Droop distortion vs Pure Proportional Representation

Why do we continue to use the "Droop quota" and in the process disenfranchise a significant percentage of voters?

In the past the adoption of the Droop quota allowed us to reach a conclusion in the count without having to distribute preferences to the Nth degree and count every vote.  However with the use of computer based technology this justification no longer applies.

Droop = x/(y+1)-1
Pure Proportional = x/y

By calculating the quota to be "x(/y+1)-1", as defined by Droop, we are ignoring up to a quota of  voters which results in a large percentage of votes being locked up in what is referred to as the "wasted quota".

The effect of the Droop quota can be  seen by clearly by analyzing the 2012 City of Melbourne Council vote.  In this case Team Doyle received around 38% of the vote and elected 3 positions yet 8% of voters (It's surplus) was ignored.  If the system was a pure proportional count the quota would have been 11.11% instead of 10% and the outcome of the election would have been more representative.

Under the Droop quota the Greens managed to elect 2 positions with just 14% of the primary vote and community candidate Kevin Chamberlin on 6% miss out being elected. If the count was pure proportional without the distortion of the Droop quota Kevin Chamberlin would have been elected with the support of Team Doyle’s surplus preferences.

Why should Team Doyle’s voters be disenfranchised and ignored by being lockup in the discarded quota, why should not the system be fully proportional and each vote of equal value.  The current system using the Droop Quota at best can only be described as semi proportional.

The system using the Droop quota becomes even more distorted under the Victorian Local Government count-back rules as the vote that has been left on the table is not taken into account when calculating who or which candidate fills the casual vacancy.

The Victorian State Parliament Electoral Matters Committee to date has not scheduled a review of the Local Government elections, it is unclear if they will even though it is within their terms of references and they have an obligation to do so.

Will the Melbourne City Council take up this issue?    Most likely not.  The Greens benefited from the distortion in the proportionality of the count so they will not see any benefit in reform.  The only team that did not was Team Doyle and Kevin Chamberlin. But the principle is clear if you believe in proportional representation then all votes should carry equal weight x/y is the purest means of calculating a quota not x/(y+1)-1

2012 City of Melbourne Primary Preference count (9 Councillors to be elected)

					QUOTA
	1st Preferences			Group	Droop	x/y
	1			%	10.00%	11.11%
FOSTER, Richard	3805	5.98%
D'CRUZ, Emily Lee	63	0.10%
RUBBO, Mark Dattilo	72	0.11%
SYME, Wendy	5	0.01%
EDWARDS, Jason	8	0.01%
			3953	6.21%	0.62	0.56
MAYNE, Stephen	3808	5.98%
ANDERSON, Michele	20	0.03%
			3828	6.01%	0.60	0.54
DOWNING, Luke S.	1895	2.98%
CRAGG, David	34	0.05%
			1929	3.03%	0.30	0.27
CHAMBERLIN, Kevin	3607	5.67%
DUTTA, Roshena	58	0.09%
PARISI, Nick	8	0.01%
MACDONALD, Alex	13	0.02%
			3686	5.79%	0.58	0.52
RAHAMAN, Azeezur	678	1.06%
FISCHL, Leesa	589	0.93%
			1267	1.99%	0.20	0.18
ANDERSON, Gerard	522	0.82%
NORRIS, Maree	6	0.01%
			528	0.83%	0.08	0.07
OKE, Cathy	9886	15.53%
LEPPERT, Rohan	14	0.02%
RHODES, Lachlan	8	0.01%
PODESTA, Jennifer	13	0.02%
THIEL, Philip	21	0.03%
			9942	15.62%	1.56	1.41
LOUEY, Kevin	23759	37.32%
WOOD, Arron	29	0.05%
PINDER-MORTIMER, Beverley	11	0.02%
JETTER, Carl	12	0.02%
SHEN, Harvard	16	0.03%
SWEETMAN, Fiona	10	0.02%
WEI, Hope	27	0.04%
			23864	37.48%	3.75	3.37
WATTS, Jackie	6073	9.54%
KENNEDY, Michael	16	0.03%
KINSELLA, Marie	9	0.01%
O'BRIEN, Sue	16	0.03%
			6114	9.60%	0.96	0.86
ONG, Ken	8263	12.98%
PAGANO, Carlo	7	0.01%
HEWITT, Sally	17	0.03%
SMITH, Leona	17	0.03%
			8304	13.04%	1.30	1.17
VISA, Moti	123	0.19%	123	0.19%	0.02	0.02
LOH, David	11	0.02%	11	0.02%	0.00	0.00
van der CRAATS, Anthony	115	0.18%	115	0.18%	0.02	0.02
TOTAL	63664	100.00%	63664	100.00%	10.00	9.00

..

