Approval Voting used in Hong Kong?

[Clay Shentrup]

Anyone here speak Cantonese?

See this page: http://www.npp.org.hk/zh-hk/node/17179

Translated, we get this passage:

Third, and most importantly, the NC will take "one by one vote" (Approval Voting) way to elect candidates 2-3. UN Secretary-General is currently reference this mode selected. By then, the committee can vote every mention 2-N ticket, this approach actually encourages candidates from different parties mutually canvassing, promote moderate centrist candidate out of the gate

It seems that this is the term for Approval Voting: 逐一投票

Searching for it, we get pages with passages like this:

Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, in the Legislative meeting read this morning after the reform package, and receive questions. New Democracy Party Hon Regina Ip, require Mrs Lam explained that each voting block system relative to other voting methods, such as benefits.       Mrs Lam noted that the decision by one vote on the reform package in the gate, so that the other candidates are not required to nominate candidates for the limited vote, the nomination committee also more freedom to choose each candidate can support up to all candidates The method is more open and democratic.

Regina Ip is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regina_Ip

Carrie Lam is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Lam_(politician)

I can't tell from this translation which of them is actually proposing Approval Voting. But Regina Ip is co-founder and current chairperson of the New People's Party, so it would seem that she was the proponent of this. I just can't tell if she was explaining it to Lam, or if it was some kind of disagreement.

Note that Lam is Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong Government. So the two of them even having a conversation about Approval Voting is pretty interesting.

[Clay Shentrup]

Under the picture in the articles covering this, I read this:

"Mrs Lam said the favorable vote each candidate nominated for a more equitable"

[Clay Shentrup]

I've uncovered more.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015/04/23-hong-kong-electoral-reform-details-bush

Says:

As I anticipated in my post on Tuesday, the Hong Kong government on Wednesday announced the details for the 2017 election of the Chief Executive (CE). Based on press commentary from China, it is clear that the PRC government, which has sovereignty over Hong Kong, approves the package. But to understand the implications for democracy in Hong Kong, it is important to look at the details of the proposal.

Since Hong Kong became a special administrative region of China in 1997, the CE has been chosen by an election committee of between 800 and 1,200 individuals. Beijing had promised that starting in 2017 the CE would be elected by the voters of Hong Kong through universal suffrage. Yesterday’s proposal is the latest step in a transition process toward that system. (For all of the recommendations, see the speech of Chief Secretary Carrie Lam to the Legislative Council.)

Okay, here's that speech, translated to English by a human rather than a robot.

http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201504/22/P201504220392.htm

Highlights:

During the stage of "committee nomination", since the NC will nominate two to three candidates and those two to three candidates are required to obtain endorsement of more than half of all the members of the NC, the design of the nominating procedures has to be conducive to providing sufficient choices for the NC, and at the same time can facilitate the NC nominating two to three candidates smoothly. As such, in the Consultation Document, the HKSAR Government put forward four different voting procedures at the stage of "committee nomination" for consideration, namely, the "one person, three votes", "one person, two to three votes", "one person, maximum three votes", and "voting on each person seeking nominations". 

     The HKSAR Government suggests that the NC should nominate two to three CE candidates through voting by secret ballot so that members could consider each person seeking nomination and such persons could seek nominations from NC members on a fairer basis. Each NC member may vote for all persons seeking nomination, or vote for only some of such persons. To facilitate the NC to better carry out the nominating function, so that all eligible voters in Hong Kong may have ample choices at the stage of universal suffrage, and to ensure the nominating procedures could smoothly select two to three candidates who can obtain the endorsement of more than half of all the NC members, each member should support at least two persons seeking nomination. The three persons seeking nomination who could obtain endorsement of more than half of all the members of the NC and with the highest number of members' endorsement (or the two persons seeking nomination if only two such persons could meet these requirements) will become the candidates. Specific procedures for handling situations where no person, only one person, or more than three persons seeking nomination could obtain endorsement of more than half of all the NC members will be dealt with by local legislation.

Sounds like Approval Voting to me, with a majority requirement.

[Clay Shentrup]

This WSJ article says the same, but doesn't explicitly describe Approval Voting:

In the second stage, or the “committee nomination” stage, those five to ten recommended names are put to a vote again, with nominating committee members choosing two to three favored names out of the bunch. Only those who win more than 50% of the vote, which will be conducted by secret ballot, can formally stand as chief executive candidates in the election. The two or three candidates will then be voted on in a first-past-the-post, one person, one vote election by Hong Kong people.

