Chapter 3 Voting Systems
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Investigating the Application of Structured Representations of Unstructured Content in Personalisation Tasks
Investigating the application of structured representations of unstructured content in personalisation tasks Aonghus McGovern A thesis submitted to University of Dublin, Trinity College for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 12, 2019 Declaration This thesis is entirely the work of the author, except where otherwise stated, and has not been submitted for a degree to any other University. This thesis may be copied and lent to others by the University of Dublin. Aonghus McGovern March 12, 2019 ii Acknowledgements To James Cogley, who proofed my early drafts and gave me invaluable advice, I will be forever grateful. To Brendan, Jamie, Lucy, Nicole and Rebekah, the countless discussions we had in the lab will stay with me forever. To my parents, who raised me and supported me throughout my entire educational journey, I am deeply grateful. To my supervisor Vincent Wade, who made me into the researcher I am today, goes my sincerest gratitude. iii Abstract For personalisation approaches that analyse unstructured content, a common task is converting that unstructured content to a structured representation. Each structured representation has strengths and weaknesses, and the choice of representation should be made with respect to the personalisation task at hand. However, the way in which the choice of structured representations affects the personalisation that can be performed using that representation has not been clearly articulated. This is because personalisation approaches tend to focus on the success of their chosen personalisation task (e.g. recommendation accuracy) without examining how the characteristics of their chosen structured representation influenced this success. This motivates an investigation of of the characteristics of structured representations in the context of different personalisation tasks. -
A Canadian Model of Proportional Representation by Robert S. Ring A
Proportional-first-past-the-post: A Canadian model of Proportional Representation by Robert S. Ring A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Political Science Memorial University St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador May 2014 ii Abstract For more than a decade a majority of Canadians have consistently supported the idea of proportional representation when asked, yet all attempts at electoral reform thus far have failed. Even though a majority of Canadians support proportional representation, a majority also report they are satisfied with the current electoral system (even indicating support for both in the same survey). The author seeks to reconcile these potentially conflicting desires by designing a uniquely Canadian electoral system that keeps the positive and familiar features of first-past-the- post while creating a proportional election result. The author touches on the theory of representative democracy and its relationship with proportional representation before delving into the mechanics of electoral systems. He surveys some of the major electoral system proposals and options for Canada before finally presenting his made-in-Canada solution that he believes stands a better chance at gaining approval from Canadians than past proposals. iii Acknowledgements First of foremost, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my brilliant supervisor, Dr. Amanda Bittner, whose continuous guidance, support, and advice over the past few years has been invaluable. I am especially grateful to you for encouraging me to pursue my Master’s and write about my electoral system idea. -
A Treasury System for Cryptocurrencies: Enabling Better Collaborative Intelligence ⋆
A Treasury System for Cryptocurrencies: Enabling Better Collaborative Intelligence ? Bingsheng Zhang1, Roman Oliynykov2, and Hamed Balogun3 1 Lancaster University, UK [email protected] 2 Input Output Hong Kong Ltd. [email protected] 3 Lancaster University, UK [email protected] Abstract. A treasury system is a community controlled and decentralized collaborative decision- making mechanism for sustainable funding of the blockchain development and maintenance. During each treasury period, project proposals are submitted, discussed, and voted for; top-ranked projects are funded from the treasury. The Dash governance system is a real-world example of such kind of systems. In this work, we, for the first time, provide a rigorous study of the treasury system. We modelled, designed, and implemented a provably secure treasury system that is compatible with most existing blockchain infrastructures, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. More specifically, the proposed treasury system supports liquid democracy/delegative voting for better collaborative intelligence. Namely, the stake holders can either vote directly on the proposed projects or delegate their votes to experts. Its core component is a distributed universally composable secure end-to-end verifiable voting protocol. The integrity of the treasury voting decisions is guaranteed even when all the voting committee members are corrupted. To further improve efficiency, we proposed the world's first honest verifier zero-knowledge proof for unit vector encryption with logarithmic size communication. This partial result may be of independent interest to other cryptographic protocols. A pilot system is implemented in Scala over the Scorex 2.0 framework, and its benchmark results indicate that the proposed system can support tens of thousands of treasury participants with high efficiency. -
