Legislatures Elected by Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR): An Algorithm Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2020 Source: Pixabay By Stephen Bosworth, Anders Corr, and Stevan Leonard 1 Abstract Unlike existing voting methods, this article describes a new method that gives all voters every appropriate reason to be pleased. Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR) invites each citizen to grade the suitability for office of any number of candidates as either Excellent (ideal), Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor, or “Reject” (completely unsuitable). EPR allows each citizen to guarantee that one of the elected members of the legislature has received either their highest grade, remaining highest grade, or proxy vote – no vote is needlessly wasted. Introduction Unlike any existing voting method, this article describes a new 2 method that gives all voters every appropriate reason to be pleased with the results. 3 It is called Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR). EPR guarantees that each citizen’s honest vote will continue to count proportionately in the deliberations of a legislative body. Each citizen is invited to grade the suitability for office of any number of candidates as either Excellent (ideal), Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor, or “Reject” (completely unsuitable). 4 EPR allows each citizen to guarantee that one of the elected members of the legislature has received either their highest grade, their remaining highest grade, or their proxy vote. Each citizen’s vote adds to the voting power in the legislature of a winner so that each member has a weighted vote 5 equal to the number of such citizens’ votes received. A citizen can give the same grade to more than one candidate, but only one of these grades will finally add to the voting power of a winner. Each candidate not graded is automatically counted as a ‘Reject’ by that voter. These grades can be counted by anyone who can add and subtract whole numbers or by the algorithm provided. The rounds in Stage 1 of EPR’s count provisionally determine the number of highest grades (votes) each candidate has exclusively received from all the voters. Each round discovers how many votes a different candidate has received. If a voter has given the same grade to more than one candidate, it is given exclusively to the candidate who would have the largest total as a result. This is justified by the democratic assumption that, other things being