[Clay Shentrup]

See the attached PDF for a visual description from a Chinese newspaper. Step 2 is the Approval Voting stage.

[Clay Shentrup]

A BBC article says:

Hong Kong's leader will be chosen by the general population of more than five million eligible voters in the 2017 elections for the first time.

However, the process prior to that was outlined by Ms Lam:

• A primary vote will take place where the 1,200 members of the largely pro-Beijing nominating committee will get one vote each.
• A candidate will have to win at least 120 votes which will result in a shortlist of between five and 10 candidates.
• These candidates will then be put to a second round of voting by members of the nominating committee.
• Each member will cast at least two approval votes.
• The two or three candidates who win more than 600 votes each will then be eligible to run in the public election.

Pro-democracy protesters have said this process allows Beijing to eliminate unwanted candidates and does not amount to universal suffrage.

[Clay Shentrup]

Here it is confirmed with a bullet.

http://www.scmp.com/print/news/article/1775169/hong-kongs-political-reform-package-will-put-real-power-hands-people

Hong Kong's political reform package will put real power in the hands of the people

Comment › Insight & Opinion

Regina Ip

Regina Ip says the proposal offers a major step forward for Hongkongers and the benefits it will bring in terms of better governance are too great to be ignored

Sixteen months after the government kicked off its consultation on constitutional reform, Hong Kong is finally in the last leg of the quest for the holy grail of universal suffrage. On Wednesday, amid hysterical screams of rejection and a walk-out by pan-democrat legislators, the chief secretary unveiled the proposed amendments to the provisions in the Basic Law governing the election of the chief executive in 2017.

Working within the constraints of Beijing's August 31 decision and its political requirements that the popularly elected chief executive must be someone "who loves the country and loves Hong Kong", the package is arguably more liberal than expected, and offers a much greater chance for a pan-democratic candidate to be nominated.

The government proposed that the number (1,200) and the sectoral composition of the nominating committee will follow that of the existing Election Committee. However, unlike existing nomination procedures, there will be a two-step process, including a low threshold (120) for "recommending" candidates, who will be prohibited from seeking individually more than 240 recommendations. The upper limit is proposed to ensure that no single, dominant candidate would flush out other competitors in round one.

Under such arrangements, five to 10 candidates could be "recommended" and advance to the next stage. The proposed rules for nomination require that each nominating committee member must nominate at least two candidates, but can nominate as many candidates as have been recommended. A maximum of 12,000 votes could be cast by nominating committee members.

In such a scenario, a large number of candidates from both the pro-establishment and pan-democrat camps could be "recommended". The top three candidates able to secure the majority support of the nominating committee will advance to popular election.

In past elections, the number of candidates an Election Committee member could vote for was limited by the number of votes he or she had - a maximum of one. But under the new rules, with far more votes at his or her disposal, a nominating committee member would have far more choices, and much greater freedom to nominate a convincing candidate, irrespective of the candidate's political background.

This method of voting, which political scientists classify as "approval voting", is adopted by the UN General Assembly in electing its secretary general, after nomination by the Security Council. As the UN experience shows, "approval voting" has the advantage of fostering the selection of a consensus candidate, a person who attracts the least objection and is most capable of accommodating diverse interests and factions.

Pan-democrats argue that the odds remain stacked against them as the general public has no right to nominate, and past experience shows that candidates from their camp could garner few votes - a maximum of 200 - from the Election Committee. Yet they ignore the fact that, with a secret ballot, even the outcome of a "small circle" election by 1,200 could be unpredictable.

The campaign process, generating massive publicity on the candidates down to the most trivial detail, could change public perceptions and, eventually, the electoral outcome. In 2012, Henry Tang Ying-yen, the former chief secretary who was widely seen as the anointed heir, was beaten by Leung Chun-ying, largely due to the mistakes he made in his campaign and his inability to convince the public and the Election Committee that he was best suited for the job.

Critics also argue that once the government's package is accepted, there would be no room for further change. They overlook a critically important point - that the move to popular election of the chief executive is unprecedented and already a bold and daring change, as the outcomes of all elections by universal, secret ballot are unpredictable. The political ecology of Hong Kong will change radically. The candidate elected, from whichever camp, will need to hew his or her policies and pronouncements closely to public opinion. Hong Kong should not seek change for the sake of change, but wait until the dust has settled on the new system before further change is sought.