Legislature by Lot: Envisioning Sortition Within a Bicameral System
PASXXX10.1177/0032329218789886Politics & SocietyGastil and Wright 789886research-article2018 Special Issue Article Politics & Society 2018, Vol. 46(3) 303 –330 Legislature by Lot: Envisioning © The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: Sortition within a Bicameral sagepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329218789886DOI: 10.1177/0032329218789886 System* journals.sagepub.com/home/pas John Gastil Pennsylvania State University Erik Olin Wright University of Wisconsin–Madison Abstract In this article, we review the intrinsic democratic flaws in electoral representation, lay out a set of principles that should guide the construction of a sortition chamber, and argue for the virtue of a bicameral system that combines sortition and elections. We show how sortition could prove inclusive, give citizens greater control of the political agenda, and make their participation more deliberative and influential. We consider various design challenges, such as the sampling method, legislative training, and deliberative procedures. We explain why pairing sortition with an elected chamber could enhance its virtues while dampening its potential vices. In our conclusion, we identify ideal settings for experimenting with sortition. Keywords bicameral legislatures, deliberation, democratic theory, elections, minipublics, participation, political equality, sortition Corresponding Author: John Gastil, Department of Communication Arts & Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, 232 Sparks Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, USA. Email: [email protected] *This special issue of Politics & Society titled “Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance” features a preface, an introductory anchor essay and postscript, and six articles that were presented as part of a workshop held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, September 2017, organized by John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright. -
Voting Systems∗
Voting Systems∗ Paul E. Johnson May 27, 2005 Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Mathematical concepts 4 2.1 Transitivity. 4 2.2 Ordinal versus Cardinal Preferences . 5 3 The Plurality Problem 7 3.1 Two Candidates? No Problem! . 7 3.2 Shortcomings of Plurality Rule With More than Two Candidates . 9 4 Rank-order voting: The Borda Count 14 4.1 The Borda Count . 15 4.2 A Paradox in the Borda Procedure . 17 4.3 Another Paradox: The Borda Winner Is A Loser? . 20 4.4 Inside the Guts of the Borda Count . 21 ∗This is a chapter prepared for educational usage by undergraduates at the University of Kansas and for eventual inclusion in a mathematics textbook that is being written with Saul Stahl of the University of Kansas Department of Mathematics. Revisions will be ongoing, so comments & corrections are especially welcome. Please contact Paul Johnson <[email protected]>. 1 4.5 Digression on the Use of Cardinal Preferences . 25 5 Sequential Pairwise Comparisons 28 5.1 A Single Elimination Tournament . 28 5.2 Dominated Winner Paradox . 30 5.3 The Intransitivity of Majority Rule . 30 6 Condorcet Methods: The Round Robin Tournament 35 6.1 Searching for an Unbeatable Set of Alternatives . 36 6.2 The Win-Loss Record . 37 6.3 Aggregated Pairwise Voting: The Borda Count Strikes Back! . 38 6.4 The Schulze Method . 43 7 Single Vote Systems: Cousins of Plurality and Majority Rule 57 8 Conclusion 63 List of Figures 1 Hypothetical Football Tournament . 29 2 Tournament Structure for the Dominated Winner Paradox . 31 3 The Smith Set . -
Game Theory and Democracy Homework Problems
Game Theory and Democracy Homework Problems PAGE 82 Challenge Problem: Show that any voting model (such as the Unit Interval Model or the Unit Square Model) which has a point symmetry always has a Condorcet winner for every election, namely the candidate who is closest to the point of symmetry! PAGE 93 Exercise: Show that if there are not any cycles of any length in the preferences of the voters, then there must be a Condorcet winner. (Don’t worry about making your proof rigorous, just convince yourself of this fact, to the point you could clearly explain your ideas to someone else.) PAGE 105 Exercise: Prove that the strongest chain strength of a chain from Candidate Y to Candidate X is 3. (If you can convince a skeptical friend that it is true, then that is a proof.) Exercise: Prove that it is never necessary to use a candidate more than once to find a chain with the strongest chain strength between two candidates. Hint: Show that whenever there is a loop, like the one shown in red Y (7) Z (3) W (9) Y (7) Z (3) W (11) X, we can consider a shortened chain by simply deleting the red loop Y (7) Z (3) W (11) X which is at least as strong as the original loop. Exercises: Prove that all of the chains above are in fact strongest chains, as claimed. Hint: The next figure, which has all of the information of the margin of victory matrix, will be useful, and is the type of figure you may choose to draw for yourself for other elections, from time to time. -
