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Fairer elections

Proposed State Law for Electing Mayors, Governors, State Treasurers, and Other City and State Officials

Here is a law that implements a fair method of electing city and state officials such as Mayors, Governors, and State Treasurers (except city-council members, for which the description is in a different web page).


Although the description is lengthy, the complications involve calculations done on a computer.  From the perspective of a voter, the voting process is simple and only involves indicating an order of preference for the candidates in each race, plus indicating an order of preference for political parties.

 
Introduction: City Mayors, the Governor, the State Treasurer, and the Secretary of State shall be elected as described herein.
Accessibility for voting by mail: The state legislature shall enact legislation as needed to ensure that all citizens who choose in advance of an election not to go to their polling place are allowed to vote by mail in a way that does not require tools beyond a pen or pencil.
Voter preferences: Each registered voter shall be allowed to indicate his or her first preference, second preference, third preference, and so on, for all the candidates in each race.  A voter shall be allowed to indicate a different preference level for each candidate in the race.  A voter shall be allowed to indicate ties among any candidates.  In each race the name of a candidate can appear only once in the list of candidates.  The order of candidates on any ballot shall not be influenced by any request from any political party.
Write-in candidates: Write-in candidates are allowed in elections for Mayor.  Write-in candidates are not allowed in elections for Governor, State Treasurer, or Secretary of State.  If a voter writes in the name of a candidate then the voter shall be allowed to indicate the preference level for that write-in candidate.  If a voter writes in the name of a write-in candidate, all the other ballots on which that candidate's name is not written shall be interpreted as if the write-in candidate is at the preference level below all the candidate names that do appear on the ballot, and tied with any other write-in candidate names that do not appear.
Interpretation of preference marks Ballots and voting methods shall be designed to make it difficult for voters to unintentionally indicate preference levels in ways that are ambiguous.  If a voter assigns the same candidate to more than one preference level, the highest indicated preference level for that candidate shall be used.  If a voter does not assign a candidate to any preference level, the lowest preference level, below the preference levels of all the assigned candidates, shall be used.  On any ballot or any combination of ballots the skipping of preference levels and the shifting of candidates to higher or lower preference levels without changing the relative preferences shall have no effect on the outcome of the election.  Valid preference information shall not be ignored because of incorrect markings elsewhere on the ballot.
VoteFair tally table: For each race the preference information on the order-of-preference ballots shall be summarized in a VoteFair tally table as follows.  The VoteFair tally table shall list every possible combination of two candidates.  For each combination of two candidates, the VoteFair tally table shall indicate the number of voters who prefer the first of the two candidates over the second candidate, the number of voters who indicate no preference between the two candidates, and the number of voters who prefer the second of the two candidates over the first candidate.  The sum of the three numbers that apply to each pair of candidates shall equal the number of voters who cast valid votes in that race.  All the numbers in a VoteFair tally table shall be made available to the public.
VoteFair ranking: The overall order of preference for each race shall be calculated using VoteFair ranking as described as follows.  Based on the numbers in the VoteFair tally table, every possible sequence of candidates shall be considered and a score shall be calculated for each such sequence.  The score for a sequence shall equal the sum of the applicable tally numbers for each pair combination, which means that if there are three choices labeled A, B, and C, the score for the sequence of B being the first overall preference, C being the second overall preference, and A being the third overall preference equals the number of voters who prefer B over C, plus the number of voters who prefer B over A, plus the number of voters who prefer C over A.  The sequence that has the highest score shall indicate the overall order of preference expressed by the voters.  If more than one sequence has the same highest score, the overall order of preference contains at least one tie and the tied choices and their preference levels shall be identified.  The overall order of preference for each race shall be made available to the public.
Winners: In each race for Mayor, Governor, State Treasurer, and Secretary of State the candidate who is most preferred according to VoteFair ranking results shall be elected as the winner in that race.
Ties: If a VoteFair ranking result contains a tie for first place, the court that has jurisdiction over the election shall have jurisdiction over the recounting and checking of the votes.  If a tie persists, the same court shall resolve the tie by randomly generating and introducing into the VoteFair tally table a single order-of-preference vote that contains no ties and does not alter the overall order of preference except to eliminate all ties, and this untied result shall be used as the final overall order of preference.
