It is as easy as 1-2-3

R

Content

Simple ballot procedure evidence • office elections • office election accomplishments • Instant Runoff Voting • Full Representation Choice Voting • voting equipment and counting methods • office election benefits • summary

Sample candidate names are fictional.  Any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.

Fair Choice Voting can allow voters to communicate election decisions, priorities, and trade-offs.  For office elections, Fair Choice Voting can give voters a variety of viable candidate and party choices, promote service and issue-based campaigns, establish winner mandates, and save money.  In addition, voters can use Fair Choice Voting to either settle on a single plan among alternatives or an accommodation or priority plan made up of parts or sections.  Voters can select and rank as many, or as few, candidate or alternative choices in descending order on their ballots: one, two, three, and so on.

 

As previously mentioned, participants can use Fair Choice Voting to either settle on a single plan among alternatives or an accommodation or priority plan made up of parts or sections.  For a single plan among alternatives example, a group of friends can use Fair Choice Voting to choose a movie that they can all see together after considering a variety of movie titles.  For an accommodation plan made up of parts example, a group of friends can use Fair Choice Voting to direct a chef to prepare a pizza having different slice toppings to accommodate each friend.  Participants can also use the second kind of Fair Choice Voting to choose priorities, such as budget priorities, or establish a maximum number of plan alternatives when there are too many acceptable alternatives.  In any case, the voter procedure of selecting first, second, third, and so on choices for the two kinds of Fair Choice Voting are the same.

Simple ballot procedure evidence

The Fair Choice Voting ballot procedure is easy and nearly any participant can use it.  According to the Center for Voting and Democracy (CVD), mock elections in a number of schools and senior citizen centers prove that people find preference or rank-order voting to be easy, and most prefer it.  In the United States (U.S.), starting with the Vermont Commission to Study Preference Voting established in 1998 by the Vermont House of Representatives, the CVD conducted several mock elections using preference ballots.[1]  They conducted these mock elections in more than twelve middle and high school classes, twelve senior citizen centers, a few elementary schools, a college, and a few county fairs.  According to the 1999 CVD Report on Mock Elections in Vermont, out of approximately 500 ballots cast using a variety of ballot designs, there were only three “spoiled” or invalid ballots.  With this, the overall spoiled ballot rate computes to be 0.6 percent, which is considerably lower than typical spoiled ballot rates among experienced voters using familiar equipment.[2]   Of all the middle and high school students expressing an opinion, over ninety percent out of 116 students said marking preference ballots was easy and were in favor of Vermont adopting Fair Choice Voting.[3]   By focusing on inexperienced, middle and high school-aged pre-voters, and the experienced and likely less flexible, elderly voters, this sample maximized opportunities to discover problems with the use of preference ballots.  The extremely low spoiled ballot rate, including among senior citizens, led the CVD to conclude that a district can minimize or virtually eliminate spoiled ballot rates with a reasonable voter education effort.  The evidence suggests that changing to preference ballots would be easier for voters than changing voting equipment or ballot design, which several districts have already accomplished.[4]  In Utah, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (R) said that the Utah Republican Party discovered that voters had no difficulty with preference ballots.[5]

As for U.S. general population acceptance, voters currently elect candidates using preference ballots in at least one elementary school, thirty-two school boards, three professional associations, twenty major colleges and universities, two cities, one state party, and one state.  General voters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have been using preference ballots since 1941.

Outside the U.S., general population voters elect candidates using preference ballots in Australia, Ireland, and Malta.  In Australia, general voters in Tasmania have been using preference ballots since 1896, west Australia since 1908, and remaining parts of Australia since 1919.  In Malta, general voters have been using preference ballots since 1921.[6]

Office elections

For office elections, the first kind of Fair Choice Voting of electing one official among district candidates defines single-member district Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).[7]  Likewise, the second kind of Fair Choice Voting of electing a number of officials among district candidates defines multimember district[8] Full Representation (FR)[9] Choice Voting.[10]

Instant Runoff Voting and Full Representation Choice Voting can apply to a variety of office elections.[11]  Following are some possibilities:

