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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	1243
Proposal	NOTA - NOC and Open Ballots in Ranked Choice STV Votes
Presenter	Green Party of Washington
Floor Manager	Holly Hart
Phase	Closed
Discussion	01/20/2025 - 02/02/2025
Voting	02/03/2025 - 02/09/2025
Result	Adopted
Presens Quorum	30 0.6666
Consens Quorum	41 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

This proposal updates rules in order to be consistent with Article V of GPUS Bylaws. It also provides for ranked choice ballots to be OPEN, to prevent secret balloting, unless an Elections Tabulation Committee is convened to report on the results.

(We note from the voting page that recent ranked choice votes 1239, 1233, 1231, 1151, 1146, 1145, 1141, 1138, 1137, 1101, 1085, 1084 along with twenty earlier ranked choice votes carry no record of how delegates voted. Adoption of this proposal will prevent future recurrences of secret ballots like these.)

GPUS Bylaws Article V Article V calls for a NOTA ballot choice for all proposals that provide voting options other than YES and NO.

GPUS Platform (Section A. 1. j.) calls for "[inclusion of] the option to vote for a binding None of the Above (NOTA) on all party primary and general election ballots."

Proposal

The National Committee resolves that:

1. Rules Article VI, Section 9.4 will be changed to read:

6-9.4 For proposals that provide options other than 'yes' and 'no' all delegates shall be given the additional option of casting a vote for "No Other Candidate." "No Other Candidate" will satisfy GPUS bylaws Article V and other bylaws and rules requirements for there to be "NOTA" or "None Of The Above" ballot choices. "No Other Candidate"" cast by a delegate shall be a 'vote' for purposes of this section.

(Currently, Rules Article VI, Section 9.4 reads:

6-9.4 For proposals that provide options other than 'yes' and 'no' and which are not conducted using ranked choice voting, all delegates shall be given the additional option of casting a vote for "none of the above." "None of the above" cast by a delegate shall be a 'vote' for purposes of this section.)

2. Rules Article VII Section C, Section 1 will be changed, by amending the penultimate sentence, to read:

Immediately upon the close of the polls the Election Tabulation Committee shall tabulate the ballots pursuant to these rules. Immediately following the tabulation of such ballots, the Election Tabulation Committee shall file its written report on the election with the National Committee. The report shall declare which candidates were elected to which seats and for what terms for each election they are charged with tabulating, and a narrative description of the tabulation detailing how surpluses were redistributed, how candidates were identified for elimination at the end of each round, how ties were resolved and other factors that weighed in the final determination of the winning candidates. The Election Tabulation Committee shall publish as an appendix to their Report the details of each ballot received, including the rankings of each individual National Committee delegate, sufficient to permit an independent tabulation. The report shall further evaluate the extent to which these rules anticipated the demands of the election and gave adequate guidance to the Election Tabulation Committee on the conduct of its responsibilities.

3. Rules Article VII Section F will be changed to read:

F. NO-OTHER-CANDIDATE

An explicit "No Other Candidate" shall be a ballot choice with the same standing in the Preference Voting tabulations (outlined in Rules Article VII) as a human candidate. Voters have the option to leave any ballot choice unranked..

(Currently, Rules Article VII Section F reads:

F. NO-OTHER-CANDIDATE

An implicit 'no other candidate' shall remain an option of each voter who chooses not to rank possible candidates on their ballot)

4. Ranked Choice Votes will be set up as OPEN votes unless an Elections Tabulation Committee is convened to officially record votes. This ensures that a record of how individual delegates vote on a ranked choice vote is retained.

5. If a "No Other Candidate" ballot choice is "elected" in a ranked choice vote where no Elections Tabulation Committee has been convened, the "Results File" on the ballot will determine the specific final ranking of "No Other Candidate." It will mean that the particular seat, along with the seats of any subsequent and otherwise "elected" seats will remain unfilled.

Resources

IMPLEMENTATION/TIMELINE/RESOURCES:

Immediately upon passage of this proposal, future Floor Managers will comply with this resolution for future ranked choice votes

References

References

CONTACT:

Bylaws Article V = https://gpus.org/bylaws/#05

Rules Article VI Section 9.4 = https://gpus.org/rules-procedures/#06

Rules Article VII, Preference Voting -https://gpus.org/rules-procedures/#07

Questions about this system?
Contact the Voting Admin.
The Green Party of the United States voting system is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
You can download a copy here.
To independently verify a ranked choice vote, or for information about how that works, go to Jonathan Lundell's Voting Page and upload the ballot file from the ranked choice vote result page. JL's ranked choice module is licensed under an alternate free software license.

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