The Approval Voting Party is now a ballot-qualified party in Colorado, because it now has more than 1,000 registered members. The Secretary of State’s web page doesn’t have the November 1 2019 registration tally up yet, but the October 1 2019 tally shows the party had 989 registrants, and the party knows that it is now over 1,000.
Colorado now has seven ballot-qualified parties. The others are Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Unity. Thanks to Bill Hammons for this news.
Congratulations to Frank Atwood, Blake Huber, and all the AVP members who worked hard to make this happen. Onward and upward!
Sounds like a one issue party.
Does the state provide precise definitions of “Active”, “InActive” and “Prereg”?
@Michael,
Inactive and Active are terms set by federal law. Federal does not permit purging for failure to vote. But if election officials send something to the voter and it is not deliverable, they can send a forwardable notice to the voter explaining how to transfer their registration if in state, or how to register if they have moved to a different state.
Such a voter is deemed inactive. After two federal elections without voting they may be purged. If they show up at the polls, they may vote (no provisional ballot required).
In some states, inactive voters may be discounted for certain purposes. In Arizona, they are not included in the denominator in calculating petition requirements. An inactive voter is likely to have moved, possibly out of state, so it is not considered fair that you should have to get X% of signatures from people who have moved away, or X+% of those who remain. An inactive voter could sign the petition (though there might be an issue with matching addresses).
Colorado has recently adopted all-mail ballots, so if a ballot can not be delivered, the state can start converting the voters to inactive status. There is a surge in inactive voters before elections. In Colorado this even happens before odd-year elections. After every federal general election there is a drop because inactive voters who have not voted for two elections are purged.
For example, Colorado would have sent ballots out before the 2016 primary and general election. If they aren’t delivered the voter can be put on the inactive list (after being sent a forwardable notice). In the case of a presidential election, voters who have moved might track down a ballot, and will be put back on active status.
But people who have moved may not received the forwarded notice, or ignored it. Casual registrants probably won’t vote anyway. These inactive voters would have been purged after missing the 2016 and 2018 elections.
The current crop of inactive voters would have been detected before the 2017 and 2018 elections, and have now missed the 2018 general election. If they don’t vote in 2020, they will be purged after the 2020 election.
Colorado has a 2019 statewide election, so some more voters will be detected as inactive, but can not be purged before 2022.
A pre-registered voter is a 16 or 17 YO. It is simpler to maintain a separate register and then move them to the regular roll on their 18th birthday. In Colorado, it appears that pre-18 YO may be registered under motor voter when they apply for a drivers license.
Relatively few seniors are 18 by a November election, but they may have interest in elections especially if they can get extra credit, or polish their cvollege application. Students who are citizens are unlikely to be felons, and are likely to be at least 16, but somewhat unlikely to be 18 until later in the school year.
The notice from the SOS says that there are 1022 AVP registrants. The October 1 data shows 989 active and 33 inactive voters, for a total of 1022 voters.
There is no reason not to count inactive voters, and it masy be illegal under federal law.
Just because there are new tenants, and they claimed they searched under the seat cushion, and in the air ducts does not mean that the former tenant does not exist or has moved.
Isn’t Ranked Choice Voting better than Approval Voting?
http://ballot-access.org/2019/05/19/two-utah-cities-will-use-ranked-choice-voting-in-municipal-elections-this-year/
Condorcet — IRV done right.
Extreme Example
RELATIVE Votes
49 R-M-L
49 L-M-R
1 M-L-R
L Leftist NUT, M Muddled Middle, R Rightist NUT
Who wins ???
How many are YES Approval/Tolerable Votes ???
@Andy,
RCV and Condorcet assume that voters are able or willing to rank candidates.
Are you familiar with the football expression that games are won by moving the pile. If the offensive line pushes the defense backward, the running back will gain yardage on every play, and occasionally break a big play. If the defense pushes the offense back, then tackles will be made in the backfield, and it may require extra effort to get back to the line of scrimmage or make a small gain.
The same is true for RCV. You want your candidate to pile up a lot of votes. It is a false expectation that weak minority candidates will coalesce in victory. See the last San Francisco mayoral election.
Somewhat of a hybrid would limit ranks and permit equal ranks.
RCV with a condorcet method of counting votes (such as the Schulze Method) takes care of the problem of people not ranking every candidate; that is not a problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method#Ballot
ALL mail ballots= = more time to rank candidates.
Oregon, etc survive with ALL mail ballots — less disease due to over-heated polling places full of sick folks.
Condorcet [relative] and Approval/tolerable [absolute].
Possible vacancy if no Approval/tolerable majority for exec/judic offices.
Both active and inactive voter registrations count towards minor party qualification in Colorado. The preregistration numbers don’t count towards minor party status.
Percent of possible voters who move / get disqualified [mental/criminal] / DIE per election cycle ???
Now a matter of ***NATIONAL SECURITY*** ???
— ESP DUE TO FOREIGN ELECTION INVASIONS/ATTACKS.
To quote one voting system specialist, “RCV is a fundamentally flawed voting system that does not do anything it
claims and violates more unfairness criteria than even plurality voting does.” for more information see:
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf , especially p. 9 and
also http://www.nationalrenewal.org/node/43 .