On January 8, Wyoming State Senator Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie) introduced SF 65. It would use ranked choice voting in primaries and general elections. It appears it would also provide that the top four candidates for any particular office (as chosen in the August primary) should appear on the November election, and voters in November would use ranked choice-voting. Here is the bill. It has four co-sponsors. It is not clear whether the bill would affect presidential elections.
Utah is like one of the 144 population-balanced mini-states, usually a county or a group of counties, but Utah is rural so it is equivalent to one of the 144 mini-states in the PPR Electoral College.
I understand that the most organizers want a committee in every county in the USA (4000+ counties?) but under the PPR Electoral College, we have 144 mini-states, of which Los Angeles County County, is one.
Right now we are very interested in the 144 mini-states, so that way the 144 committees are in population balanced regions, because it just makes more sense on the national effort (144 mini-states Vs 4000+ counties).
We want the 538-member PPR Electoral College to keep organizing sensible, and we welcome more like-minded people who are interested in not just the simplicity of working around the 144 mini-states, but especially those interested in the 538 Elector College.
The PPR Elector College redeems approximately four electors for each of the 144 mini-states. The US Constitution Electoral College is state by state, of course, but within each state our team uses one the same number of Electors required by US Constitution of course.
That way we can keep adding all parties and independents, work under the US Constitution unite with the 100%.
Coming in next few weeks – the “Three-Party System”!
See earlier 34-33-32 FATAL RCV example.
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NO primaries.
PR and AppV
Per Demo Rep … it still hurts third parties, unless a libertarian finishes higher than the fourth-best R or the second best D, AND Libertarians in Wyoming have a primary, not a caucus. Assuming L’s have a caucus/convention, as seems to be the case, what about them and Greens? Seems like they’re excluded per the ballot language specifying “primary.”
As I read it (and I’ve scanned, at least, through half or more of the bill webpage) this is a gussied-up jungle primary. Pass.
It would generally be Top 2 (with RCV) except Wyoming has some multi-member elections, in which case the primary would nominate 2xN candidates.
The general election would permit write-in candidates to be ranked. I don’t see a procedure for declaring as a write-in, and it appears that an apparent write-in winner must formally accept nomination or election. Nomination as a write-in requires 25 votes. I don’t see any sore loser restriction on write-in candidates.
The party qualification language needs to be reworked, to either be based on the primary, or better yet on registration. Since parties will no longer have exclusionary partisan primaries, there is no reason for a large petition.
It is not clear whether RCV would be used for the presidential general election. Party nominations could be eliminated.
Why, under this proposal, even spend money to have primaries then? It is an un-needed step. Just have a general election. In the general election the votes are going to coalesce around (transfer to) the preferred candidates who would have come out on top in the primary anyway.
IMO, this is *not* a top two bill. It is simply RCV/IRV for primaries, which only major parties have, *and* RCV/IRV for the general election. I whole-heartedly support this bill.
One concern I have is this: the question of minor parties maintaining ballot access is not fully explained by the language of the bill.
In one respect, this bill is a major improvement for ballot access for minor parties – Section 22-1-102 (a) (xviii) increases the number of elections that may count towards maintaining ballot access from one to two. However, the words is section of the bill are unrelated to RCV.
My concern is that the requirement for 2% of the vote for a statewide candidate in a general election is not well defined in a the context of RCV. Is it 2% who vote for a minor party candidate on the first round of the tally? That is not defined, and, IMO, is a mistake by LSO (the Legislative Services Office that has lawyers write and approve language in all bills).
Don, you may be right, but the bill seems very unclear.
@DW,
The bill strips out the language where a candidate applies for a place on the Bullwinkle Party ballot, and instead permits a candidate to have his party affiliation appear on the ballot. It also eliminates the sections of code that provide for nomination by convention and (independent) petition in the current code. It is clearly Open Primary with RCV.
@Eric L,
It provides a maintenance of existing forms. In Wyoming, the Republican primary is often effectively the decisive election (Republicans now outnumber Democrats 4:1 in registration. Wyoming permits election day affiliation. Voters may choose to become Republicans simply in order to vote.
Voters in RCV elections often behave like gas molecules randomly bouncing around. Having a separate election simplifies the decision-making process, giving voters the benefit of endorsements of former candidates.