Green Party of the United States - National Committee Voting

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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	881
Proposal	ADOPTING APPROVAL VOTING FOR INTERNAL ELECTIONS
Presenter	Green Party of Texas
Floor Manager	Michael Dennis
Phase	Closed - Failed: Quorum Not Met
Discussion	08-21-2017 - 09-10-2017
Voting	09-11-2017 - 09-17-2017
Presens Quorum	Two Thirds of Active Accredited States/Caucuses
Consens Quorum	Two Thirds of Yes and No Votes

Background

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: GPTX officially adopted approval voting (AV) in 2015, and has successfully used it since 2009. We came to use AV after a decade of conflict and issues using IRV/STV, now called RCV, over: which method of counting to use for STV, droop quotients, and other incomprehensible, to the average voting Green, terms; hand-counting nightmares; and instances where the methods of IRV and STV fail, e.g. one candidate gets every ballot’s second choice, but loses in first round, all of which led to disenfranchisement and dissatisfaction with IRV/STV.

After review of myriad voting systems with our professional mathematician cochair at the time, Christine Morshedi, and failed attempts to get substantive responses from FairVote regarding issues we had run into using IRV in our elections, we settled on testing Range/Score and AV to use in experiment with ballots containing side-by-side methods (each ballot had four ballots for the same election: plurality, IRV/STV, AV, and Range) to determine: ease of use, best reflection of will of voters, and ability for most people to understand how to, and actually do, the hand-count of the ballots.

We concluded Range, or Score, Voting was vastly superior, but that its simplified version, AV, was easier to use both for voters and counters. We obviously did not test every method, only the ones lay people involved in research could understand, and that had fewest gameability/structural issues based on scientific analyses on several websites (see references).

We then consulted directly with election science experts to ensure our methodology was correct and have spent a few years working to codify our voting practices per our state law.

Note that for greatest diversity in multi-seat elections, staggering terms would need to be eliminated, but is not included in this proposal at this time.

GPTX un-staggered our NC delegate and State Executive Committee At-Large seat elections in order to increase diversity. We are working on procedural manuals and keep former SEC members on as advisors to remedy the concern over continuity.

At the 2017 GPTX ASM on June 10 & 11, the state party delegates by full consensus moved to propose that GPUS change its platform, PotUS nomination, and internal election method to Approval Voting. We have split it up into separate proposals for simplicity and introduced this one first as it is most applicable to current events.

Proposal

PROPOSAL: In summary, to change all existing references to IRV, RCV, STV, and Preference Voting currently in the Bylaws, Rules, Policies, and Procedures, to Approval Voting (AV) for single seat and weighted AV for multi-seat elections.

Specifically:

In GPUS Bylaws, REPLACE:

Section 3-4 Internal Elections
3-4.1 All committees shall conduct internal elections by Instant Run-Off Voting and Ranked Choice Voting consistent with Article 7 of the GPUS Rules and Procedures, related to Preference Voting Rules for Steering Committee Elections.

WITH:

Section 3-4 Internal Elections
3-4.1 All committees shall conduct internal elections by Approval Voting consistent with Article 7 of the GPUS Rules and Procedures.

REPLACE:

6-2.2 Co-chairs shall be elected in a single Ranked Choice Voting election according to the process described in the GPUS Rules and Procedures, Article VII. Co-chairs shall appear on the GPUS voting page affiliated with the state party or caucus through which they became a National Committee member.

WITH:

6-2.2 Co-chairs shall be elected in a single multi-seat Approval Voting election according to the process described in the GPUS Rules and Procedures, Article VII. Co-chairs shall appear on the GPUS voting page affiliated with the state party or caucus through which they became a National Committee member.

REPLACE:

6-2.3 The Secretary and Treasurer shall be elected in separate elections using Instant Run-Off Voting, according to the process described in the GPUS Rules and Procedures, Article VII. The Secretary and Treasurer may appear on the ballot either affiliated with any affiliated state party or caucus of which they are a member.

WITH:

6-2.3 The Secretary and Treasurer shall be elected in separate elections using Approval Voting, according to the process described in the GPUS Rules and Procedures, Article VII. The Secretary and Treasurer may appear on the ballot either affiliated with any affiliated state party or caucus of which they are a member.