Club:  Club executive officers.  Local:  Jury chairperson, student council executive officers, school board executive officers, commission chairperson, and committee chairperson.  Association or corporation:  Neighborhood, community, association, society, foundation, institute, and corporation board executive officers.  College or university:  Student government executive officers.  Municipality:  Election Commissioner, Auditor, and Mayor.  U.S. County:  Assessor, Clerk and Recorder, Coroner, District Attorney, Sheriff, Surveyor, Treasurer, Council chairperson, and Commissioner Board chairperson.  U.S. natural resource area:  Conservation District and Water Conservancy District executive officers.  Resource Conservation and Development Council President or Chairperson.  U.S. Tribal:  Native American Nation executive officers including the Chief or President.  U.S. State:  Party single-office general plurality election nominee, Senator, Representative for a district having one member, party legislature leader, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, and Governor.  U.S. Federal:  Senator, Representative for a state having one member, party legislature leader, legislature leader, and Presidential nominee[12] state party Electoral College.[13]

Local:  Student council and school board members.  Association or corporation:  Association, society, foundation, institute, and corporation board members.  College or university:  Student council members.  Municipality:  Council and Commission members.  U.S. County:  Council and Commission Board members.  U.S. natural resource area:  Conservation District Board of Supervisors, Resource Conservation and Development Council members, and Water Conservancy District board members.  U.S. Tribal:  Native American Nation Council members.  U.S. State:  Party multimember nominees and general Representatives.  Party single-office general majority election nominees.  U.S. Federal:  Party multimember nominees and general Representatives.  Association, corporation, or party:  Maximum candidate pool or number of candidates, such as between five and fifteen, if there are too many candidates for final single- or multimember district ballot placement.

Office election accomplishments

As of November 2008, Fair Choice Voting accomplishments include its use by U.S. voters to elect candidates in at least one elementary school, thirty-two school boards, three associations, twenty major colleges and universities, two municipalities, one state party, and one state.  Following are descriptions of these and other accomplishments:[14]

Local:  Franklin Elementary School students in California use IRV to elect student council officers.  Since 1970, New York City general voters use FR Choice Voting to elect Community School Board members in thirty-two districts.[15]

Association or corporation:  The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences use FR Choice Voting to nominate five candidates or nominees for each Academy Awards category and use IRV to elect their executive officers.   Heisman Trophy winners are picked by rank-choice voting.  The American Political Science Association (APSA) use IRV to elect the President.  The Consortium of College and Media Centers and American Philological Association (APA) use IRV to elect their executive officers.  During the late 1800s, Alfred Cridge persuaded the Mechanics of San Francisco to adopt FR Choice Voting.[16]

U.S. College or university:  At least twenty major colleges and universities in the U.S. use IRV to elect student government executive officers, including California Institute of Technology,[17] Duke University,[18] College of William and Mary, John Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),[19] Stanford University,[20] Tufts University,[21] University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland, Rice University,[22] Wake Forest University, University of Wisconsin,[23] and University of California at Davis.  At least twelve major colleges and universities use FR Choice Voting to elect student legislators, including Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of California at Davis, and University of California at Berkeley.[24]

U.S. Municipality:  General voters in San Francisco, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; cities in Michigan and Washington; and city council members in Cambridge, Massachusetts, use IRV to elect municipal officers.  General voters in Takoma Park, Maryland, and Burlington, Vermont, use IRV to elect their mayors.   Since 1941, voters in Cambridge also use FR Choice Voting to elect municipal council and school board members.[25]  In 1999, voters in Vancouver, Washington, make IRV an option for future elections.[26]  In 2000, voters in Oakland and San Leandro, California,[27] make IRV an option for future elections.  In Cincinnati, Ohio, and San Francisco during the 1990s, FR Choice Voting referendums received almost forty-five percent of the votes.

U.S. County:  Utah Republican Party use IRV to nominate county candidates.  In 1998, voters in Santa Clara County, California, make IRV an option for future elections.[28]

U.S. State:  Louisiana, Arkansas, and South Carolina military voters use IRV for their overseas and out-of-state absentee ballots.  Utah Republican Party use IRV to nominate State Governor and party officers.  Alaska Republican Party placed IRV on the 2002 ballot.  In 2002, fifty-two out of fifty-six or ninety-three percent of the town meetings in Vermont passed advisory referendums urging IRV adoption.[29]  Twenty-one states are considering IRV legislations.  Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean (D-VT) supports IRV.

U.S. Federal:  Utah Republican Party members use IRV to nominate Congressional candidates.  Senator John McCain (R-AZ) supports IRV.  Representative Dennis J. Kucinish (D-OH) supports both IRV and FR Choice Voting.  In 1999, Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA), who favors fair treatment and justice by opposing government human resources favoritism and quotas based on non-relevant factors, supported HR 1173, Rep. Mel Watt’s (D-NC) States’ Choice of Voting Systems Act, which would repeal the 1967 ban against conducting U.S. House multimember elections.[30]  This act followed the 1995 Voter’s Choice Act to restore states freedom to use FR to elect U.S. House Representatives that Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) twice introduced.  U.S. Term Limits and Committee for the Study of the American Electorate directors supported the 1995 Voter’s Choice Act.

