Thanks! Valuable templates! It's encouraging to me that the resolution of the case of no Condorcet candidate can be treated as one of the "additional regulations": "The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards." It gives us hope that whatever Condorcet compliant method is first adopted is not set in stone ... no act of congress needed to change the "additional regulations"! Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device -------- Original message -------- From: robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.com> Date: 7/9/21 7:15 PM (GMT-08:00) To: Susan Simmons <suzerainsimmons@outlook.com>, Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@gmail.com> Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Teams > On 07/09/2021 9:56 PM Susan Simmons <suzerainsimmons@outlook.com> wrote: > > > Daniel, > > > Let's take adavantage of Robert Bristow-Johnson's valuable experience when we approach the tricky business of writing and submitting legal language for a ballot initiative. > i may have posted this before. here is the IRV language i used as a template to start with: ______________________________________________________________________________ All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding election officer shall implement a ranked-choice voting protocol according to these guidelines: (1) The ballot shall give voters the option of ranking candidates in order of preference. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall not be allowed. Any candidate not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every candidate marked with a preference. (2) If a candidate receives a majority (over 50 percent of all ballots) of first preferences, that candidate is elected. (3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, an instant runoff retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer. The instant runoff retabulation shall be conducted in sequential rounds. A "continuing candidate" is defined as a candidate that has not been defeated in any previous round. Initially, no candidate is defeated and all candidates begin as continuing candidates. (4) In each round, every ballot shall count as a single vote for whichever continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest. The candidate with fewest votes is defeated in the current round. (5) The aforementioned instant runoff retabulation, eliminating one candidate each round, shall be repeated until only two candidates remain. The remaining candidate then receiving the greatest number of votes is elected. (6) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards. ______________________________________________________________________________ here is how i modified it for BTR-STV: ______________________________________________________________________________ All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding election officer shall implement a ranked-choice voting protocol according to these guidelines: (1) The ballot shall give voters the option of ranking candidates in order of preference. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall not be allowed. Any candidate not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every candidate marked with a preference. (2) If a candidate receives a majority (over 50 percent of all ballots) of first preferences, that candidate is elected. (3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, an instant runoff retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer. The instant runoff retabulation shall be conducted in sequential rounds. A "continuing candidate" is defined as a candidate that has not been defeated in any previous round. Initially, no candidate is defeated and all candidates begin as continuing candidates. (4) In each round, every ballot shall count as a single vote for whichever continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest. The two candidates with the fewest votes in a round, herein denoted as "A" and "B", shall contend in a runoff in which the candidate, A or B, with lesser voter support shall be defeated in the current round. If the number of ballots ranking A higher than B exceeds the number of ballots ranking B higher than A, then B has lesser voter support, B is defeated, and A continues to the following round. Likewise, if the number of ballots ranking B higher than A exceeds the number of ballots ranking A higher than B, then A has lesser voter support, A is defeated, and B continues to the following round. In the case that the aforementioned measures of voter support of A and B are tied, then the candidate with fewest votes is defeated in the current round. (5) The aforementioned instant runoff retabulation, eliminating one candidate each round, shall be repeated until only two candidates remain. The remaining candidate then receiving the greatest number of votes is elected. (6) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards. ______________________________________________________________________________ and, when i was having a discussion with Eric Maskin, we wanted to compare language to what he called "ordinary Condorcet", it's just a speculative guess by me (but the problem is there is no resolution to a cycle): ______________________________________________________________________________ All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding election officer shall implement a ranked-choice voting protocol according to these guidelines: (1) The ballot shall give voters the option of ranking candidates in order of preference. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall be allowed. Any candidate not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every candidate marked with a preference. (2) If a candidate receives a majority (over 50 percent of all ballots) of first preferences, that candidate is elected. (3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, a Condorcet-compliant retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer. The candidate who is the Condorcet winner is elected, if the rankings on all of the ballots indicate that this one candidate defeats, by a simple majority of voter preferences, all other candidates when compared in turn with each other individual candidate. A selected candidate defeats another candidate by a simple majority when the number of ballots ranking the selected candidate higher than the other candidate exceeds the number of ballots marked to the contrary. (4) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards. ______________________________________________________________________________ I'm just thinking that the language may have to look something like that, -- r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." . . .

> On 07/10/2021 1:27 AM Susan Simmons <suzerainsimmons@outlook.com> wrote: > > > Thanks! > > > Valuable templates! > > > It's encouraging to me that the resolution of the case of no Condorcet candidate can be treated as one of the "additional regulations": > > > "The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards." > > > It gives us hope that whatever Condorcet compliant method is first adopted is not set in stone ... no act of congress needed to change the "additional regulations"! > I don't think that was the intention since it was simply copied from the IRV template that I got from the RCV resolution our city of Burlington had passed in the city election but is not yet adopted by the state legislature. I think the intent was that the City Council (who was that "governing jurisdiction") could get specific software to implement RCV. The ordinary Condorcet language on the bottom is not really complete. It really does need to be spelled out in advance exactly what is the election procedure and that will define which Condorcet method. But for 99.9% of the cases, that basic Condorcet language would suffice. But if there is no Condorcet Winner, the law still needs to be able to elect someone with unambiguous rules. I don't think that the City Council could change that by fiat. bestest, -- r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." . . .