another thing that gets thrown around by the monster loony raving crazy parties is regarding the implement that can or has to be used to make your preference.
You will see them all over Facemuck demanding a Pen to be used.
I believe there is no law that states a pencil has to be used.
The pencils are used as they are easy to use they hardly ever run out get dry and incase of a wet ballot the pencil mark will still be visible over say a pen mark.

But you may make a mark on your ballot paper with any reasonable writing instrument, be it pencil, pen, blood, crayon or coal.

I must remember to bring my quill to the Voting Centre on Saturday.

dulpit · 06-02-2020 05:22PM

Conchir wrote: »

A good thread, very easy to follow!

One thing I've been wondering about the past few days. Out of the 18 candidates in my constituency, I only like 4, so will be giving them preferences as normal. Of the remaining 14, I unfortunately don't like any of them. However, there are some who I'm confident will get nowhere close to getting elected (the mad ones who will get a handful of first preferences and nothing else), and others who probably will get close (e.g. the second of FG's two candidates in the constituency).

Is there any benefit to filling out my ballot, putting the ones I'm confident won't get elected in the middle, and those who I think are more likely to get elected at the end? Or should I just stick to my first 4 and leave the rest blank.

I know there have been similar questions asked in this thread, but they seemed to be scenarios where 1 candidate wasn't wanted (not 14/18 ). If there was only 1 candidate I didn't like, I wouldn't give them any preference. I also realise that the odds of my ballot going that far down the count are slim, just curious anyway!

The argument that could be made is to put your absolute least favourite candidate bottom and work backwards from there. Technically if your vote becomes non-transferrable it makes it slightly easier for somebody else to be elected (as the relative strength of the votes a candiate still in the hunt has will be tiny bit bigger).

The likelihood is that if you have no-hopers in the middle and your vote goes past your first 4 (either as a surplus or elimination transfer) then the vote will skip to whoever is next. But PR-STV is designed to make it that you shouldn't be tactically voting, and should just pick a preference.

Brussels Sprout · 06-02-2020 05:55PM

Conchir wrote: »

A good thread, very easy to follow!

One thing I've been wondering about the past few days. Out of the 18 candidates in my constituency, I only like 4, so will be giving them preferences as normal. Of the remaining 14, I unfortunately don't like any of them. However, there are some who I'm confident will get nowhere close to getting elected (the mad ones who will get a handful of first preferences and nothing else), and others who probably will get close (e.g. the second of FG's two candidates in the constituency).

Is there any benefit to filling out my ballot, putting the ones I'm confident won't get elected in the middle, and those who I think are more likely to get elected at the end? Or should I just stick to my first 4 and leave the rest blank.

I know there have been similar questions asked in this thread, but they seemed to be scenarios where 1 candidate wasn't wanted (not 14/18 ). If there was only 1 candidate I didn't like, I wouldn't give them any preference. I also realise that the odds of my ballot going that far down the count are slim, just curious anyway!

RTE have a very interesting article on their site where some Computational scientists tried to solve this question:

When this question arose in work last week, my colleague asked how easy would it be to write a computer programme to simulate this. I confidently answered that it shouldn’t be too hard. Shortly afterwards, I realised that I really did not understand the single transferable vote system and its intricacies particularly well.

Not only is it difficult to write a script to simulate the real-world situation, but one has to run thousands of simulations with different choices to get accurate results because of the many parameters and scenarios involved. However, after a weekend of workstation number-crunching, I can now say I have an answer I am satisfied with. Spoiler alert: halfway down the ballot paper is sufficient.

......

So what does all of this mean? If all voters go at least halfway down the ballot, candidates who would normally be unlikely to win have a 2% higher chance of getting elected. When all voters go all the way down the ballot, this probability remains the same.

This happens for two reasons. There is almost zero probability that a vote will transfer beyond the fifth rank so it will almost always be counted even if it goes to the surplus as long as your vote goes that far. The second reason is that if a candidate who has a high probability of receiving a vote is either ranked at the end, or not named, that vote will always go to another candidate they are competing with for that seat. To reiterate, you do not need to go all the way down the paper as at least halfway down is enough.

link

Field east · 06-02-2020 10:37PM

Ger Roe wrote: »

Thanks for that, a very useful explanation. I never fully understood how it all works and I suspect very few people actually do.

Why is there not more official explanation of the actual vote process for every election?. Every house should get an instruction leaflet on how the system works.... we get all the carefully crafted party blurbs, but why no independent explanation of the complicated tactical vote opportunity that we are being asked to participate in - surely it should be sent out with the polling cards?

The politicians ensure that their messages are clear and understood with procedures in place to obtain appropriate media exposure for all their utterances, but no one seems too keen to actually explain how the vote process works.

In the end, they all like to defend their subsequent actions as 'the will of the people', but seeing as most people don't understand how the PR system works, how can the result be a realistic expression of their will? Would we not have more will, if more people knew how to use the process for maximum effect?

I think we have a very unique and very representative (if not complicated) voting system, but no attempt to explain to people how best to use it.

Is there not a TV production company out there to make a programme on how the PR system works.

seamus · 07-02-2020 10:28AM

rameire wrote: »

You will see them all over Facemuck demanding a Pen to be used.

Whenever I see some moron bring that up, I have visions of Leo Varadkar in some back room with a rubber, furiously rubbing out pencil marks on every ballot one-by-one.

A lot of this loony nonsense is imported from the US, where they have a myriad of weird rules, and just as many urban legends and misinformation. Their paranoia is not without justification when you see the shenanigans that go on, like the Iowa vote.

It's virtually impossible to improve on the system we have at the moment in terms of balancing an efficient vote against a fair and secure one.

Charles Babbage · 07-02-2020 12:07PM

seamus wrote: »

It's virtually impossible to improve on the system we have at the moment in terms of balancing an efficient vote against a fair and secure one.

Well we could use OCR to speed up the count.

Abie Philbin Bowman was on RTÉ radio now. He said that when a candidate is elected the surplus votes are distributed, which would be the last ones to come to the candidate. If a candidate is elected on the first count there are no last votes and so they look at all the votes to determine the ratio of the transfers.
so the counts are different, this is something that I did not know.

seamus · 07-02-2020 12:23PM

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Well we could use OCR to speed up the count.

OCR software will always have misreadings (reading a 2 as a 1, etc).

This software can be modified so that the misreadings have a tendency to misread in favour of specific candidates. It would be impossible to detect without manually counting the ballots anyway.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/voting_software.png

Hotblack Desiato · 07-02-2020 12:25PM

I was at a meeting the other week where someone said that e-voting was a good idea that got shot down by bad PR, I had to suppress the urge to throttle him.

dulpit · 07-02-2020 02:56PM

E-voting has been proven many times as a bad bad thing. E-counting could work, but then where is the fun of that? Same result, no drama, no chance to discuss the impacts of various transfers, etc etc

Hotblack Desiato · 07-02-2020 03:53PM

dulpit wrote: »

E-voting has been proven many times as a bad bad thing. E-counting could work, but then where is the fun of that? Same result, no drama, no chance to discuss the impacts of various transfers, etc etc

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." - Stalin

The problem there is a machine process with no transparency. Yes you can manually count the votes later to verify the result, but then what is the point? A faster result you can't trust until it's manually counted anyway?

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 07-02-2020 05:48PM

Collie D wrote: »

I stand corrected. Something I have always thought sounded like a major flaw.

According to a family member of mine who takes part in counts, sampling does sometimes happen farther down the count when there’s less at stake. But definitely not for the first few where there’s a large number of surplus votes to be distributed. My family member doesn’t think there should be sampling at any stage, that the preferences should always be fully counted and distributed proportionately. I agree with that. A random sample is not necessarily going to roughly be the same as accounting for all ballots.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts · 07-02-2020 06:03PM

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

This is a pretty decent visual explanation:

https://twitter.com/news2dayRTE/status/1225097862847090688

It’s very cute but immediately I was on the phone to my pops asking him how they decide to distribute the surplus. Though I guess the video is aimed at explaining PR to children and that maths might be too advanced for them. Hell, it’s too advanced for plenty of adults! :pac:

But the kids are just so goddamn cute in that video.

seamus · 07-02-2020 06:12PM

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." - Stalin

The problem there is a machine process with no transparency. Yes you can manually count the votes later to verify the result, but then what is the point? A faster result you can't trust until it's manually counted anyway?

