Asset voting

Asset voting is used to refer to a voting system in which votes are considered as "assets" given to candidates. If no candidate gets more than the winning threshold (i.e., a majority, in the single winner case), then the candidates can redistribute "their" votes to other candidates until a winner exists. Variations exist with different constraints on transfers - for example, the candidate with the fewest votes might be forced to redistribute their votes first. It is possible to force the negotiations to go on until there are enough candidates with quotas (say, Droop

Quo)tas to fill all (or all but one of the) seats, which in the single-winner case would, under the former condition, mean requiring the winner to earn a majority of assets.

Asset voting was invented in 1874 by Lewis Caroll (Charles Dodgson), and independently reinvented and named by Forest Simmons and Warren Smith.

If used as a multi-winner voting method, it obeys most proportionality criteria, if the requisite assumptions about coalitions are extended to include candidates as well as voters. In such use, it is similar to delegable proxy systems except that, unlike such systems, it has public elections only at regularly scheduled intervals (proxies are not "revocable") and elects a fixed number of representatives with equal power.

Asset is Droop-proportional based on negotiator preferences (which can diverge from voter preferences), meaning that if a negotiator or group of negotiators hold a certain number of Droop Quotas of votes, they can guarantee the election of up to that number of their preferred candidates. Further, Asset always picks a winner or winner set that is in the Smith Set based on negotiators' preferences (which is not necessarily the same as the voters' preferences, since the negotiators may be corrupt, change preferences mid-negotiation, not know the voters' full preferences, etc.) if the negotiators are given enough time to negotiate and are honest with each other in their negotiating moves, meaning that if the negotiators have discussed every relevant permutation of winners or winner sets, Asset will always produce an outcome that can earn more votes during the negotiations than any other possible outcome, unless certain outcomes earn more votes than each other in a Condorcet cycle. In the single-winner case, if the negotiators are honest, strictly follow voter preferences, and have enough time to negotiate, then Asset becomes a Smith-efficient Condorcet method, and in the multiwinner case, resembles Condorcet PR methods such as CPO-STV and Schulze STV.

Asset can, under ideal conditions in the multiwinner case, render many if not all free-riding strategies needless; this is because, in some sense, the negotiators can do vote management themselves. Consider the example of three parties, A, B and C, where 51 voters vote for B candidates, 49 vote for A candidates, and 10 for C candidates, and there are 5 seats to be elected. Supposing every voter gives maximal support to all of the candidates of their chosen party, and no support for any other candidate, Party B will win 3 seats in most PR methods. However, if the 49 A voters divide themselves as evenly as possible between 3 of their candidates (17 of them bullet vote the first, 16 each bullet vote the second and third candidates), and a Droop quota is spent every time someone is elected in the PR method, then Party A will be able to win 3 seats instead. With Asset, the B candidates can agree to divide their 51 votes evenly between 3 of them (17 each), ensuring that their candidates will be 3 of the 5 candidates with the most votes when the negotiations end and thus win.

Sequential Asset Voting can be done by doing Asset sequentially in the multiwinner case: multiple rounds of negotiations are done, and after each round, the candidate(s) with the most votes are elected. If only one candidate is elected at a time, this can allow a majority to win every seat, and could be considered Bloc Asset Voting, as this is akin to deterministic Bloc methods such as Bloc Approval Voting. It is also possible to spend or exhaust some votes after each seat is elected, which can influence the negotiation and potentially make Sequential Asset move in a continuum between majoritarianism and proportionality. If a Droop quota of votes is spent each time, for example, then Sequential Asset becomes at least semi-proportional based on negotiator preferences.

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