Crowdsourcing Applications of Voting Theory Daniel Hughart
Crowdsourcing Applications of Voting Theory Daniel Hughart 5/17/2013 Most large scale marketing campaigns which involve consumer participation through voting makes use of plurality voting. In this work, it is questioned whether firms may have incentive to utilize alternative voting systems. Through an analysis of voting criteria, as well as a series of voting systems themselves, it is suggested that though there are no necessarily superior voting systems there are likely enough benefits to alternative systems to encourage their use over plurality voting. Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3 Assumptions ............................................................................................................................... 6 Voting Criteria .............................................................................................................................. 10 Condorcet ................................................................................................................................. 11 Smith ......................................................................................................................................... 14 Condorcet Loser ........................................................................................................................ 15 Majority ................................................................................................................................... -
Democracy Without Elections Mainz
Democracy without Elections: Is electoral accountability essential for democracy? Felix Gerlsbeck [email protected] Paper prepared for the workshop “Democratic Anxiety. Democratic Resilience.” Mainz, 15-17 June 2017 DRAFT VERSION, PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION 1. Introduction The idea of choosing political decision-makers by sortition, that is, choosing them randomly from a pool of the entire population or from some qualified subset, through some form of lottery or other randomizing procedure, is familiar to democrats at least since ancient Athens. Apart from the selection of trial juries, however, sortition has all but disappeared from official decision-making procedures within contemporary democratic systems, and free, equal, and regular election through voting by the entire qualified population of candidates who put themselves forward for political office, has taken its place. Nevertheless, there has been renewed interest in the idea of reviving sortition-based elements within modern democratic systems over the last years: a number of democratic theorists see great promise in complementing elected decision-making institutions with those selected randomly. These proposals variously go under the names mini-publics, citizen juries, citizen assemblies, lottocracy, enfranchisement lottery, and even Machiavellian Democracy.1 The roots of this practice go back to ancient Athens. During the 5th century Athenian democracy, the equivalent of the parliamentary body tasked with deliberating 1 See for instance, Guerrero 2014; Fishkin 2009; Warren & Gastil 2015; Ryan & Smith 2014; Saunders 2012; López-Guerra 2014; López-Guerra 2011; McCormick 2011. 1 and drafting policy proposals, the boule, was chosen by lot from the citizens of Athens through a complex system of randomization. -
The Space of All Proportional Voting Systems and the Most Majoritarian Among Them
Social Choice and Welfare https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-018-1166-9 ORIGINAL PAPER The space of all proportional voting systems and the most majoritarian among them Pietro Speroni di Fenizio1 · Daniele A. Gewurz2 Received: 10 July 2017 / Accepted: 30 November 2018 © The Author(s) 2018 Abstract We present an alternative voting system that aims at bridging the gap between pro- portional representative systems and majoritarian electoral systems. The system lets people vote for multiple party-lists, but then assigns each ballot paper to a single party. This opens a whole range of possible parliaments, all proportionally representative. We show theoretically that this space is convex. Then among the possible parliaments we present an algorithm to produce the most majoritarian result. We then test the system and compare the results with a pure proportional and a majoritarian voting system showing how the results are comparable with the majoritarian system. Then we simulate the system and show how it tends to produce parties of exponentially decreasing size with always a first, major party with about half of the seats. Finally we describe how the system can be used in the context of a parliament made up of two separate houses. 1 Introduction One of the main difficulties in choosing an electoral systems is how to approach the dichotomy between governability and representativeness. The general consensus is that it is impossible to have a system that is both proportionally representative and that assures a sufficient concentration of power in few parties to give them the possibility to efficiently govern a country. -
