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PLACE voting stands for "proportional, locally-accountable, candidate endorsement voting". It is a proportional voting method for electing legislators to a multi-seat body. Like [[GOLD voting]], Its main advantages are: simple ballots, minimal wasted votes, and "do no harm" (that is, it doesn't change FPTP outcomes unless they're non-proportional).
Most of PLACE is described at [[PLACE FAQ]]. Here are the details that aren't:
It assumes the voters have been divided up into one equal-population riding (aka district or constituency) per seat being elected. Precisely one representative per area (riding, riding, or constituency) will win.
=== Niggling details ===
Before the election, a candidate may endorse other candidates at any of three levels: "strongly endorse", "endorse", or "weakly endorse". Same-party candidates may not be left unendorsed, and so are "weakly endorsed" by default; other-party candidates may not be strongly endorsed, and are unendorsed by default. No endorsement level may be used for just one candidate; there must be either 0, or 2 or more.
There are a few extra rules for clarification and edge cases:
Here are the rules. Items in italics are mere explanations or justifications; the rules themselves are only the non-italic portions.
==== Niggling detail 0: Endorsement rules ====
# '''Voters choose a candidate'''.
#* The ballot lists the candidates running locally, with their parties and their first three transfer preferences (explained below).
#* Voters may write in candidates from further away, using error-resistant codes.
#* There is also a way to vote for a party without voting for any candidate in particular. This is equivalent to voting for an eliminated candidate who strongly endorsed all party members.
# Voters may choose not to delegate.
#* This is essentially only to satisfy constitutional concerns about voter freedom. It is almost never strategically a good choice, and it is generally discouraged.
# Each ballot which does not opt out of delegating is converted to a transfer order using the chosen candidate, their endorsements, and the initial vote tallies of each.
#* Transfers go in order of endorsement level, and within each endorsement level in order of initial vote totals.
#* For example, say you endorsed candidate X, who'd strongly endorsed P and Q, endorsed R and S, and weakly endorsed T and U. If the vote total order among those endorsed candidates was S>T>U>P>Q>R, then your vote would be converted to X>P>Q>S>R>T>U. So if X, P, and Q were all either eliminated or elected, any remaining voting power that hadn't been used up in electing those would be transferred to S.
#* If voters absolutely do not want their chosen candidate to have any say over vote transfers, they have two checkboxes: one to ensure that their vote will not be transferred, and one to ensure that it will be transferred to all same-party candidates in order of initial vote totals. However, these options are not emphasized, and it's assumed that they will be used by a small minority. They're there merely to ensure that nobody is being forced to delegate.
If a candidate endorses any within-party ("same faction") candidates, he must do so to at least 3 of them (or at least half of the other candidates running in his party, rounded down; whichever is less). This helps prevent unserious candidates from running merely as "vote funnels" for a single specific serious candidate.
The basic vote-counting process has 5 steps (based on Single Transferrable Voting):
A candidate may endorse no more than half of all other candidates across all parties, and may not make more endorsements than the number of seats up for election (or 5, whichever is greater). This includes both within-party and out-of-party endorsements.
# Tally votes
#* Each ballot counts as 1 point for the chosen candidate.
# Eliminate candidates without enough support in their riding.
#*Candidate X is eliminated unless they fulfill one of the following criteria. (In all cases, "local" means "from the same riding".)
#** First place locally: X has more votes from a given riding than any other candidate.
#** Second place locally and more than half of first: X has more votes from a given riding than all but one other candidate, and at least half as many as that one.
#** In top 50% locally and more than 1/3 of first: In some riding, the local votes for candidates who have more than X add up to less than 50% of all the local votes, and X has at least 1/3 the local votes in that riding as the top candidate there.
#** First place semi-locally: They have more total (local and non-local) votes than any other local candidate, and at least half as many local votes as any other local candidate.
#* If a candidate was kept due to being first or second place, or part of the top 50%, using votes from a riding where they weren't originally running, from this point on they are considered to be running in that riding.
#* ''This makes sure that no riding is badly mis-represented just because a given party "deserves" more winners.''
#* ''It also helps discourage voters from splintering into small single-issue parties. If a party can’t pass this threshold in even one riding, it won’t get seats. But those votes can still be transferred, so those voters can still be represented by a relatively sympathetic candidate from a slightly larger party.''
# Find winners and transfer leftovers.
#* If V is the total number of valid (non-exhausted) votes, and S is the number of unfilled seats, then a “quota” is defined as Q=V/(S+1). This ensures that each full “quota” of voters will get a seat, with less than one “quota” of vote left unrepresented even though they still have a valid preference.
#* Any candidate with a full quota of votes at any time is elected. If their winning vote total is W>Q, then the leftover fraction (W-Q)/W of all of their votes is transferred.
#* Whenever a candidate wins, all other candidates from their riding are eliminated.
#* In the rare case that several candidates from separate ridings reach a full quota at the same time, the one with the fewest local votes is elected first, to allow the others to possibly accumulate a bigger surplus before winning. In the even rarer case that more than one candidate from the same riding reach a full quota at the same time, the one with more local votes is elected. ▼# Eliminate the candidate who's furthest behind in their riding and transfer votes
#* ''If a candidate's current full tally is 1000 votes (including local votes, direct write-ins, and transferred votes), and the top full tally of any remaining candidate in their riding is 2000, then they are 1000 behind in their riding.''