The need for chief executive aspirants to go through a competitive, two-stage nomination process culminating in selection by "approval voting", though disappointing to those who seek "open" nomination, will effectively empower a much larger pool of chief executive hopefuls to seek nomination. The possibility of a pan-democratic candidate securing nomination cannot be ruled out. The proposed selection system, vesting a large measure of the power to choose in the people, represents a considerable step forward in dividing the power to choose Hong Kong's leader between Beijing and the people. The actualisation of this new distribution of power hinges on a two-thirds majority vote by legislators. They owe it to the people of Hong Kong to give them the vote. The opportunity is too valuable, in terms of meeting long-standing popular aspirations for universal suffrage and improving the governance of Hong Kong, to throw away.

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee is a legislator and chair of the New People's Party

--- END ARTICLE ---

More on Regina Ip from Wikipedia:

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, GBS, JP (born 24 August 1950 in Hong Kong) Hong Kong is a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo), as well as the co-founder and current chairperson of the New People's Party and Savantas Policy Institute. She was formerly a prominent government official of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). She was the first woman to be appointed as Secretary for Security to head the disciplinary service.

Ip became a controversial figure for her role advocating the passage of legislation to implement Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23, and after this legislation was withdrawn, she became the first principal official to resign from the administration of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. She took a sabbatical to study for a Master's degree. She contested the Hong Kong Island by-election, 2007 for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong but was defeated by Anson Chan in the two-horse race. She ran again in the 2008 LegCo election and won, gaining a seating in the Hong Kong Island constituency. She was re-elected in 2012 LegCo elections.

[Aaron Hamlin]

Approval voting doesn't require you to choose at least two candidates, which is what this appears to do. In that case, this is not approval voting. This is a voting method that has features similar to approval voting. This is true in the same way that early US presidential elections were not using approval voting and in the same way the Baseball Hall of Fame does not use approval voting. Some similar features, but not approval voting. Of course, that's not to say it isn't better than plurality, which is the lowest of low bars.

What this sounds like is a system that was created without meaningful consulting but with a lot of guessing. It probably just stumbled on its approval voting-like elements is my guess.

[Clay Shentrup]

> this is not approval voting

If you want to be really technical, sure. But it's virtually identical. The modification that you "should" choose two is almost irrelevant given that there will be 5-10 candidates, and a majority requirement. And it's not even clear that this is interpreted as an enforceable "must". It literally says "should".

> This is true in the same way that early US presidential elections were not using approval voting 

No, it's very different actually. That US election allowed you to *only* choose up to two, I believe. The system in Hong Kong is, vote for as many as you want.

> It probably just stumbled on its approval voting-like elements is my guess.

Did you read the part about how a high-ranking LegCo member specifically called it Approval Voting and referenced its use in the United Nations?

[Steve Cobb]

You guys are tripping over one my pet voting peeves: nomenclature. 

Voting systems have several attributes, major and minor, starting with the basic questions of expression and tallying, then basis for decision, and then details like tie-breaking, rounds, limits on how many candidates one may express an opinion on, etc. I’ve pointed out earlier that we need a better taxonomy, as the current names are confusing and inconsistent. Sometimes we name a voting system by its expression method (e.g. approval voting, ranked choice voting), sometimes by its tallying method (instant runoff voting), and sometimes by its decision basis (plurality voting). Sometimes we name voting systems by their creators (Borda, Condorcet) or their promoters (Bucklin). Sometimes the name is…something else (top two with runoff). Sometimes we give a voting system multiple names (e.g. plurality voting, first-past-the-post voting, choose-one voting). 

Sometimes the name is not based on the most salient feature: when we complain about plurality voting, we’re upset first with the choose-one expression method; in the case of AV we’re usually fine with plurality as a decision basis. We can tweak some of the details, and call them variations: AV with plurality decision basis, or AV with majority decision basis. The essence of AV is pretty clearly rating each candidate on a scale of 0 or 1. 

Hong Kong’s proposed method is pretty clearly AV. That they force the voters to lower their approval threshold such that at least two candidates get approved seems little different from variations of some ranking systems forcing the voter to rank all candidates with no ties. Unless Prov. Brams defined AV narrowly, trademarked it, and declared any deviation to be blasphemy, Hong Kong’s planned system is AV with a minimum approval threshold and majority decision basis. They probably had their reasons for tweaking it the way the did, and I would hesitate to second-guess them.