Computational Perspectives on Democracy
Computational Perspectives on Democracy Anson Kahng CMU-CS-21-126 August 2021 Computer Science Department School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Thesis Committee: Ariel Procaccia (Chair) Chinmay Kulkarni Nihar Shah Vincent Conitzer (Duke University) David Pennock (Rutgers University) Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Copyright c 2021 Anson Kahng This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers IIS-1350598, CCF- 1525932, and IIS-1714140, the Department of Defense under grant number W911NF1320045, the Office of Naval Research under grant number N000141712428, and the JP Morgan Research grant. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of any sponsoring institution, the U.S. government or any other entity. Keywords: Computational Social Choice, Theoretical Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence For Grandpa and Harabeoji. iv Abstract Democracy is a natural approach to large-scale decision-making that allows people affected by a potential decision to provide input about the outcome. However, modern implementations of democracy are based on outdated infor- mation technology and must adapt to the changing technological landscape. This thesis explores the relationship between computer science and democracy, which is, crucially, a two-way street—just as principles from computer science can be used to analyze and design democratic paradigms, ideas from democracy can be used to solve hard problems in computer science. Question 1: What can computer science do for democracy? To explore this first question, we examine the theoretical foundations of three democratic paradigms: liquid democracy, participatory budgeting, and multiwinner elections. -
An Optimal Single-Winner Preferential Voting System Based on Game Theory∗
An Optimal Single-Winner Preferential Voting System Based on Game Theory∗ Ronald L. Rivest and Emily Shen Abstract • The election winner is determined by a random- ized method, based for example on the use of We present an optimal single-winner preferential vot- ten-sided dice, that picks outcome x with prob- ing system, called the \GT method" because of its in- ability p∗(x). If there is a Condorcet winner x, teresting use of symmetric two-person zero-sum game then p∗(x) = 1, and no dice are needed. We theory to determine the winner. Game theory is not also briefly discuss a deterministic variant of GT, used to describe voting as a multi-player game be- which we call GTD. tween voters, but rather to define when one voting system is better than another one. The cast ballots The GT system, essentially by definition, is opti- determine the payoff matrix, and optimal play corre- mal: no other voting system can produce election sponds to picking winners optimally. outcomes that are liked better by the voters, on the The GT method is quite simple and elegant, and average, than those of the GT system. We also look works as follows: at whether the GT system has several standard prop- erties, such as monotonicity, consistency, etc. • Voters cast ballots listing their rank-order pref- The GT system is not only theoretically interest- erences of the alternatives. ing and optimal, but simple to use in practice; it is probably easier to implement than, say, IRV. We feel • The margin matrix M is computed so that for that it can be recommended for practical use. -
Instructor's Manual
The Mathematics of Voting and Elections: A Hands-On Approach Instructor’s Manual Jonathan K. Hodge Grand Valley State University January 6, 2011 Contents Preface ix 1 What’s So Good about Majority Rule? 1 Chapter Summary . 1 Learning Objectives . 2 Teaching Notes . 2 Reading Quiz Questions . 3 Questions for Class Discussion . 6 Discussion of Selected Questions . 7 Supplementary Questions . 10 2 Perot, Nader, and Other Inconveniences 13 Chapter Summary . 13 Learning Objectives . 14 Teaching Notes . 14 Reading Quiz Questions . 15 Questions for Class Discussion . 17 Discussion of Selected Questions . 18 Supplementary Questions . 21 3 Back into the Ring 23 Chapter Summary . 23 Learning Objectives . 24 Teaching Notes . 24 v vi CONTENTS Reading Quiz Questions . 25 Questions for Class Discussion . 27 Discussion of Selected Questions . 29 Supplementary Questions . 36 Appendix A: Why Sequential Pairwise Voting Is Monotone, and Instant Runoff Is Not . 37 4 Trouble in Democracy 39 Chapter Summary . 39 Typographical Error . 40 Learning Objectives . 40 Teaching Notes . 40 Reading Quiz Questions . 41 Questions for Class Discussion . 42 Discussion of Selected Questions . 43 Supplementary Questions . 49 5 Explaining the Impossible 51 Chapter Summary . 51 Error in Question 5.26 . 52 Learning Objectives . 52 Teaching Notes . 53 Reading Quiz Questions . 54 Questions for Class Discussion . 54 Discussion of Selected Questions . 55 Supplementary Questions . 59 6 One Person, One Vote? 61 Chapter Summary . 61 Learning Objectives . 62 Teaching Notes . 62 Reading Quiz Questions . 63 Questions for Class Discussion . 65 Discussion of Selected Questions . 65 CONTENTS vii Supplementary Questions . 71 7 Calculating Corruption 73 Chapter Summary . 73 Learning Objectives . 73 Teaching Notes .