#* ''If a candidate passed pre-elimination in multiple ridings, use the riding without a winner yet in which they're behind by the least.''
#* ''This rule means that the last remaining candidate in a riding is not eligible for elimination.''
#* See above for the transfer methods a voter can choose.
# If there are still seats to fill, repeat from step 3.
There may also be an upper limit on the number of within-party endorsements, for reasons of ballot space.
Once all winners are chosen, each winning party is responsible for assigning each riding they did not win to be "additional territory" of one of their winning representatives. Representatives are responsible to all citizens from their own riding, and also to hear petitions from their "additional territory". That means that if you are in the minority in your riding, you will still have a sympathetic representative to petition.
A candidate may reject an endorsement from another candidate. Rejected endorsements are not valid.
==== Niggling detail 1: Information available in the voting booth ====
Each voting booth will have:
* A list of all candidates in all districts (all eligible write-ins), along with lists of "faction" and "ally" endorsements for each.
** '''Exception''': in elections involving 30 seats or more, districts may be aggregated into "megadistricts" of less than 30 districts each, and information provided only for candidates within the local "megadistrict". Candidates outside the "megadistrict" are still valid write-ins; the grouping only affects the information provided in the booth.
** The "faction" information for each party will also be available in the form of a matrix, where columns are endorsers and rows are endorsees, and "similar" candidates (those getting correlated endorsements) are listed near to each other. Rows and columns will use the same ordering of course. There will be one matrix per party, so the maximum size of a matrix would be 29x29.
** Each eligible write-in candidate will have an optional error-resistant 3-letter code, for people who can't spell their name.
** Each candidate will be allowed to submit a brief under-50-word statement which will go with their name
* An explanation of the PLACE rules, with appropriate examples (similar to this FAQ)
==== Niggling detail 3: Elimination and the 25% threshold ====
If a candidate gets more than 25% of the local vote, and/or the most votes, from a district where they are not running, they will not be eliminated, and will be considered to be running in all districts in which they passed the threshold. In that case, they will not be eliminated as long as they would survive in one of those districts. For instance, even if one of those seats is filled, they will not be eliminated until they all are.
==== Niggling detail 4: Ties and Simultaneous Winners ====
▲#* In the rare case that several candidates from separate ridings reach a full quota at the same time, the one with the fewest local votes is elected first, to allow the others to possibly accumulate a bigger surplus before winning. In the even rarer case that more than one candidate from the same riding reach a full quota at the same time, the one with more local votes is elected.
In other cases of ties, they are resolved by initial vote totals, or if that doesn't break the tie, randomly (by drawing lots or some other random procedure).
==== Niggling detail 5: Independent candidates ====
All independent candidates are considered to be different parties for the purposes of the "same party" grouping, but the same party for the purposes of the "same faction" grouping. The upshot is that a vote for an independent candidate will go first to other independents she endorsed, then to non-independents she endorsed, then will be exhausted. It will never go to other independents she did not endorse.
==== Niggling detail 6: Extra territory ====
Parties are required to assign extra territory in such a way that roughly balances the total party vote for each candidate's full territory. That is to say, it should be impossible to improve that balance by changing the assignment of a single district. Aside from that, they are encouraged to respect geographic or demographic communities when assigning extra territory.
== Proportional or semiproportional? ==
[[Proportional 3RD voting]]: an old version of PACE.
== Simplifications possible? ==
== Technical note: codes for "write-in" (non-local) candidates ==
* Candidate endorsements should offer at least two levels (endorsed or unendorsed) and should take account of party. I think that 2 levels of endorsement (endorsed or not) at 2 levels of party sameness (same or not) is a good amount. The method would work with as few as 2 levels and there could be a rule for the order between "unendorsed same party" and "endorsed different party". So simplification is possible on this but not much.
* Voting for either a same-district candidate or writing in an other-district candidate is pretty fundamental to the method. Leaving out the "write in party only" option would change little.
* I do not see a way to further simplify the transformation into a preference ballot.
* The STV transfer process is already as simple as possible.
One good way to allow "write-ins" of any non-local candidate would be for each candidate to have a unique numeric code. To "write in" a candidate, one could check boxes corresponding to their three-digit code, plus an additional box for their party. These codes could be assigned such that minor "mistakes" in a valid code, such as adding or subtracting one from any digit or transposing two adjacent digits, would lead to an invalid code, and one that was dissimilar to all other codes of candidates from the same party. In that way, minor ballot mistakes could be caught and even corrected. (The level of such error correction that is possible depends on the size of the states, but it could be quite good for all but the largest states using three-digit codes. The larger states could choose between a reduced potential for error correction, and using four-digit codes.)
* Assigning extra district is cosmetic, so it would be fine to skip this step. Still, it emphasizes the fact that even those who do not win locally are still represented, so I think it's worth it.
Using such a mechanism, a voter could simply "write in" a party but not a specific candidate. This would be considered as a vote for an eliminated candidate for that party, using "partisan" transfer.
[[Category:Proportional voting methods]]
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