In GPUS Rules, REPLACE:

ARTICLE VII: PREFERENCE VOTING RULES FOR STEERING COMMITTEE ELECTIONS: .
A. DEFINITION
“Preference Voting” shall mean a voting system which achieves representation in deliberative bodies proportional to the support such representation enjoys among the voters by allowing voters to rank candidates for the internal Party offices in the order of their choice, according to the method described and by tabulating votes pursuant to the rules provided in this Article.
Preference Voting tabulates votes based on the principle that any vote cast which would not otherwise help elect a voter’s most preferred candidate(s), shall be used to help elect that voter’s next most preferred candidate(s). Thus, if a voter’s first choice among the candidates receives more than enough votes to win, the surplus proportion of that vote will be transferred to that voter’s second or succeeding (next-highest ranking) choice. Alternatively, if a voter’s first choice candidate is eliminated, that vote instead will be cast for the voter’s second or succeeding (next highest ranking) choice.
B. TABULATION OF VOTES
Two months before each Annual National Meeting (reduced to one month for 2006), the Secretary of GPUS shall post to the GNC a request for nominations for an Election Tabulation Committee. The Election Tabulation Committee will consist of five members of the GNC and will be elected by the NC using the current system of Single Transferable Voting employed by the Green Party website: Multi-Seat Ranked-Choice Voting http://lobitos.net/voting/
Ballots shall be counted by the Election Tabulation Committee according to the following rules:...{clipped}

WITH:

Article VII: Approval Voting Rules for Steering Committee Elections:
A. Explanation
In Approval Voting, one may vote for (approve) as many candidates as one wants.
As an example, imagine a sample ballot where the voter has voted for three of four candidates: Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, and Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. The voter did not vote for Roosevelt.
B. Counting Approval Votes:
Single Seat Elections:
Every vote is counted and tallied. The candidate with the most votes (i.e. the "most approved" candidate) wins.
Multiseat Elections:
The candidates are elected one round at a time. In each round, the candidate with the most votes wins. However, each voter's ballot is "weighted" (divided) by the number of previous winners approved by that ballot, plus one. This creates a proportional outcome, which gives fair representation to the diversity of opinion within the electorate.
In every round, for each ballot, the weight of the votes is 1 / (1 + w), where ‘w’ is the number of winners-that ballot has approved.
In the first round ‘w=zero(0)’ on every ballot; therefore each approval counts fully. Once the ballot has approved two (2) of the winners, 1+2 is 3 — so your votes are equal to 1/3 of a vote.
The principle is that a person's ballot becomes weaker as it influences the election, to give other voters a chance to be heard in subsequent rounds.
The first run through the ballots leaves you with two stacks:
All ballots who approved of the winning candidate of the first round;
All ballots who disapproved (did not vote for) of the first round winner.
Stack B’s votes for the second round are counted fully. Stack A’s are counted as one-half (1/2). And so on.
Let us demonstrate with an example:
Suppose we wish to elect four candidates.
Now suppose that Aquash is the first candidate elected.
Because this ballot approves of Aquash, that's one winner that's approved by this ballot so far.
So in the second round, each vote on this ballot now counts for half.
Now suppose that the second round winner is Roosevelt. This ballot did not approve of Roosevelt, so its votes still count for half.
Now suppose that the third round winner is Chavez. Since this ballot approves of Chavez, two winners have been approved by this ballot. So each vote on this ballot now counts for a third.
Now we elect our fourth round winner, and we're done.
Ties:
In the event of a tie, a coin is tossed – each candidate picks a side and a vote counter flips the coin.
C. Tabulation of Votes
Two months before each Annual National Meeting, the Secretary of GPUS shall post to the GNC a request for nominations for an Election Tabulation Committee. The Election Tabulation Committee will consist of five members of the GNC and will be elected by the NC using approval voting.
Ballots shall be counted by the Election Tabulation Committee according to the approval voting method described above.

END PROPOSAL

Resources

IMPLEMENTATION/TIMELINE/RESOURCES:

This change to bylaws and rules should be implemented in time for future party elections, allowing adequate time for programming and testing. Webmaster is instructed to update the content immediately upon passage. The Steering Committee is instructed to create a budget and timeline for this project.

References

REFERENCES:

Bylaws of the Green Party of the United States, http://gpus.org/bylaws

Rules and Procedures of the Green Party of the United States, http://gpus.org/rules-procedures

Bylaws of GPTX, www.txgreens.orp/bylaws

The Center for Range Voting www.rangevoting.org

Center for Election Science, www.electology.org

The voting software used by the Green Party of the United States is free software, licensed under the General Public License v2 (GPL).