This is pretty big news. We’ll have another example to cite.

If anyone wants to discuss nomenclature further, let’s do it in another thread.

[Dick Burkhart]

Note that this article is about the nominating process for the Chief Executive, not the general election. It doesn’t say anything about voting for the 3 candidates chosen to stand for the popular election. In many authoritarian regimes who want to put a on a democratic face, the nominating process is crucial. The powers that be will try to find some way to keep unfriendly candidates off the popular ballot. Hence the protests if the nominating process is perceived to be biased.

 

I was impressed by the variety of voting methods (IRV, STV, party list, top two, etc.) studied for the legislative body (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014–15_Hong_Kong_electoral_reform ). Most of these include some form of proportional representation for at least part of the legislative body. They also include what they call “functional constituency” representation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_constituency_(Hong_Kong) ). In this method, a certain portion of the legislators are elected to represent constituencies like business, labor, social services, certain professions, etc. Often the voting is by the “corporate entities” in these sectors. However the reform proposals call for fewer of these functional constituencies, as they have been perceived as giving too much power to various special interests.

 

Dick Burkhart

4802 S Othello St,  Seattle, WA  98118

206-721-5672 (home)  206-851-0027 (cell)

dick...@gmail.com

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[Clay Shentrup]

Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)

Home > ‘Very slim chance’ Hong Kong reform package will be passed, Carrie Lam admits

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‘Very slim chance’ Hong Kong reform package will be passed, Carrie Lam admits [1]

Submitted by adam.renton on Jun 9th 2015, 12:59pm

News›Hong Kong›Politics REFORM

Jeffie Lam jeffi...@scmp.com

Chief secretary pessimistic after failing to win over pan-democrats - and public polling reveals more bad news for the government

The chances of lawmakers approving the government's electoral reform plan for 2017 are very slim, Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor admitted yesterday as a poll showed public opposition to the blueprint had hit its highest level yet.

Lam's blunt assessment came as the government ended its ill-fated round of meetings with pan-democratic lawmakers a week before the package is tabled to the Legislative Council.

All 27 pan-democrats have vowed to vote no to the plan on the grounds it would not offer voters genuine choice. Their votes are set to deny the bill the two-thirds majority it needs in the 70-member Legco after it is tabled on Wednesday next week.

"Unfortunately such meetings have failed to reverse the voting preference of any pan-democratic legislator to lead them to back the reform plan," said Lam, who is acting chief executive while Leung Chun-ying visits Canada and the United States.

Her comments came as a rolling survey by the University of Hong Kong, Chinese University and Polytechnic University showed opposition to the plan had risen by two percentage points since last week to 41.6 per cent, the highest since the poll began on April 23.

The proportion expressing support for the plan fell 2.1 percentage points to 43.7 per cent, while 14.7 per cent were undecided. That left the level of support for the proposal just 2.1 percentage points ahead of the level of opposition, within the sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Some 1,121 Hongkongers were polled between June 1 and Friday.

At issue is a plan for the 2017 chief executive election that closely follows a framework set by Beijing last year. Under it, a nominating committee similar to the election committee used in previous polls will select two or three candidates. They will each need majority support from the 1,200 members in order to run when Hongkongers elect their leader for the first time.

The government is looking for a minimum of five lawmakers' votes to have any chance of victory in next week's debate, after Dr Leung Ka-lau, a pro-establishment lawmaker, pledged to vote no after polling his constituents in the medical sector.

Lam wound up her lobbying efforts yesterday in individual meetings with four pan-democrats: Dr Joseph Lee Kok-long, Ip Kin-yuen, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung and Frederick Fung Kin-kee.

But all of them said they would stick to their guns as the meetings had brought "no surprises or new ideas".

Fung, of the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood, urged Lam to set up and lead a new platform involving politicians and local and central government officials.

It would explore topics such as mainland-Hong Kong relations and "one country, two systems" after the reform debate was concluded.

Despite the end of the lobbying, Lam said the government would strive "until the last minute" to get the plan approved.

Topics: Universal Suffrage

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Source URL (modified on Jun 10th 2015, 2:43am): http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1819167/very-slim-chance-hong-kong-reform-package-will-be-passed

Links
[1] http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1819167/very-slim-chance-hong-kong-reform-package-will-be-passed