Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming enactment-elections
Based on recent discussion, I'll nominate Smith//Score. Also I think it's worth adding STAR as it has a movement behind it, and it's worth gauging opinion on it.
Toby
On Thursday, 4 April 2024 at 23:15:49 BST, Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com wrote:
Acknowledging the nomination of Black & Baldwin.
On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 14:02 Joseph Malkevitch jmalkevitch@york.cuny.edu wrote:
I find Black's Method (If there is no Condorcet winner use Borda) appealing especially when voters must rank all choices without ties or truncations using an ordinal ballot.
I also find Baldwin's method (sequential run-off based on Borda Count) appealing.
Borda- points for choice i, is the number choices below i.
Best,
Joe
——————————————Joseph Malkevitch
Email:jmalkevitch@york.cuny.eduWeb page:http://york.cuny.edu/~malk/
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
First thing: it's surprising how all the options that have been mentioned
are single-winner methods, despite the poll subject not being worded in
such a restrictive way. Are multi-winner options allowed as well, or should
this be a different poll? Because it needs to be said that every
legislative election needs proportional representation. I guess any
single-winner method, no matter how good, will be bad in comparison with a
PR method. So if multi-winner options were allowed in the poll, I would
nominate *STV *(a Condorcet-compliant variant would be better if there was
any polynomial one with good recognition; an optional indirect element -
like GVT, but strongly improved - would also be nice).
And speaking of single-winner methods, in my opinion Woodall and
Benham seem
to be the best, at least among the well-known ones. While Woodall
(especially Schwartz Woodall) is perhaps marginally better, Benham is so
easy to explain (and it's a very obvious/natural way to make IRV actually
good) that it should be seriously considered by voting reform campaigners.
So I'd like to nominate these two.
Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, that’s true. It’s the reason why reform is needed, & the reforms
should be compared to the worse current alternatives to show the need.
I nominate:
Approval
RP(wv)
Schulze
MinMax(wv)
IRV
Plurality
On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 04:06 John T Whelan john.whelan@astro.rit.edu
wrote:
Given the purpose of the poll, I think FPTP should also be included,
since that's what the real world propositions are presumably to replace.
John Whelan
jtw24@cornell.edu
From: Election-Methods election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com
on behalf of Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2024 1:13:28 AM
To: EM list election-methods@electorama.com
Subject: [EM] Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming
enactment-elections
EM used to do a lot of polls, but now never does. So I wouldn’t propose
one, if it weren’t for the fact that, this year, the voters of at least two
states are going to vote on whether to enact a certain voting-system.
It seems to me—tell me if I’m wrong—that those people have a right to
know how people familiar with voting-systems feel about the relative merits
of some voting-systems.
So, though I claim that polls are valuable for demonstrating the
experience of using the voting systems, & how they work, & what they’ll
do—& are therefore useful & worthwhile for their own sake—this poll that I
now propose isn’t a poll for its own sake.
It is, as I said, proposed for the important practical purpose of letting
the voters in the upcoming enactment-elections know how we feel about the
relative merits of some voting-systems, including the one that they’re
about to vote on the enactment of.
The voting-method for the poll:
It seems to me that Schulze is the most popular ranked voting-system,
among the people at EM.
…& it seems to me that the last time we voted on EM’s collective favorite
voting-system, Approval won.
Those seem the top-two, in EM popularity.
I prefer RP(wv) to Beatpath, mostly for its simple, intuitively natural &
obvious rule, but also for its LIIAC compliance, & the fact that its winner
usually pairbeats Schulze’s winner.
But I guess Schulze is more popular due to its more efficient algorithm.
Anyway so I suggest that the poll I propose have a Schulze balloting &
count, & an Approval balloting & count.
Voting would consist of posting a ranking & an approval-set, in one post.
Candidate voting-systems:
My purpose isn’t an all-inclusive poll among all proposed voting-systems.
…just a very few ones that are the most popular here at EM, solely to have
a little comparison to the main voting system being publicly voted on this
year.
So it should just be among a few voting-systems. Additionally, no reason
to make the alternatives-lineup too time-consumingly large by including
methods unlikely to win anyway.
