“In order to grant voters a full range of choice in federal, state and local elections, we propose proportional voting systems with multi-member districts for legislative elections and instant runoff voting (IRV) for single winner elections.”
However, internal elections of the Libertarian Party do not follow these methods. The current voting system for At-Large allows a plurality of the delegates to elect all of the At-Large LNC members.
Solution: Practice what we preach. Use single-transferable voting for LNC At-Large elections.
Benefits:
1. Harmonizes Libertarian Party practices with our message.
2. Familiarizes LP delegates with the STV process so they can more effectively explain it to others.
3. Allows organized minorities of the delegates to have proportional representation on the LNC without overvoting or undervoting for a particular candidate.
4. Implements the voting method that mirrors voter desires most accurately.
RULE 10: ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND NATIONAL COMMITTEE
2. Nominations for the at-large members of the National Committee shall be from the floor. The election shall be conducted in the following manner:
a. The winners shall be determined by single-transferable voting.
b. Voting for each election shall take place in one round. Delegates may rank up to ten candidates on their ballots in order of preference. Only nominated candidates shall be valid options on the ranked ballots.
c. Each delegation chair shall deliver the delegation’s ballots to the Secretary. When all delegations have submitted their votes, the Chair shall declare voting closed.
d. Convention business shall continue while the votes are counted by the Secretary or his designees. Tabulation for multiple elections may be conducted simultaneously.
e. Tabulation shall take place in multiple rounds. Each round the full or fractional votes for the highest ranking preferences shall be summed and recorded.
f. If the vote count for any candidate exceeds the droop quota [(droop quota) = (ballots submitted)/(seats up for election + 1) + 1], the candidate shall be considered a winner.
g. In that case, any excess votes shall be allocated to the next highest ranking preference: each ballot for the candidate shall have its weight reduced to a fractional vote [(end fractional vote) = (begin fractional vote)x(votes for candidate – droop quota)/(votes for candidate)].
h. Otherwise (if no candidates are elected in a round), the candidate (or candidates in the case of a tie) with the fewest votes shall be considered out of the race.
i. In that case, the remaining fractional vote for each ballot shall be allocated to the remaining candidates marked as the next highest ranking preference on those ballots.
j. The process shall be repeated until either all positions are filled or one candidate remains and that candidate fails to achieve the droop quota.
k. If some seats are left unfilled, none of the above (NOTA) shall be considered to have won those seats and another election shall be held for those seats with the candidates who ran previously ineligible to be nominated.
l. The Secretary shall retain the record of all voting rounds and make it available to delegates upon reasonable request.
m. The Secretary shall announce the winners of the election after votes have been fully tabulated.
4 comments:
Delegates will not understand this at all.
It ain't broke. Don't fix it.
STV can work, and work better and quicker than the present system, but not if you put the sausage-making instructions in the bylaws. You don't want to know the details of sausage-making; make use of a reference that details the process.
This proposal doesn't put the details in the Bylaws. It proposes to incorporate them into the Rules, which is entirely appropriate -- it's where the current mechanism is defined.
My original comment still stands. Why confuse the delegates? Why break something that isn't broken?
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