C.G. Hoag "Effective Voting" (1913) STV, IRV, Schedule Plan and List PR
- Tom Monto
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
C.C. Hoag in 1913 in pamphlet entitled Effective Voting described the Schedule Plan system of PR and what it would do.
(apparently the 1913 Schedule Plan had refinement that voter marked a candidate and also which specific candidate's list for pooling purposes.
the ballot showing various list options for each candidate is probably an un-necessary complication.
but perhaps could be done by voter having one vote for the preferred candidate and one vote for the preferred list, even having them submitted on two separate slips. then do two counts simultaneously after sorting. coloured paper can distinguish them apart)
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Under the schedule plan the candidates’ names are printed on the ballot in a single list, as under the Hare plan, instead of in several lists, as under the list plan.
But under the schedule plan each candidate really stands for a list, for the distinguishing feature of the plan is that every ballot that can not help elect the candidate for whom it was cast is to be counted to help some other candidate on a list published before the election as that of the candidates who are to receive, in the order in which their names stand on the list, any votes cast for the candidate in question which can not help him “either because he has a full quota without them or because he is found to have no chance of being elected with them.
The differences between the schedule plan and the list plan are these:
(1) The former lends itself to the Australian form of ballot, [candidate in alpha order?] whereas the latter lends itself to the party-list form of ballot.
(2) The former offers the voter many lists, a different one for each candidate, without making the ballot physically cumbersome, whereas the latter either restricts the voter to a few lists or makes the ballot cumbersome. Neither plan, of course, makes the ballot “long” in the political sense of that word; for politically a ballot is “long” that is hard to vote so as to make the voter's will effective, and a ballot is ‘““short” that is easy to vote so as to produce that result; and it is very easy for the voter to vote so as to make his will effective with either a schedule or a list plan ballot.
(3) The schedule plan allows a candidate’s name to be on more than one list, whereas the list plan, unless the rules are made rather complicated, does not.
Either plan, if carried out with suitable rules, may be expected to give perfect results. Either will elect a representative body incomparably more useful, because incomparably more truly representative of the voters, than those we have had in the past.
To a legislature elected by either may safely be entrusted the power to select the chief administrative official of the State—not a governor, with veto powers, but a sort of State manager with purely administrative duties—from anywhere in the country or the world to serve indefinitely, on a professional basis, so long as he is satisfactory to the truly representative legislature and to the people. [showing the business-government/innovative electoral mechanisms proposed back then]
Either may be made the basis, therefore, of a form of State government at once truly democratic and highly efficient.
(from p. 20)
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looks like both use a quota to determine the surplus votes of early winners. [Droop works good]
Hoag's pamphlet available online:
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Even a simple system can give improvement over FPTP
such as in a three-seat district, the three most-popular parties would be determined and the most-popular candidate in each party would be elected.
parties would run slates knowing the party vote would be concentrated later anyway.
(this even-handedness might be a sop used to gain support in the HofC from three parties anyway.)
or in a five-seat district, you might want a party to have multiple seats for fairness sake
determine candidate vote tallies, elect any who achieve quota;
if not all seats filled, determine party tallies (or maybe it is already done on expectation that it will be needed).
subtract quota(s) from any parties who elected already;
determine the most-popular parties.
fill remaining seats with the most-popular candidate of the most-popular party/ies.
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C.G. Hoag's 1913 pamphlet entitled Effective Voting implies that the Schedule Plan had refinement that voter marked a candidate and also a specific candidate's list for pooling purposes.
The ballot showing various list options for each candidate is probably an un-necessary complication.
but perhaps it could be done smoothly by:
voter having one vote for the preferred candidate and one vote for the preferred list, and submitting them on two separate slips. coloured paper can distinguish them apart
after polls close, sort them into candidate pile and list pile,
and then do two counts simultaneously, to arrive at the winners as in above.
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