I’ll suggest a few obvious inclusions. But, of course every poll here
should have the possibility of nomination of whatever alternative anyone
wants to nominate.
I’ll list my nominations in this post, & I claim that those few are all
the alternatives needed for the poll. …& anyone can nominate anything
during a 1-week nomination-period.
I suggest the following voting-systems as candidates in the poll, the
alternatives among which to vote:
Approval
RP(wv)
Schulze
IRV
(Schulze & RP are often said to be the ranked-methods most popular among
single-winner reform community, & that seems true at EM.)
Is there any need for more alternatives than that?
I suggest a nomination period of exactly one week, starting at the time
recorded as the posting-time-&-date of this post.
After which a voting-period of exactly one month would start…at the exact
time as the end of the nomination-period.
If there are no nominations (I suggest that none are needed) during the
nomination-period—& if, during the nomination-period, no one posts the
words “I second the suggestion of a poll”—then of course there’d not be a
poll.
Again, I realize that polls are no longer popular here, but this is a
special situation, bringing a need for voters in the upcoming public
enactment-election to have a chance to hear how people at EM feel about
relative merit among voting-systems. So let’s make an exception to the
absence of polls here, for voters in the next election.
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
On 2024-04-05 16:03, Filip Ejlak wrote:
First thing: it's surprising how all the options that have been
mentioned are single-winner methods, despite the poll subject not being
worded in such a restrictive way. Are multi-winner options allowed as
well, or should this be a different poll? Because it needs to be said
that every legislative election needs proportional representation. I
guess any single-winner method, no matter how good, will be bad in
comparison with a PR method. So if multi-winner options were allowed in
the poll, I would nominate *STV *(a Condorcet-compliant variant would be
better if there was any polynomial one with good recognition; an
optional indirect element - like GVT, but strongly improved - would also
be nice).
And speaking of single-winner methods, in my opinion Woodall and
Benham seem to be the best, at least among the well-known ones. While
Woodall (especially Schwartz Woodall) is perhaps marginally better,
Benham is so easy to explain (and it's a very obvious/natural way to
make IRV actually good) that it should be seriously considered by voting
reform campaigners. So I'd like to nominate these two.
I agree: if the poll is primarily meant to be about single-winner
methods, it would still be useful to have a "use multiwinner PR instead"
option, to see how well it would do compared to the single-winner methods.
I'd also suggest the following methods:
Majority Judgement (as a category; includes usual judgement etc.)
Approval with manual runoff (since it has seen actual use)
Copeland//Borda (proposed by Equal Vote)
and to echo Joshua Boehme, I'd also like to know what it's a poll of:
the theoretically best method, the one with best chance of passing a
reform effort, most bang for the buck, or something else?
On an aside, STV with ranked pairs elimination is not too bad a polytime
Condorcet-reducing STV method IMHO. RP's LIIA compliance reduces the
chaos you would otherwise get from elimination. It tends to have
somewhat of a center bias within the "clusters" (solid coalitions
entitled representation by Droop proportionality), but that might not be
too bad if it deters extremist kingmaker scenarios.
(You'd do a ranked pairs election every time you've elected someone and
eliminated him from the ballots, then eliminate from the RP loser up
until someone exceeds the quota, then elect him, distribute surpluses,
and do a new RP election, and so on.)
-km
There's some muddled thinking here.
If you are electing a president or a mayor, you will use a single-winner election method.
If you are electing a "representative assembly" like a parliament or town council, you would use (should use) a multi-winner election method. Only be using a multi-winner method can you begin to ensure that the elected assembly is properly representative of those who voted.
So before you hold your "Poll on voting systems", you must define the purpose of the election for which the voting system is to be used.
James Gilmour
Edinburgh, Scotland
-----Original Message-----
From: Election-Methods [mailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Kristofer Munsterhjelm
Sent: 05 April 2024 18:55
To: Filip Ejlak tersander@gmail.com; EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming enactment-elections
On 2024-04-05 16:03, Filip Ejlak wrote:
First thing: it's surprising how all the options that have been
mentioned are single-winner methods, despite the poll subject not
being worded in such a restrictive way. Are multi-winner options
allowed as well, or should this be a different poll? Because it needs
to be said that every legislative election needs proportional
representation. I guess any single-winner method, no matter how good,
will be bad in comparison with a PR method. So if multi-winner options
were allowed in the poll, I would nominate *STV *(a
Condorcet-compliant variant would be better if there was any
polynomial one with good recognition; an optional indirect element -
like GVT, but strongly improved - would also be nice).