Australia, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, and Germany:  In Australia, General Electorates use IRV to elect their Representatives in the Commonwealth Parliament and State House of Representatives[31] and States use FR Choice Voting to elect a number of their Senators in the Commonwealth Parliament Senate.[32]  West Australian voters began using IRV, which is also known as Preferential or Alternative Voting, in 1908[33] and remaining Australian voters began using IRV in 1919.[34]  In 1896, Tasmania, Australia, adopted FR Choice Voting for public elections under Catherine Helen Spence and Attorney General Andrew Inglis Clark’s influence.[35]  Australian voters began using FR Choice Voting throughout the country in 1949 after the Commonwealth Electoral Act of 1948 was ratified.  In Ireland, voters use FR Choice Voting to elect Deputies in their National Parliament House of Representatives and Senators in their National Parliament Senate.[36]  In the Republic of Malta, General Electorates use FR Choice Voting to elect Representatives in their unicameral Parliament House of Representatives.  Maltese voters began using FR Choice Voting in 1921.[37]  In New Zealand, General and Maori Electorates use FR Mixed Member Voting (MMV), where each voter has two votes to vote for a party and a candidate, to elect Representatives in their unicameral Commonwealth Parliament House of Representatives.[38]   New Zealand voters began using FR-MMV in 1993.  In the Federal Republic of Germany, Electorates use FR-MMV to elect Representatives in their Federal Assembly, which is one of their bicameral houses.[39]

Advocates:  John B. Anderson, nine-term member of Congress, 1980 independent candidate for President of the U.S., law professor.  IRV advocacy groups include coalitions in California, Washington, Utah, Massachusetts, and New York.  FR advocacy groups include Californians for Electoral Reform, and Washington State Citizens for Proportional Representation.

Endorsements:  Major newspapers endorse IRV including USA Today, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, and Vancouver Columbian.  The League of Women Voters in Washington, Vermont, and California endorse IRV.

 

Inventions and developments:  1787  James Madison mentioned the FR ideal at the U.S. Constitutional Convention.  1789  About one year after American states ratified the U.S. Constitution, Mirabeau proposed the FR principle in a speech before the Assembly of Provence in France.[40]  1793  Saint-Just proposed to the French National Convention a FR parliamentary multimember elections voting system with all France as one district.[41]  1820  French mathematician Gergonne proposed a FR multimember district winning threshold system to encourage sincere voting by protecting against vote waste.[42]  1821  Thomas Wright Hill, schoolmaster of Kidderminster and Birmingham, England, invented FR one-written-name-per-ballot Choice Voting.  In Choice Voting, a district voter has one vote in a particular contest, but the one vote may transfer from one candidate to another according to the voter’s ranking of candidates and aggregate results of other voters’ ballots.[43]  Mr. Hill developed this system after observing a boys’ committee informal election at his son’s school.[44]  1839  South Australia Colonization Commissioners adopted FR in Adelaide, South Australia, by allowing voters to form themselves into as many equal electoral sections or thresholds as there are Common Council members to be elected and each section agree to return one member to the Council.  This closely resembles Gergonne’s multimember district threshold proposal.[45]  1856  The federated realm of Denmark used Finance Minister Carl Christopher Georg Andrae’s FR multi-name written preference ballot Choice Voting independent invention to elect 55 out of 80 Rigsraad or Supreme Legislative Council Members.[46]  1857  London barrister Thomas Hare independently developed FR Choice Voting similar to Andrae’s method and proposed its use for United Kingdom Parliament member elections.[47]  1865  Hare improved his system by adopting ballot transfers from defeated candidates.[48]  1868  H. R. Droop invented the FR Choice Voting threshold sufficient to elect the same number of winning officials as there are district memberships.  Before Droop’s invention, the higher threshold tends to result in fewer winning officials than district memberships.[49]  1870  In the U.S., Harvard Alumni used FR Choice Voting for Overseers of the College nomination, persuaded and conducted by William R. Ware, Harvard alumnus and MIT professor.  Around 1870  William Ware invented IRV using a preference ballot and Choice Voting.[50]  1872  John Stuart Mill influenced a bill's introduction proposing FR Choice Voting for United Kingdom House of Commons members from England and Wales.[51]  1975  A Michigan Circuit Court in the U.S. upheld IRV in Stephenson versus Ann Arbor Board of Canvassers.[52]  1994  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia in