Election of the Green Party Cathaoirleach, 2007

2011

A recurring problem in Malta’s Single Transferable Vote (STV) is the mismatch between the percentage of first preference votes a party wins nationwide and the corresponding percentage of seats it ends up with in parliament. In this paper we discuss how ‘disproportionality’ arises and propose the STV 4+ system, to restore proportionality whilst retaining STV as the basis for electing candidates. We describe how the divisor method can be used to implement an STV 4+ system, whereby a Maltese General Election is implemented conceptually as an Additional Member System (AMS). The Maltese General Election of 2008 is taken as an example. We believe that this fair system can be implemented in Malta and other countries that have experience with STV elections.

Behavioral Science, 1978

Politics, 1989

THE QLJESTION of electoral reform continues to hover at the edge of the agenda of British politics. It remains, of course, a central policy objective of the Social and Liberal Democrats, but it has also recently come to be considered seriously as an option by some leading members of the Labour party, as they contemplate their party's electoral prospeas. There is also evidence of increasing interest in reform among Labour's rank and file. Almost as many motions on electoral reform as on unemployment or health were submitted for debate at the 1989 party conference (Cwrdian, 31 July 1989). Not surprisingly, then, then continues to be discussion a b u t the likely consequences of introducing a preferential voting system into British elections.

Ireland's electoral system is proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote (STV) in multi-seat constituencies. Voters are asked to rank the candidates in order of preference on the ballot paper. Proportional representa-tion, in some shape or form, is the preferred electoral system throughout most of the democratic world. STV is also used in Australia, New Zealand, Malta and Northern Ireland. However, the preferred choice in the UK is the single member plurality or "first-past-the-post" system where only one winning candidate repre-sents the constituency. This system can dramatically distort election results. For example, in the 1997 UK general election, the Labour party won 63% of the seats with a 43% share of the vote. In the 2002 general election in Ireland, Fianna F谩il won 48% of the seats with 41.5% of the first preference votes, and the outgoing Fianna F谩il/Progressive Democrats government together won 53% of the seats with 45.4% of the first...

This paper describes aspects of the majority judgment in an election. The majority judgment is a method of election which is a new theory in social choice where voters judge candidates instead of ranking them. The paper emphasize on the works of Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki majority judgment in an election. In Arrow's impossibility theorem of social choice theory, the voters have to give a strictly preference ordering over the alternatives and hence they can not express indifference of the candidates. In the process of majority judgment the voters can express much more information than the Arrow's process does but it is not free from counter-intuitive results. The Borda majority count avoids some counterintuitive results and an attempt has been taken here to highlight them. The paper discusses both the advantages and drawbacks of the majority judgment in an election. Sometimes tie arises in majority judgment and different processes of tie-breaking are discussed with theoretical and mathematical calculations.

Election 2007: The Shift to Limited Preferential Voting in Papua New Guinea, 2013

2010

Abstract: Ever since Arrow, there has been an increasing tendency for academic evaluations of electoral systems to treat them as just a kind of glorified'preference puzzle', whose solution should be evaluated in terms of various esoteric criteria, some of which may well seem bizarre or inconsequential. Meanwhile the central and highly salient roles of election in terms of helping societies and communities to come to a consensus on what to do for a period of time have been increasingly marginalized.

2013

Publicpolicy.ie has no view on the merits or otherwise of our current electoral system. Our objective in publishing this study is to illustrate the possible implications of the choices that surround the issue. Our purpose in undertaking this work, however, was to set out an objective assessment based on comprehensive voting data and detached psephological judgements.

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods, 2011

Given that n voters report only the first r (1 ≤ r < m) ranks of their linear preference rankings over m alternatives, the likelihood of implementing Borda outcome is investigated. The information contained in the first r ranks is aggregated through a Borda-like method, namely the r-Borda rule. Monte-Carlo simulations are run to detect changes in the likelihood of r-Borda winner(s) to coincide with the original Borda winner(s) as a function of m, n and r. The voters' preferences are generated through the Impartial Anonymous and Neutral Culture Model, where both the names of the alternatives and voters are immaterial. It is observed that, for a given r, the likelihood of choosing the Borda winner decreases down to zero independent of n as m increases within the computed range of parameter values, 1 ≤ m, n ≤ 30. For n = 30, this likelihood is given as an approximating function of r and m through least square fit method.

2014

This research is an enquiry to find an electoral formula that conforms to Canadian constitutional values. Three core values that are pertinent to the issue of electoral systems are identified: democracy, diversity, and efficiency. Each of these core values is divided into different aspects. These aspects will form the backbone of the evaluation of different electoral systems in this work. I begin with an evaluation of the plurality model of elections, which is currently used in Canada. I demonstrate that many of the attributes of the current system are not in tune with Canadian constitutional values. Next, I examine proportional systems and demonstrate that these systems too have problems of their own. In the next stage, I make a new proposal for elections to the Canadian Parliament. I introduce a new variant of the majority model, which I call a majority-preferential two-round variant. I demonstrate that this new variant will outperform the other variants in the attainment of value...