    
catherine_a
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: catherine_a
Post Number: 354
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 | | Posted on Monday, June 6, 2005 - 9:51 pm: | |
Bev, re: http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/show.cgi?tpc=1954&post=7154#POST7154
The only circumstance in which fractional votes might be relevant would be in a few voting systems not found in the USA. (E.g., in some kinds of STV/IRV it could be used to distributed second- or third- or fourth- preference votes.)
This was one of the arguments made for introducing electronic voting in Ireland--that this distribution could be more accurate (and fairer) than the current procedures (which divide up only the last-counted bundles of a successful candidate's "surplus" votes among remaining contenders, according to their percentage of 2nd preferences). A curious "feature" of the proposed Irish e-voting system (NEDAP and PowerVote) is that it didn't have this function, even though having it had been touted as one of the potential advantages of moving to electronic voting!
While I am not a programmer I find it impossible to imagine any legitimate reason for incorporating rounding of fractional votes. Hopefully someone who is a programmer will respond as well. |