And speaking of single-winner methods, in my opinion Woodall and
Benham seem to be the best, at least among the well-known ones.
While Woodall (especially Schwartz Woodall) is perhaps marginally
better, Benham is so easy to explain (and it's a very obvious/natural
way to make IRV actually good) that it should be seriously considered
by voting reform campaigners. So I'd like to nominate these two.
I agree: if the poll is primarily meant to be about single-winner methods, it would still be useful to have a "use
multiwinner PR instead"
option, to see how well it would do compared to the single-winner methods.
I'd also suggest the following methods:
Majority Judgement (as a category; includes usual judgement etc.) Approval with manual runoff (since it has seen actual
use) Copeland//Borda (proposed by Equal Vote)
and to echo Joshua Boehme, I'd also like to know what it's a poll of:
the theoretically best method, the one with best chance of passing a reform effort, most bang for the buck, or something
else?
On an aside, STV with ranked pairs elimination is not too bad a polytime Condorcet-reducing STV method IMHO. RP's LIIA
compliance reduces the chaos you would otherwise get from elimination. It tends to have somewhat of a center bias
within the "clusters" (solid coalitions entitled representation by Droop proportionality), but that might not be too bad if it
deters extremist kingmaker scenarios.
(You'd do a ranked pairs election every time you've elected someone and eliminated him from the ballots, then
eliminate from the RP loser up until someone exceeds the quota, then elect him, distribute surpluses, and do a new RP
election, and so on.)
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
I had a similar thought. If the question is more open-ended, maybe adding "(if applicable)" to the proportional representation option would make it clearer. (My thought process here is that one of the goals of this poll is to summarize current thinking for non-experts, so extra little nudges of explanation can help.)
On 4/5/24 16:14, James Gilmour wrote:
There's some muddled thinking here.
If you are electing a president or a mayor, you will use a single-winner election method.
If you are electing a "representative assembly" like a parliament or town council, you would use (should use) a multi-winner election method. Only be using a multi-winner method can you begin to ensure that the elected assembly is properly representative of those who voted.
So before you hold your "Poll on voting systems", you must define the purpose of the election for which the voting system is to be used.
James Gilmour
Edinburgh, Scotland
-----Original Message-----
From: Election-Methods [mailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Kristofer Munsterhjelm
Sent: 05 April 2024 18:55
To: Filip Ejlak tersander@gmail.com; EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming enactment-elections
On 2024-04-05 16:03, Filip Ejlak wrote:
First thing: it's surprising how all the options that have been
mentioned are single-winner methods, despite the poll subject not
being worded in such a restrictive way. Are multi-winner options
allowed as well, or should this be a different poll? Because it needs
to be said that every legislative election needs proportional
representation. I guess any single-winner method, no matter how good,
will be bad in comparison with a PR method. So if multi-winner options
were allowed in the poll, I would nominate *STV *(a
Condorcet-compliant variant would be better if there was any
polynomial one with good recognition; an optional indirect element -
like GVT, but strongly improved - would also be nice).
And speaking of single-winner methods, in my opinion Woodall and
Benham seem to be the best, at least among the well-known ones.
While Woodall (especially Schwartz Woodall) is perhaps marginally
better, Benham is so easy to explain (and it's a very obvious/natural
way to make IRV actually good) that it should be seriously considered
by voting reform campaigners. So I'd like to nominate these two.
I agree: if the poll is primarily meant to be about single-winner methods, it would still be useful to have a "use
multiwinner PR instead"
option, to see how well it would do compared to the single-winner methods.
I'd also suggest the following methods:
Majority Judgement (as a category; includes usual judgement etc.) Approval with manual runoff (since it has seen actual
use) Copeland//Borda (proposed by Equal Vote)
and to echo Joshua Boehme, I'd also like to know what it's a poll of:
the theoretically best method, the one with best chance of passing a reform effort, most bang for the buck, or something
else?
