New Hampshire Representative Ellen Read (D-Rockingham County) and five others have introduced HB 728, which would provide that all federal and state primaries and elections should use ranked choice voting.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
New Hampshire Representative Ellen Read (D-Rockingham County) and five others have introduced HB 728, which would provide that all federal and state primaries and elections should use ranked choice voting.
There is currently a split in the voting reform movement in the USA. Most reformers in the national voting reform movement are trying to implement SINGLE-WINNER district ranked choice voting (RCV) systems in many state, county and city elections.
The United Coalition USA will never use RCV in single-winner districts, also known as instant runoff votng (IRV), and supports only the Sainte-Lague parliament seat distribution system in all cases over single-winner districts with no exceptions.
The United Coalition USA is striving to eliminate all single-winner elections districts worldwide for being not democratically legitimate.
Single-winner districts bring a one-party system like if SF, because only one party can ever win into perpetuity, the sole party which garners 50% (plus one vote), the biggest with no exceptions. That’s a one-party system. America is a melting pot and we will never tolerate a one-party system.
Join the new three-party system in 2020
The United Coalition USA
279 free Electors plus 279 dues-payer Electors = 538 Electors, four-year term
One at-large districts, on paper ballots, under the US Constitution
http://www.usparliament.org/signup.php
RCV may/will only raise the minority rule percent a bit in the gerrymander regimes of evil —
1/2 plus votes x 1/2 gerrymander areas = 1/4 plus CONTROL.
—
NO primaries.
PR – IE MAJORITY RULE CONTROL
and AppV
@ James Ogle, @ Demo Rep:
Yes, there are some problems with RCV but the proposal is a fine improvement of what is now being used. So why are you two opposing improvement? Voting improvement and reform have to be accomplished incrementally if they are to happen at all.
What was the DOI on 4 July 1776 ???
What was the USA Const on 17 Sep 1787 ???
The ENTIRE gerrymander systems are ROTTED to their EVIL cores — since 1200s
— formation of gerrymander English House of Commons.
NONSTOP EVIL in USA gerrymander regimes since 1776.
—
PR and AppV — pending Condorcet — RCV done correctly.
There are a couple of twists in the New Hampshire bill.
In New Hampshire, some representative districts are multimember, with up to 11 members. Under the current plurality system, a pary may sweep all the seats from such a district. But the bill provides for use of STV in such districts. The 11-seater was swept by Republicans in 2018, but under STV, it might have been a 7:4 or 6:5 split. There are many 2 and 3 member districts that were swept by one party or the other, under STV most would become 2:1 or 1:1. There could be increased inter-party competition, as the ranking within a party might determine which candidates for the party are elected.
There is hardly any reason for party primaries under such a system, since there will be an opportunity for interparty ranking in the general election. There is also a wild inconsistency in district sizes. Concord elects from single-member districts, while similar towns elect from a single district. A better system would be to divide the entire state into multi-member districts of around five seats. In New Hampshire, such districts would have around 7000 voters which would permit personal campaigning. TV advertising is too expensive for such races since you are likely having to buy in the Boston market, for a position that pays $100.
The NH Constitution requires plurality election of legislators and the governor. This was a deliberate change in 1912. The bill tries to circumvent this by claiming that RCV is a way of determining a pluality. But the constitution also provides that votes for senator and governor be counted locally, and then canvassed at the state level. This is incompatible with RCV.
The bill provides for use of RCV in the presidentilal preference primary, with candidates eliminated until all remaining candidates have reached the threshold of support required by the party (typically 15%l. In 2016 there were around 30 candidates. Who wouldn’t vote for Vermin Supreme knowing that at worst the ballot would transfer to lesser choices.
Thank you, Jim, for your careful reading of the bill.
@ Jim Riley
Would it be a violation of the NH constitution if the local count is merely of the rankings, and then the transfers were made at the state canvass?
@Jim Riley:
Wouldn’t be awesome if Vermin Supreme got 15% on the first round because most voters presumed that his votes would be transferred? This is actually why RCV is advantageous to third party and independent candidates: they would get more first round votes.
