[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Multi-winner elections, soc-ctte (Was: Re: soc-ctte discussion at DebConf7)



On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 02:43:24PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>         It should be relatively straight forward for Devotee to find the
>  winner, take the winner out of contention the next round, find the next
>  winner (ignoring any pairwise contests dealing with any candidate no
>  longer in the contest), and continue until the number of candidates
>  desired has been reached.

This is no doubt true.

As I mentioned in another mail, this procedure does have the problem of not
delivering proprtional results.

A scenario.  Suppose that, in the future, Debian comes to be divided fairly
cleanly into three factions in terms of who should be elected in a particular
multi-winner election.  One of the factions has a 55 % support, the second has
30 % support and the third has the remaining 15 % support.  All three field
at least as many candidates as there are seats.  Supporters of a faction place
the candidates fielded by their faction above the candidates fielded by the
other factions.   Now, under the "iterate single-winner-Schulze" method, it
seems to me the winners will all be candidates fielded by the majority faction,
no candidates of the minority factions ending up elected.

Now, for the present discussion, this is relevant for the initial election
of the committee, and it may actually be relevant for reconfirmation as well
(if we decide that the soc ctte should be proportional, then the suggested
reconfirmation method is wrong).   It may even be desirable, in some
situations, to create a body that has no factions in itself (justifying "winner
takes all"), but I doubt the proposed soc committee is one of them.

-- 
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä
http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: