***To all interested in the Edinburgh Local Group of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS)***
Our March talk for 2007 is scheduled to take place at
the usual time of 6.00 pm on Tuesday 13 March.
The full announcement is provided in text form below.
However, please also scroll further down to find details of how to access our poster for advertising this meeting and for details of our local group website. This poster should be available later this week.
********** March meeting announcement *************
FAIR VOTES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
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PROFESSOR DENIS MOLLISON (Heriot Watt University)
Tuesday 13 March 2007, 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm (refreshments at 5.30 pm); members and non-members of the RSS are all MOST WELCOME to attend this meeting. There is no need to register if you are a non-member.
International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, 14 India Street,
Edinburgh EH3 6EZ (http://www.icms.org.uk/)
*Abstract*
The Single Transferable Vote is coming to Scottish politics for May's Council elections, though elections for the Parliament on the same day will still use the same hybrid proportional system as previously. Electronic counting is being introduced for both elections.The principles of STV are simple - maximising the effectiveness of each individual's vote, and achieving proportionality through votes for individuals not party lists - but have long been obscured by the complicated compromises of detail needed to make hand counting possible. The RSS itself pioneered the use of a streamlined computer-counted method over 20 years ago, while the John Muir Trust has subsequently pioneered a refinement which allows voters to give equal preference to candidates. Unfortunately, the specific method being used in Scotland in May still includes some of the historic compromises, and has flaws of discontinuity and some vulnerability to tactical voting (though much less than does traditional
`first past the post'). This talk will compare STV with other voting systems, especially those used to elect members of the Scottish and European Parliaments; comparing them both in theoretical respects, such as fairness, proportionality, and tactical voting,and in practical aspects affecting choices of candidates and campaigning. It will also, taking Edinburgh as an example, show how the outcome of elections under STV can be estimated using voting or opinion poll information, together with a matrix of preference transfer data.
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***Details of the new website for the Edinburgh local group of the RSS***
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Please refer to
http://www.bioss.sari.ac.uk/staff/adam/rsse/
where you can learn more about past and future meetings of our group and
about the workings of the RSS in general. It is anticipated that this
site will provide an alternative route to sharing information with multiple recipients, given the problems that can arise with e-mail attachments.
***Posters for advertising***
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Please kindly note that for those interested in advertising this meeting, a poster is to be made available for downloading in MS Word and pdf formats at the above site later this week. To avoid possible problems with sending attachments to multiple recipients, it is anticipated that this will be the ongoing approach to distributing our posters for local group meetings.
================================================== If you have further questions or difficulties in reading this email, please inform me by return of email. Also, if you would prefer not to receive such announcements in the future or know of individuals who would like to be added to our local group mailing list, please let me know asap.
We look forward to meeting you next week!
Margaret MacDougall, Secretary and Treasurer
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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