Julian Assange to run for the Senate

Antony Green is not a constitutional lawyer nor is he qualified in migration law. Section 44 would not apply to Julian Assange. Contrary to Antony Green's assertion Julian Assange is not a subject or citizen of Ecuador. He still retrains his Australian Citizenship.

Assange could also benefit from the a possible LNP surplus and/or the preferences from other minor parties. Many would consider putting Wikileaks Party Ahead of the Greens.

 The Greens will have no choice but to preference Assange. Failure to do so would damage the Greens chances of being elected.  Assange would fair better in Tasmania or Victoria.

Assuming his party can secure a seat, if he is unable to take up his position the party would nominate an alternative candidate in his absence., If and when Assange returns to Australia the alternative candidate can resign and the party again nominates Assange to fill the vacancy.

 The big question is the allocation of party above-the-line preferences. If he can secure a favourable preference distribution and a substantial primary vote to remain in the count then yes he could win a Senate seat, if not at the next election the one that will follow, which will most likely be a double dissolution

Rally for Assange

Julian Assange is expected to be extradited to Sweden following a decision By the UK Supreme Court that decried a public prosecuted to be a Judicial Authority. Person can be red red to anther state on the as of a public prosecutor issuing a writ seeking extradition in order to question the person named. There is no right of judicial review or evidence to support the application for extradition.

The judgment of the UK Court has major implications for all sovereign states.

A rally in support of Julian Assange will be held throughout Australia. Thusday May 31, 2012 at the Office of te Departmnet of Foreign Affairs. 12 noon There will be speakers between midday and 2pm. The main rally will be at 4:30 http://justice4assange.com/

ABC Antony Green's Selective Analysis of Green's Peferences

Antony Green, ABC Electoral Analyst,  has produced another article on Green preferences in his blog but had failed to address the issue of optional preferential voting and the method of counting the Senate vote 

As a Party the Greens can not direct preferences in the lower house, in the upper-house yes, but only thanks to the above-the-line voting system, below-the-line voting they have no say.,

What is untested and a real potential problem, not just related to the Greens but for all parties including the ALP and the LNP is optional preferential voting. What happens if a party advocates to not preference anyone, and the voter only preferences the candidate/party of their choice without expressing a continuing preference? The system becomes by default a first-past-the-post ballot.

Analysis of the 2010 Victorian State upper-house vote shows that a number of exhausted BTL votes from the party votes does have a significant impact on the election outcome. IN Western Metropolitan for example Bob Smith lost his seat because a significant number of Family First, DLP and Liberal party votes exhausted and did not flow on to other parties, This gave the Greens a hidden advantage in that these votes did not flow on to the ALP as was the case with Ticket ATL votes

The Senate vote and party preferences
The other issue that also is a considerable concern is the method of counting the Senate vote., The System itself disports the outcome of the election and voters intentions.

In Queensland 2007 Larrisa Waters should have been elected to the Senate, the only reason she was not was due to the method of segmentation in the way the votes is counted., a system that was designed to facilitate the manual counting of the vote.
 
In Victoria 2007 David Feeney could have lost his seat, not because of the voters intention, but due to the method used in calculating the surplus transfer value.

Had Pauline Hanson's One Nation preferenced the Liberal Party, before the ALP and ahead of the Greens, David Feeney would have been defeated, contrary to the voters intentions. The system having delivered an additional value of 7000 votes to the Liberal Party ticket vote which favoured the Greens ahead of the ALP.

The value of the minor parties (The DLP, Family First and One Nation) was devalued and the Liberal party vote increased disproportionally). The system used to count the Senate vote is in need of serious overhaul. We no longer need to take short cuts to facilitate a manual count, short cuts that make the system inaccurate and unfair.

Whilst Antony Green has agreed with the analysis of the Victorian 2007 Senate count he continues to avoid undertaking a review of the 2007 Queensland Senate count.  If you recount the 2007 Queensland vote and exclude all candidates except the last seven candidates remaining in the count and redistribute the preferences accordingly, Larrisa Waters should have been elected ahead of the Labor Party's 3rd Candidate. The reason she was not was due to the method of segmentation in the way the vote is counted.