On an aside, STV with ranked pairs elimination is not too bad a polytime Condorcet-reducing STV method IMHO. RP's LIIA
compliance reduces the chaos you would otherwise get from elimination. It tends to have somewhat of a center bias
within the "clusters" (solid coalitions entitled representation by Droop proportionality), but that might not be too bad if it
deters extremist kingmaker scenarios.
(You'd do a ranked pairs election every time you've elected someone and eliminated him from the ballots, then
eliminate from the RP loser up until someone exceeds the quota, then elect him, distribute surpluses, and do a new RP
election, and so on.)
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
On 04/05/2024 4:14 PM EDT James Gilmour jamesgilmour@f2s.com wrote:
If you are electing a president or a mayor, you will use a single-winner election method.
If you are electing a "representative assembly" like a parliament or town council, you would use (should use) a multi-winner election method. Only be using a multi-winner method can you begin to ensure that the elected assembly is properly representative of those who voted.
I'm in complete agreement with this. This is why I advocate a Condorcet-consistent method for single winner. There is no proportionality to be had. So majority rule is all that's left to make our votes count equally.
For multiwinner methods, I am still not sure what's best, but I'm leaning toward some variant of Weighted Inclusive Gregory Method. Fractional votes are a bitch.
A third application of RCV being advocated in legislatures is for Presidential Primary races where each state is allocated a given number of delegate seats for the national convention of whatever party (right now there is just Democrat and Republican in the U.S. that have state primaries) and the question is how many delegates to award to each presidential candidate based on the vote they receive. In that application I would suggest STV and eliminate lessor candidates one at a time until, of the candidates that remain, each meets the quota. Then allocate the number of delegates to each presidential candidate using the Huntington-Hill method.
Three completely different applications of the ranked ballot in elections administered by governments. Three different goals, all for the purpose of representing our votes equally. And three different methods.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
With the nomination of Benham, Woodall & Schwartz Woodall, 11 methods have
now been nominated so far:
In the order in which they were nominated:
Approval
RP(wv)
Schulze
IRV
Plurality (Vote-For-1)
MinMax(wv)
Black
Baldwin
Benham
Woodall
Schwartz-Woodall
Yes, I should have specified this: This is a poll about single-winner
methods.
Multi-winner methods should be a separate poll.
Though PR is discussed here too, single-winner methods have always been the
main topic here.
Reasons why:
Many EM members are in the U.S., where multi-member congressional-districts
are illegal.
People in PR countries have good reason to be satisfied with their
electoral-system, & not looking for reform.
When I suggested what became EM, I proposed it by the name Singe-Winner
Committee.
What would I prefer?
An at-large (no districts, no gerrymandering) proportional Parliament (no
president), elected by Sainte-Lague (SL) or Bias-Free (BF). SL has long
precedent & great obvious natural simplicity. …& is very nearly unbiased,
with no significant amount of bias (minuscule bias towards the large).
But, in practice I might well propose d’Hondt (DH) because it’s
predominant. The differences among those 3 allocation-rules aren’t really
significant.
Preferably closed-list. Who knows the candidates & their suitability to
carry-out the platform, than the central-committee that wrote the platform?
What, they wrote the platform but we can’t trust them to order the
candidate-list? …but, given the party-phobic culture here, I’d propose
open-list.
Some open-list systems use Cumulative Voting to vote for candidates, but it
seems to me that a first-proposal should be simple. …with each ballot
voting for only one candidate.
An advantage of voting only for one list-candidate is that the system is
implamentable at zero expense.
Then voting for candidates would amount to an SNTV election among the
proposed candidates. Nothing wrong with that.
One solution that has been used in SNTV was for a faction to suggest that a
certain specified set set of its members vote for each particular one of
the candidates that it’s numerous enough to elect.
That member-set could be designated by a range of member-numberings or by
name, based ranges of the right size chosen in the alphabetical ordering of
member-names. Or even by region-boundaries chosen to contain the right
number of members.
But there’s something simpler:
Each individual voter could probabilistically implement Cumulative voting
by randomly choosing among the set of voters that hir faction is big enough
to elec all of.
