Edward B. Foley, a Professor of Law at The Ohio State University, recently posted on Election Law Blog a proposal for “Total Vote Runoff” (“TVR”), which is like Single Winner RCV, except for the vote transfer methodology. Instead of using only first place (and transferred first place) votes to decide which candidates are eliminated, he proposes calculating each remaining candidate’s “Total Votes” score using Borda count, then eliminating the candidate with the lowest Total Vote score before votes are transferred to each voter’s next choice candidate. This continues until one candidate has a majority of votes.

For example, in a four candidate election with a single winner, if no candidate received a majority of first choice votes, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes would not necessarily be eliminated, as is the case with standard single winner RCV. Instead, a Total Votes score would be calculated for each candidate using the following formula:

(3 x # of first choice votes) + (2 x # of second choice votes) + (1 x # of third choice votes) + (0 x # of fourth choice votes).

Therefore, each voter would be allocating six (3+2+1) Total Vote score points among all four candidates. If a voter did not rank all four candidates, the unused points would be evenly split among the unranked candidates, including fractional points.

The candidate with the lowest Total Votes score would be eliminated, with each affected voter’s vote then transferred to their next choice candidate.

This process would continue with three or two remaining candidates until someone had a majority of votes or had more votes if only two candidates remain.

Mr. Foley argues that there is a greater chance of a single winner candidate having majority support with the TVR methodology than with the standard RCV vote transfer process. He cites evidence from the August 2022 US House election in Alaska that “non-MAGA” Republican candidate Nick Begich was probably more popular with voters than Representative-elect Mary Peltola, but had fewer first choice votes than Sarah Palin, and was therefore eliminated first in the three-way race using the standard RCV vote transfer process.

His close to finished draft article on TVR, soon to be published in the University of New Hampshire Law Review, can be read here:

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The American Solidarity Party (“ASP”) announced on June 2, 2023, that Peter Sonski was nominated as its 2024 candidate for President of the United States. The Vice Presidential nominee will be chosen later by ASP members but deference to Mr. Sonski’s preferred VP candidate is likely.

According to its Wikipedia article, “The American Solidarity Party (ASP) is a Christian-democratic political party in the United States. It was founded in 2011 and officially incorporated in 2016. The party has a Solidarity National Committee (SNC) and has numerous active state and local chapters…The American Solidarity Party has been characterized as socially conservative while supporting government intervention in economic matters. The ASP encourages social development along the lines of subsidiarity and sphere sovereignty, with a stated emphasis on ‘the importance of strong families, local communities, and voluntary associations’. It favors fiscally progressive policies and a social market economy with a distributist character, that seeks ‘widespread economic participation and ownership’ and providing a social safety net program.”

Mr. Sonski was nominated through online voting that occurred May 24-June 1 that would have used Ranked Choice Voting, but for his majority vote (328 votes, 52%) received on the first ballot. Four other candidates received the remaining 48% of the votes.

Peter Sonski is the former Assistant Editor at the National Catholic Register. He has a long history in the pro-life movement, with previous registration in both the Democratic and Republican Parties before finding the ASP during the 2020 election cycle. Peter is concluding his second term as an elected member of Connecticut’s Regional School District 17 Board of Education. His campaign plans to fund raise aggressively for ballot access and pursue a strong media strategy.

The ASP’s 2020 presidential ticket of Brian Carroll for President and Amar Patel for Vice President was on the ballot in eight states and was a certified write-in ticket in 31 states, receiving over 42,000 votes, according to Wikipedia.

Sonski’s website is:

http://www.petersonski.com

and ASP’s website is:

http://www.solidarity-party.org.

On May 26, 2023, a lawsuit was filed in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, challenging the state constitutionality of Senate Bill 93, which was recently passed. According to The Daily Montanan, SB 93 “implements a nonrefundable $3,700 filling fee for an initiative or referendum when a proponent files the proposal; adds layers to the review process that give the attorney general and secretary of state power to reject the language of a proposal; and implements more reporting requirements on the face of the petition about its effect on business and its overall fiscal impact. Further, it prohibits a proposal from being run if a similar one was defeated in the past four years; bars the use of electronic signatures; and adds a requirement that paid signature gatherers register with the secretary of state and pay a fee of up to $100 unless they can show their inability to pay.” The complaint was filed by John Meyer, Esq. of the Cottonwood Environmental Law Center. Here is the Filed Complaint