Re: Voting system for elections

Which STV software has both:

1. open source license
2. recent commits

On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 10:28 AM, Ian Jackson <
ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:

> Peter Eisentraut writes ("Re: Voting system for elections"):
> > On 7/18/16 9:29 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > As has been discussed here many times previously, Condorcet is a bad
> > > system for multi-seat elections. Rather than electing a board whose
> > > composition reflects, proportionately, the views of the electorate,
> > > the majoritarian or consensus candidates (as applicable) will sweep
> > > the board.
> >
> > I have a concern about this:
> >
> > If, for example, there were an issue that sharply divides the SPI
> > membership say 66% to 33%, an STV election would elect 6 board members
> > in favor of A and 3 in favor of B, whereas a Condorcet election might
> > elect 9 in favor of A. The problem with the STV board would be that
> > they would constantly disagree with each other instead of getting work
> done.
>
> And, once again I feel the need to repost an article I posted to
> spi-private:
>
> From: Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk>
> To:
> Cc: spi-private(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [Spi-private] Vote form concerns
> Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2016 15:54:40 +0100
>
> Anthony Towns writes ("Re: [Spi-private] Vote form concerns"):
> > On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 04:14:45PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > [on adopting STV rather than repeated Condorcet]
> > > Hopefully in SPI we won't get into some kind of ideological split.
> > > But suppose we did.
> >
> > [ if it happened, would it be better to to have an ideologically
> > divided board, or to have a homogenous board, and let the dissenters
> > split off into a different organisation? ]
> [ (quote reworded to redact -iwj 16.8.16) ]
>
> The situation I described was an example, with a deliberately
> exaggerated political difference. But the same problem applies in any
> election, even if there is no big irreconcilable ideological
> difference. It's just more subtle.
>
> In SPI the most obvious "clumping" of candidates and voters is whether
> they are primarily associated with Debian. We have made good progress
> in making SPI more diverse in that sense. But because our voting
> system exaggerates the influence of any majority, it exaggerates the
> influence of those of our contributing members who are familiar with,
> and support, the board candidates with a Debian background.
>
> And, in direct answer to your question: in the absence of difficult
> ideological problems, a homogenous board is *much* less desirable.
> It is an established principle of good governance that diversity, on a
> governing body, is a good idea.
>
> If the minority's ideas are wrongheaded, then presumably they won't be
> able to carry the board with them. But a minority often has a useful
> different perspective.
>
> (As an aside, I think there is nothing wrong with voters preferring
> candidates that they are familiar with. An important part of being a
> good candidate for the SPI board is to have a good reputation,
> particularly in one's "origin" project(s). That does not mean that
> board members from different backgrounds cannot work together. On the
> contrary I think we have demonstrated that largely they can.)
>
> [ irrelevancies from -private deleted -iwj 16.8.16 ]
>
> Ian.
>
> --
> Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> These opinions are my own.
>
> If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
> a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.
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