We're getting off topic here, but if you're counting a second time to "verify" the result, you're introducing an element of distrust into the process. Look at the debacle in Iowa this week.

The automatic counting machine declare a narrow victory for candidate A. The manual recount revises this to a narrow victory a few days later to candidate B.

Suddenly supporters in both camps are up in arms, and trust in the entire system - automatic and manual counts - has been damaged. At least with our system, we count once, in a known and trusted way. There's no "alternative count" to create confusion and mistrust.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-02-2020 07:49PM

There are two ways of doing evoting.

Option 1 - voter verifiable votes. People can be incentivised to vote a certain way because it's no longer a secret ballot.

Option 2 - voters can't verify votes. As opinion polls are +/-3% there's a lot of wiggle room for a rigged vote.

Our current system means the pieces of paper are watched all through the count. Handwritten numbers makes ballot stuffing a wee bit more difficult too.

Votes are kept for six months in case the High Court needs to inspect them for legal reasons. They are then destroyed.

Also
Returning officers for elections have been instructed to treat as a spoilt vote any ballot paper that has a sequence of numbers that does not begin with a “1” or “one”.

Vote early because it's going to be wet and windy.

Brussels Sprout · 08-02-2020 10:39AM

Bumping this thread for polling day

Coillte_Bhoy · 08-02-2020 12:51PM

Larbre34 wrote: »

On the above

A) This body politic you speak of. Candidates and agents rarely see spoiled votes. If they are very obviously spoiled, they are unlikely to receive the level of scrutiny that some votes get in a tight count or a recount l, if the candidates are engaged with the returning officer to debate a clear intention for a preference, or not, on disputed votes. If your vote is scribbled on with pencil or has an insult directed one way or another, or whatever, it does not require scrutiny to agree it being spoiled and so nobody really looks twice at it. Believe me the 'body politic' does not give a monkeys.

You believe the candidates/parties have ways of ascertaining whether you voted or not. After the close of the poll, the marked registers are sealed in their own envelopes and sent to the count centre along with all the other stationery and things. If there is a discrepancy between the number of votes counted in a box and the number of ballot papers issued from the desk of that box, which is unresolved when the whole polling station is reconciled, the register is unsealed by the returning officer to check the number of voters marked off. Other than that, those registers are destroyed unsealed, so if the candidates or agents by chance see some names marked off on a register as part of a dispute or discrepancy process, thats as far as it goes, they have NO ACCESS to those marked registers after the event for their own research, no matter what you might have heard.

What you have heard about not marking the ballot all the way down, is mathematically possible, but highly improbable in our system.

Basically, not marking a ballot all the way down to your least favourite, if replicated by thousands of voters in the same pattern to the same candidate, can with a slight degree of probability and more likely in 3 seaters than say 5, very slightly lower the effective quota to be reached.

In other words, the positive effect of this for any candidate, requires such a lottery winning level of alignment of the stars, that I am fully confident in my own personal approach of, if you don't like him, don't give him a preference. The chances of a numbered preference counting for him is way higher than one of omission.

I'm sure there's a thesis in this one somewhere, but I won't be doing it..

The quota is based on the total valid poll/number of seats + 1, lower preferences have nothing to do with this

Raconteuse · 08-02-2020 09:18PM

Great stuff Sprout - thanks for going to such trouble.

Collie D · 08-02-2020 10:00PM

Questions for staff at polling stations.

Are you there for the duration of polls being open or are there two shifts?

I believe the answer is the former and if so...how and when do you cast your own vote?

Brussels Sprout · 08-02-2020 10:32PM

I believe they get postal votes but I'm sure someone with first-hand experience will know for sure.

PRSTV - Our voting system explained

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