If you use the the same procedural methods that apply to the lower hose single member preferential count, and on exclusion of a candidate from the count and restart the count afresh the method of segmentation does not distort the outcome of the election result.   A re-iterative counting system is more accurate and with the aid of computer technology should be implemented.

Hansard: Victorian State Parliament Electoral Matter's Committee

Victorian State Parliament - Electoral Matters Committee
Extract from Hansard dated August 23, 2011



The CHAIR — Are you appearing in a private capacity or representing an organisation? If so, which organisation?

Mr van der CRAATS — I am a member of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia and of the Australian Labor Party, but the evidence that I give is of personal opinion.

The CHAIR — I ask you to begin your verbal submission, and we will take it from there.

Mr van der CRAATS — Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this Parliament. I do so with some reluctance, mainly because the last time I gave evidence to this committee I was subjected to what I consider to be harassment, intimidation and vilification by the chief electoral commissioner. It is a matter that I raised before with this committee, or the previous committee, and it failed to respond or to properly act. It is my belief that the actions taken by the chief electoral commissioner constitute contempt of Parliament, and I would like that this committee give further consideration to the complaints that I forwarded to the committee on previous occasions with the view of having the matter properly dealt with by an appropriate authority. I will raise this later in my submission, particularly with respect to item 4 and in relation to the role of the Ombudsman and the electoral commission as it is the Ombudsman that I believe is the appropriate body to review such complaints. However, this committee has a responsibility to ensure the integrity of the parliamentary process, that the committee process is intact and that witnesses are not subjected to some form of harassment or intimidation as a result of evidence given that may be detrimental to or critical of the conduct of the election’s process.

Norm Chomsky: America is not a Democracy

NSW: Upper House Preference Results Analysis - Meek and Wright Methods

Analysis of the NSW March 2011 State Legislative Council Ballot based on the detailed preference data published blatantly by the NSW Electoral Commission on August 3, 2011 indicated the following candidates are elected. (OpenSTV - Source Data)

| Count after transferring surplus votes. Keep factors of candidates who have exceeded the

| threshold: GALLACHER Mike, 0.081266; GAY Duncan, 0.088605; PEARCE Greg, 0.097127; CLARKE

| David, 0.107637; COLLESS Rick, 0.120694; MacDONALD Scot, 0.137060; CUSACK Catherine, 0.158742;

| MACLAREN-JONES Natasha, 0.188697; PHELPS Peter, 0.232255; BLAIR Niall, 0.302617; JOHNSTON

| Sarah, 0.432234; ROOZENDAAL Eric, 0.163670; DONNELLY Greg, 0.195524; SHARPE Penny, 0.242614;

| PRIMROSE Peter, 0.320513; KELLY Tony, 0.469467; FERGUSON Andrew, 0.870859; SHOEBRIDGE David,

| 0.335056; BARHAM Jan, 0.503748; and BROWN Robert, 0.919975. Candidate GREEN Paul has reached

| the threshold and is elected.

Winners are GALLACHER Mike, GAY Duncan, PEARCE Greg, CLARKE David, COLLESS Rick, MacDONALD Scot,

CUSACK Catherine, MACLAREN-JONES Natasha, PHELPS Peter, BLAIR Niall, JOHNSTON Sarah, GREEN Paul,

ROOZENDAAL Eric, DONNELLY Greg, SHARPE Penny, PRIMROSE Peter, KELLY Tony, FERGUSON Andrew,

SHOEBRIDGE David, BARHAM Jan, and BROWN Robert.

Likewise we under took analysis of the published data by excluding all but the last 22 candidates (Including Pauline Hanson) simulating the count  using the Wright System.  The results are the same - Detailed OpenSTV sheet sheet results.

To help you understand more how the system and method of counting the vote can and does distort the outcome of the election take a closer look at the 2007 Queensland Senate count.  

In 2007 Green's Candidate, Larissa Waters, was wrongfully denied representation.  The reason she was not elected was due solely to the distortion in the method of segmentation that is used in counting the Senate vote. A fact that Antony Green, ABC Electoral Analyst failed to understand or review. 

More information including count sheets using Meek and Wright methods of counting the vote.