A dialogue with Ugg the Caveman about PLACE voting

In which I “Keep It Simple Stupid”, with a full summary at the end

Me Ugg.

Nice to meet you, Ugg. I’m Jameson Quinn. How do you feel about democracy?

Ugg like vote.

Why do you like to vote?

Ugg’s vote is like big yell. Them all need to listen to Ugg’s big yell.

Yes, voting is a chance for everyone to be heard. But why do you think that they have to listen to your vote?

Majority rule.

So last time you voted, did they listen to your big yell?

No. Ugg mad! Next time for sure!

Where are you from, Ugg?

Ugg born in a cave in France long long time ago. Now Ugg live in Bee See.

You live in British Columbia?

Yes.

Sounds like there’s a fascinating story there. But no time for that. The amazing coincidence is that I’ve just been looking at the voting data for the British Columbia election that happened earlier this year (2017). Do you know what percent of voters voted for the winning representative (MLA)?

Ugg look like number man to you?

Good point. Well, I’ll tell you. It was 50.6%.

Yeah! Ugga-ugga! More than half! Majority rule!

Yes, you might say that. But in 38 of the 87 ridings, it was actually under 50%. In fact, in two of the ridings it was under 40%. If “majority rule” really worked, that would be impossible.

Ugg mad! How can that be?

When you vote, the instructions tell you to pick just one. If you pick two or more, your vote isn’t counted. And then whoever has the biggest pile of votes wins.

So vote is not like big yell, vote is like small rock.

That’s a good point, Ugg. In fact, one word for election theory is “psephology”, which basically comes from a Greek word for “small rock”.

Ugg know a Greek guy once. Guy say “Ugg come out of cave, look at sun”. Ugg know sun! Guy dumb.

Yeah, I’ve heard of that guy. Apparently he didn’t like democracy much, either. But let’s not get distracted.

How can big-pile-win not be the same as majority-rule?

By the rules of the voting method you use in BC, called “first past the post” (FPTP), when the one biggest pile wins, all the many other piles lose. They’re basically thrown away, even if they add up to more than biggest pile.

Ugg no want his small rock thrown in trash. Ugg want his small rock put in big pile so majority rule.

That’s one of the problems with FPTP. A lot of voters don’t want to “waste” their votes on minor candidates. So the two biggest parties get a big unfair advantage. A lot of other problems flow from that, too. Some candidates spend more energy fighting with other candidates who are similar to them than they do arguing against the ones they disagree with the most. Mudslinging works, because with just two candidates that matter, it doesn’t matter if you turn off some of your own voters as long as you turn off more of the other side. And so turnout suffers.

Why not move small pile rocks to big pile? If my pile is too small, ask me where to move my rock.

You’ve basically just invented the system of single transferable vote. Since you like monosyllables, you can call it STV. And it works by moving the “rocks” from small piles into bigger piles until you have a bunch of equal-sized piles and a leftover smaller than any of the piles. (Also, if a pile gets too big, so that the candidate has more than enough votes to win, you move some of those votes to other piles to even things out).

So you throw away just one small small pile?

Exactly. STV makes sure almost everybody gets a representative, with just a small remnant of wasted votes.

Ugg like. But not get one thing. How you know which pile to move rock to? To ask me does not work, my rock no have my name.

In basic STV, each voter has to rank all the candidates ahead of time. Like writing a list of candidate names on the rock. So each rock says which pile it moves to next, then which pile after that, and so on.

What if Ugg just put one name?

If that candidate wins, then great. But if not, there would be no way to know which pile to move your rock to next, so basic STV would just throw it away.

Ugg like ess tee vee if not throw rock in trash. Ugg no like if still throw rock in trash. Too much names on rock. Too hard.

You’re an imaginary rhetorical caveman, Ugg, so it’s understandable that you want to keep things simple. But the truth is that even we real-world Homo sapiens can have trouble with the complex ballots in basic STV. I live in Cambridge, MA, where we use basic STV to elect our city council. When I vote this November, I’m going to get a ballot with a 26x26 array of bubbles to fill in to rank 26 different candidates. I’m a huge election geek, and even for me it’s a chore.

And basic STV has some other issues, too. To keep ballots from having crazy numbers of candidates, you still need to restrict voters to arbitrary multimember districts of 5 seats or so. Lazy voters tend to reelect incumbents even more than under FPTP. Parties can break down into single-issue microparties. Tallying votes requires centralization, which is bad for security and transparency. And the transition from FPTP can be rocky. These are minor issues; none of them is nearly as bad as FPTP’s problems. But still, there are a lot of voters who feel like you do, Ugg, and aren’t fully sold on basic STV.

What if you find a way to move rocks that no need big list of names on rock?

Exactly. Basic STV is good at avoiding wasted votes. We’d like to find a way to do that without the complex ballots.

PLACE voting is a proportional voting method based on three ideas. The first one, STV, we’ve already discussed. The second one is partial delegation, a solution to the problem of complicated ranked ballots. Instead of you as a voter deciding how to move your rock, you split that power between two other deciders: the candidate you chose and other voters like you. That way, you can just choose one candidate and go home, but still know that if your candidate loses your vote will be transferred and not just thrown away.