The multi-member stuff is one more subversion of the 4-4 RFG and 14-1 EPC.
A State/local legis body exists ONLY because the VOTERS can not assemble in person and vote on bills, etc.
Some voters would NOT have unequal votes – 2 or more.
—
RCV/IRV FATAL Defects Apr 2018
RCV/IRV ignores most of the data in a Place Votes Table.
The *Middle* is divided – as usual.
34 A-M-Z
33 Z-M-A
16 M-A-Z
16 M-Z-A
99
With RCV/IRV, M loses. A beats Z 50-49.
A = Stalin, M = Washington, Z = Hitler
—————
Place Votes Table
— 1 — 2 — 3 — T
A 34 – 16 – 49 – 99
Z 33 – 16 – 50 – 99
M 32 – 67 – 0 – 99
T 99 – 99 – 99
i.e. RCV/IRV will cause even more extremist winners due to rigged majority *mandate* stuff.
M has a mere 99 of 99 votes in 1st and 2nd place.
Also — symmetry — Z has 50 in last place — should lose. M then beats A 65-34.
————
Head to Head (Condorcet) Math – from 1780s — repeat 1780s.
M beats A 65-34
M beats Z 66-33
Condorcet is obviously correct by the math of having a 3rd choice beat each of 2 existing choices head to head.
A > B
C comes along.
IF C > A and C > B, THEN C should be the winner.
*******
Condorcet math — ALL elections —
legislative, executive, judicial.
ALL combinations of —
Test Winner(s) vs Test Loser — Test Other Losers
Number ranked votes go from TOL to TW or TL.
Would need computer voting to do all the combinations in any *larger* election.
Also– vote YES or NO (default) on each choice for a tie breaker when a TW/TL does not win/lose in all combinations.
For 2 or more exec/judic offices (e.g. 2 judges), the 2 or more top ranked number votes are used in the TW/TL/TOL math.
Legislative body elections — the final Winners would have a Voting Power equal to their final votes (direct from voters plus indirect from Losers).
—-
Thus — Proportional Representation — legis and nonpartisan Approval Voting (YES/NO) exec-judic — pending Condorcet head to head math.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
—
Note – see “mathematics of voting and elections” in a Google search regarding 3 or more choices math.
PR and AppV – pending Condorcet
@WZ,
The constitution is quite explicit. The primary purpose of a constitution is to define how the goverment is constituted. Those provisions are going to be interpreted literally. Fluffy stuff. Like equal protection are subject to interpretaion by courts. The 1912 change to the NH constitution was quite deliberate eliminating the requirement for a majority. The decision in NH is going to be identical to that in Maine.
(1) OK for primaries, since they are not mentioned in the constitution, but stupid for partisan primaries.
(2) OK for congressional elections since they aren’t mentioned in the constitution.
(3) OK for presidential preference primaries since they aren’t mentioned in the constitution.
There is a bit of ambiguity for representatives. One reason that New Hampshire has such a large House is that it was designed so that each town could have its own representative. 175 voters would give a representative, 750 would give two, 1550 three, and another for every thousand more. Not quite proportional by modern standards, but equal protection did not exist then. As a result the house grew as towns increased in size, while all had at least one representative.
The very smallest towns with fewer than 175 voters were gathered into districts. But rather than collectively electing a representative, they would take turns, with every town being entitled to representation at least one out of ten years.
The representatives could be elected at a town meeting. Even today, election may take place at a meeting, even if that meeting is held from 7 AM to 7 PM at a local school.
While New Hampshire has 400 representatives, it only has 30 senators elected from districts. The constitution provided for collecting the votes from each town. If no candidate had a majority, then the legislature would choose a senator from the Top 2. The same procedure was used for governor. The constitution actually says that the governor is to be elected in the same manner as the governor.
In 1912, the constitution was amended, replacing the word “majority” with “plurality”. Thus if no candidate has a plurality (presumably a case of a tie vote) the legislature will choose the goveernor.