If your faction is big enough to elect 3 candidates, then randomly choose
one of those 3 to vote for.
Finland exemplifies what I’m referring to. A standout exemplary simple
open-list system. But, as I mentioned, I wouldn’t use districts.
A quota of people in a region are free to elect someone in their region…or
not. Anyone there should also be free to help elect anyone anywhere.
Slovakia elects at-large. …& Slovakia has population size similar to an
average U.S. state.
Netherlands elects at-large. …& Netherlands ha several times the population
of an average U.S. state.
So there’s no reason to say that states are to big for at-large PR.
I just wanted to emphasize that I’d prefer a list-PR Parliament.
PR should be offered among a set of proposals for state electoral-reform.
But admittedly PR is a bid drastic fundamental change, arguably harder to
get than a better single-winner method.
So we in the U.S. are more interested in the more feasible single-winner
reform.
On Fri, Apr 5, 2024 at 07:03 Filip Ejlak tersander@gmail.com wrote:
First thing: it's surprising how all the options that have been mentioned
are single-winner methods, despite the poll subject not being worded in
such a restrictive way. Are multi-winner options allowed as well, or should
this be a different poll? Because it needs to be said that every
legislative election needs proportional representation. I guess any
single-winner method, no matter how good, will be bad in comparison with a
PR method. So if multi-winner options were allowed in the poll, I would
nominate *STV *(a Condorcet-compliant variant would be better if there
was any polynomial one with good recognition; an optional indirect element
- like GVT, but strongly improved - would also be nice).
And speaking of single-winner methods, in my opinion Woodall and
Benham seem to be the best, at least among the well-known ones. While
Woodall (especially Schwartz Woodall) is perhaps marginally better, Benham
is so easy to explain (and it's a very obvious/natural way to make IRV
actually good) that it should be seriously considered by voting reform
campaigners. So I'd like to nominate these two.
Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, that’s true. It’s the reason why reform is needed, & the reforms
should be compared to the worse current alternatives to show the need.
I nominate:
Approval
RP(wv)
Schulze
MinMax(wv)
IRV
Plurality
On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 04:06 John T Whelan john.whelan@astro.rit.edu
wrote:
Given the purpose of the poll, I think FPTP should also be included,
since that's what the real world propositions are presumably to replace.
John Whelan
jtw24@cornell.edu
From: Election-Methods election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com
on behalf of Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2024 1:13:28 AM
To: EM list election-methods@electorama.com
Subject: [EM] Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming
enactment-elections
EM used to do a lot of polls, but now never does. So I wouldn’t propose
one, if it weren’t for the fact that, this year, the voters of at least two
states are going to vote on whether to enact a certain voting-system.
It seems to me—tell me if I’m wrong—that those people have a right to
know how people familiar with voting-systems feel about the relative merits
of some voting-systems.
So, though I claim that polls are valuable for demonstrating the
experience of using the voting systems, & how they work, & what they’ll
do—& are therefore useful & worthwhile for their own sake—this poll that I
now propose isn’t a poll for its own sake.
It is, as I said, proposed for the important practical purpose of
letting the voters in the upcoming enactment-elections know how we feel
about the relative merits of some voting-systems, including the one that
they’re about to vote on the enactment of.
The voting-method for the poll:
It seems to me that Schulze is the most popular ranked voting-system,
among the people at EM.
…& it seems to me that the last time we voted on EM’s collective
favorite voting-system, Approval won.
Those seem the top-two, in EM popularity.
I prefer RP(wv) to Beatpath, mostly for its simple, intuitively natural
& obvious rule, but also for its LIIAC compliance, & the fact that its
winner usually pairbeats Schulze’s winner.
But I guess Schulze is more popular due to its more efficient algorithm.
Anyway so I suggest that the poll I propose have a Schulze balloting &
count, & an Approval balloting & count.
Voting would consist of posting a ranking & an approval-set, in one post.
Candidate voting-systems:
My purpose isn’t an all-inclusive poll among all proposed
voting-systems. …just a very few ones that are the most popular here at EM,
solely to have a little comparison to the main voting system being publicly
voted on this year.
So it should just be among a few voting-systems. Additionally, no reason
to make the alternatives-lineup too time-consumingly large by including
methods unlikely to win anyway.
I’ll suggest a few obvious inclusions. But, of course every poll here
should have the possibility of nomination of whatever alternative anyone
wants to nominate.
I’ll list my nominations in this post, & I claim that those few are all
the alternatives needed for the poll. …& anyone can nominate anything
during a 1-week nomination-period.
I suggest the following voting-systems as candidates in the poll, the
alternatives among which to vote:
Approval
RP(wv)
Schulze
IRV
(Schulze & RP are often said to be the ranked-methods most popular among
single-winner reform community, & that seems true at EM.)
Is there any need for more alternatives than that?
I suggest a nomination period of exactly one week, starting at the time
recorded as the posting-time-&-date of this post.
After which a voting-period of exactly one month would start…at the
exact time as the end of the nomination-period.
If there are no nominations (I suggest that none are needed) during the
nomination-period—& if, during the nomination-period, no one posts the
words “I second the suggestion of a poll”—then of course there’d not be a
poll.
Again, I realize that polls are no longer popular here, but this is a
special situation, bringing a need for voters in the upcoming public
enactment-election to have a chance to hear how people at EM feel about
relative merit among voting-systems. So let’s make an exception to the
absence of polls here, for voters in the next election.
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
On 4/5/2024 4:33 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
right now there is just Democrat and Republican in the U.S. that have
state primaries
= = = = =
[KB] At the moment, Minnesota has three "major" parties. (We had four
until the 2022 election.) So each of them is entitled by law to be on
primary ballots, including the Presidential Nominating Primary we had on
Super Tuesday.
The continued existence of major party status for the third of them,
however, is subject to a MN Supreme Court case that's pending. It
should be decided before the timelines for our August statewide primary.
On 4/5/2024 5:32 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
Many EM members are in the U.S., where multi-member
congressional-districts are illegal.
= = = = =
[KB] Yes, but multi-member state legislative districts are legal to my
knowledge, at least in some states. And gerrymandered state
legislatures are a serious problem for democracy in a lot of states.
- Ken Bearman, Minneapolis MN
On 04/05/2024 7:04 PM EDT KenB kdbearman@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/5/2024 4:33 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
right now there is just Democrat and Republican in the U.S. that have
state primaries
= = = = =
[KB] At the moment, Minnesota has three "major" parties. (We had four
until the 2022 election.) So each of them is entitled by law to be on
primary ballots, including the Presidential Nominating Primary we had on
Super Tuesday.
Wow. Even though I lived 20 miles west, and I knew about the DFL, I didn't know that about Minnesota. Three ballots in your presidential primary.
Vermont does have 3 ballots in the August primary (for state office elections), in our Super-Tuesday prez primary, it's just a choice of 2 ballots.
The continued existence of major party status for the third of them,
however, is subject to a MN Supreme Court case that's pending. It
should be decided before the timelines for our August statewide primary.
What's the name of the third party that has a presidential primary in which Minnesota prints ballots for? I can say for sure that the Vermont Progressive Party does not proffer a candidate for US president.
Wow, again Minnesota beats Vermont in third-party presence.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
On 4/5/2024 6:38 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
What's the name of the third party that has a presidential primary in
which Minnesota prints ballots for?
= = = = =
[KB] The current third major party is the Legal Marijuana Now Party.
The former fourth major party until 2022 was the Grassroots-Legalize
Cannabis Party. In the past other parties have been "third" major
parties (recently, e.g., Green and Independence, which some may
recognize from Jesse Ventura's election as Governor).
(If you want to look into the way a party qualifies or loses its status,
see https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/200.02#stat.200.02.7 .)
In Minnesota's statewide primary election in August, all major parties
appear on one ballot, each in a separate column. Voters must choose
candidates in only one column. If they choose candidates in multiple
columns, the tabulator will stop and report the error to the voter.
S/he may get a fresh ballot and try again if s/he chooses. If not, the
tabulator won't count marks for the partisan offices marked in those
columns but will count those for nonpartisan offices such as judges.
- Ken Bearman, Minneapolis MN