Here’s how it works. Before you vote, the candidates can endorse each other. That sets up some general preference categories for each candidate. First, there’s the candidate herself; second, there’s her “faction”, that is, all the other candidates in her party whom she endorsed; third, there’s the rest of the candidates in her party; and fourth, there’s her “allies”, the candidates she endorsed from outside her party.

Then, when the votes are initially tallied, all the candidates in each of those categories are ordered from highest to lowest vote tally. That creates a full STV ballot. People who voted for the initial candidate is assumed to have cast that identical ballots.

So basically, if your pile loses, your “rock” would first move to the biggest pile out of all the same-party candidates endorsed by your first choice.

What if Ugg no like his rock to move? Ugg no want to be in trap.

If for some reason you trust your first choice to represent you in the legislature but you don’t trust them to represent you in the voting process, there is a box you can mark to make sure your vote isn’t transferred:

Pick a circle, Ugg.

Frankly, there’s not much reason you’d choose “do not transfer”. If choosing it matters, it just means your vote will be thrown away.

And in fact, delegation has an advantage beyond just simplifying the ballot: it concentrates the power of people who, under FPTP, are ignored and/or taken for granted by both major parties. You have the greatest possible freedom to find a candidate who truly represents you; and before the election, even if that candidate likely can’t win, as long as it is clear they will get a significant number of delegated votes, their endorsement is a valuable thing. They can use that power to negotiate in your interests; to get other candidates to make promises on the issues they (and hopefully, you) care about. If they use that power well, voters can reward them when the election comes; if they misuse it and only endorse their corrupt cronies, voters can punish them.

What if Ugg not know names, just parties?

You can vote for a party. Your vote will be transferred to that party’s candidates, in order of initial vote tally.

What if Ugg like one party but not like man from party here?

If you like a party but don’t like your local candidate for that party (man or woman), you can vote for a party and choose “do not transfer”. Your vote will be transferred to all of that party’s candidates except the local one, in order of initial vote tally. This helps keep politicians more accountable, by separating party accountability from individual accountability.

Ugg like. But Ugg not want have to care how rocks move. Ugg want to have one clear rep. Want rep to live near.

That brings up the third idea in PLACE voting: keeping single member districts. Since PLACE uses STV-style vote transfers, proportionality is guaranteed, even if any particular candidate is eliminated. So you can guarantee that each riding gets one winner, by just eliminating all other candidates from that riding as soon as that winner is found.

So PLACE can keep the same ridings as FPTP. There are 4 ways these ridings are used:

To simplify the ballot, only the candidates from the local riding are listed explicitly; any other candidates from other ridings can be written in on their party line. (See sample ballot above.)

Before the STV elimination process begins, all candidates with less than 25% of the local votes in their riding are eliminated (with, of course, those votes being transferred). This ensures the local voters have a say in the local representative. It also ensures that fringe parties that can’t reach 25% in even one riding don’t get seats, although they still can have some power through delegation.

During the STV elimination process, there are rules to ensure one winner per riding, by eliminating all other local candidates as soon as one winner is found, and by ensuring that the last remaining candidate from each riding is not eliminated.

Ugg not sure that four ways. But Ugg want ask: what if Ugg not win in my riding?

I was just getting to that. Once winners are chosen, their parties assign them extra territory, so that each riding is in the territory of one representative per party. So Ugg, you’d have a representative from a party you like, even if that party wasn’t the winner from your riding.

Ugg think Ugg like. But Ugg not sure. Ugg want hear whole thing all at once. Not part, part, part.

OK. Here goes.

PLACE voting is a proportional voting method that minimizes wasted votes by combining 3 simple ideas:

Transferable votes, as in STV

Partial delegation, to simplify the ballot, and also to concentrate each smaller group’s fair voting power into a few leaders who can negotiate for that group.

One winner per riding, to further simplify the ballot, and to maintain a simple, local link between representatives and constituents.

Here’s the full process:

Before the election, candidates may endorse other candidates. From the perspective of each candidate, this divides other candidates into 4 preference level groups: “same faction”, “same party”, “allies”, and “opponents”. The ballot lists the candidates running locally, and also has a write-in slot for each party. You can choose a local candidate, choose a party, or choose a party and write in a candidate from another riding. There is also a way to check “do not transfer” when choosing a local candidate, or “do not transfer to local candidates” when choosing a party. Ballots are tallied, and any candidate who got less than 25% of the local votes (the votes in their riding) is eliminated (unless they got more local votes than any other). Votes for eliminated candidates are transferred (unless the voter opted out). They go first to “same faction”, in descending order of raw vote total; then “Same party”, again by vote total; and finally to “allies”, again in vote order. If all these groups run out, a ballot is exhausted. Any candidate who gets a “quota” of votes wins, and the excess portion of all their votes (above what they needed to win) is transferred. A quota is the smallest size of a vote pile so that each candidate could get one quota and leave less than one quota of wasted votes. So in an election for 9 seats, a quota would be 10% of the total votes, or 90% of the average riding’s votes. Until all seats are full, the candidate that is farthest behind the frontrunner in their riding is eliminated, one by one. Each winning party assigns each riding where they did not win to one of their winning candidates as “extra constituents”.

Ugg like!

Are you sure you’re not just saying that because you’re a rhetorical device?

Too much words. Ugg go now.