I have to apologize for giving David some misinformation, but I’ve been a little confused myself. The rules of the State Convention say that the Convention will use the voting process defined in the By-laws. My copy of the 8/2015 GRP Bylaws (Section 5.3) specifies that we will use “Single Transferable Vote Proportional Representation (STV PR)” for electing candidates. But my copy dated 12/2015 drops this requirement. I’m not sure how this change in the bylaws was approved. Since the Bylaws say nothing now, it looks like the process is undefined. So I think David’s proposal is needed if we want to make it official that IRV has to be used and that that the Convention can’t suddenly revert to some other process. We have used the Borda count for elections at some time in the past (maybe before 2012?). And Borda count has been used by working committees. When there are multiple candidates, Borda count is much easier to use than IRV. I would like to restrict David’s proposal to apply to State Convention and State Committee elections only since working committees may not have the expertise to do full IRV. The Borda count gives the same results in most cases. Also, we need to specify some details about how to run the IRV process. There is a reference in the Bylaws to another document that specifies the details of the process but I don’t have a copy.

we actually use the method David describes at convention, not the borda count.

@ David, using derogatory nicknames for people is never helpful to fester an inclusive environment.

I believe that we have been doing something different than IRV. John Andrews told me that we use a “borda count” which requires voters to assign a different number of points to every candidate on the ballot. I think it is wrong to require voters to assign any points to candidates whom they deem to be unacceptable. In standard IRV, voters rank the candidates whom they find acceptable, their vote is assigned to their top choice, and then if their top choice is eliminated then their vote may be reassigned to other candidates in subsequent rounds.

To give a real world example, in the 2016 POTUS election, with IRV liberals could vote Jill #1 and Killary #2, and when Jill was eliminated their vote would transfer to Killary; whereas I could vote for Jill #1 only, and my vote would not transfer to Killary or Trump. John’s “borda count” system (which we might currently be using) would require all voters to rank all candidates and therefore ultimately require all voters to vote for either Killary or Trump.

Having made the ballots myself for the last few meetings, I know we already do use IRV for our officer elections at the convention. (and other offices too – anything elected at the convention is by IRV)

Is there another officer election that I am not aware of?

Or is there a difference between what we do and IRV? Our ballots are simple – you have the list of names and you rank them 1, 2, 3, etc. Am I missing something?

I am typing this again because it didn’t save.

Sponsor: David Rolde

Background: As far as I can see the current GRP bylaws do not specify the voting method to be used for elections of persons for internal GRP positions and GRP representatives to GPUS, etc. We should be using instant runoff voting for all these elections, e.g., at GRP State Conventions when electing GRP officers, directors, and delegates to GPUS committees. Instant runoff voting is superior to other voting methods because it allows but does not require voters to rank candidates first, second, third, etc. When a voter’s first choice candidate is eliminated, their vote can be reassigned to their second choice, etc. However if a voter considers only one candidate to be acceptable, they are not required to rank other candidates and not required to vote for unacceptable candidates. Instant runoff voting also allows for write-in votes for candidates who are not on the ballot. Someone told me that GRP is using the “borda count” voting method at our conventions. Borda count is inferior because it forces voters to rank all candidates and therefore potentially forces voters to vote for unacceptable candidates, and borda count does not allow write-in votes.

Proposal: GRP will use instant runoff voting in all cases in which we use elections to choose persons for internal party positions and for GRP representatives to GPUS and other organizations (e.g. at State Conventions and State Committee meetings when selecting GRP officers, directors, and national committee delegates).

Financial impact: none

Implementation: Someone will add the text of this proposal to the GRP bylaws.