Order of preference for political parties: Each year at least nine months in advance of an election involving the election of a Mayor, Governor, State Treasurer, or Secretary of State, and not more than sixteen months in advance of such an election, and if possible in conjunction with another election, all registered voters shall be allowed to use order-of-preference ballots to indicate their order of preference for political parties.  All political parties that are registered in the state shall appear in the list of political parties to be ranked.  The equivalent ballot conventions described above for candidates shall be followed as conventions for expressing preferences for political parties.
Representativeness of political parties: The political-party preference information on the ballots shall be used to calculate a VoteFair representation ranking of political parties for the entire state and for each city in which a Mayor is elected.  The representativeness of political parties for each region shall be calculated as described in the following sections.  If a tie occurs at any step in identifying the level of representativeness for a political party, the tie shall be resolved using the method described for resolving a tie among candidates.
First-most representative political party: The first-most representative political party shall be the political party that is most popular according to VoteFair ranking, where the ranking calculations for political parties are done in the same way as the ranking calculations for candidates.
Second-most representative political party: The second-most representative political party shall be identified using the following steps.  First, identify the ballots on which the first-most representative party is ranked as the voter's first choice.  Second, using only the ballots that are not identified in the first step, and excluding preference information about the political party identified as the first-most representative party, identify a new most-preferred political party.  Third, again consider all the ballots.  Fourth, identify the ballots on which the first-most representative political party is preferred over the political party identified in the second step.  (This step identifies the ballots of voters who are already well-represented by the first-most representative party.) Fifth, calculate a number equal to the number of ballots identified in the fourth step minus half the total number of ballots.  Sixth, calculate a reduced-influence scale number that is equal to the number calculated in the fifth step divided by the number of ballots identified in the fourth step, and retain all significant digits.  Seventh, again consider all the ballots.  Eighth, for each ballot identified in the fourth step use a partial vote equal to the reduced-influence scale number, and for each ballot not identified in the fourth step use one full vote.  Ninth, based on the reduction of influence of some ballots as described in the eighth step, and using a corresponding adjustment in the total number of ballots, and excluding the first-most representative political party from consideration, identify a new most-preferred political party.  Finally, identify this new most-preferred political party as the second-most representative political party.
Successively representative political parties: The third-most, fifth-most, and seventh-most representative political parties shall be identified using the same method used to identify the first-most representative political party except that the political parties already identified as more representative shall be removed from consideration and only the remaining voter preferences shall be considered.  The fourth-most, sixth-most, and eighth-most representative political parties shall be identified using the same method used to identify the second-most representative political party except that the political parties already identified as more representative shall be removed from consideration and the next-most representative political party shall take the place of the first-most representative political party when identifying which ballots shall have reduced influence.
Number of statewide candidates from each political party: The statewide most-representative political party shall be allowed to have two candidates in the race for Governor, two candidates in the race for State Treasurer, and two candidates in the race for Secretary of State.  The statewide second-most-representative political party also shall be allowed to have two candidates in each of the races for Governor, State Treasurer, and Secretary of State.  The statewide third-most-representative and fourth-most-representative political parties shall be allowed to have one candidate in each of the races for Governor, State Treasurer, and Secretary of State.  If any political party does not offer as many candidates as it is allowed, additional political parties at successively less-representative rankings shall be allowed to have one candidate each up to a total limit of six candidates in each of the statewide races.
Number of citywide candidates from each political party: In each race for Mayor the citywide most-representative and second-most-representative political parties each shall be allowed to have two candidates, and the citywide third-most-representative and fourth-most-representative political parties each shall be allowed to have one candidate.  If any political party does not offer as many candidates as it is allowed, additional political parties at successively less-representative rankings shall be allowed to have one candidate each up to a total limit of six candidates in each race for Mayor.


© Copyright 2005 by Richard Fobes, author of Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections and The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox.  Permission to publish this proposed law is hereby given if this copyright notice remains attached.  Permission to use this proposed law, or any portion of it, in any legal document is hereby granted unconditionally.

 

 


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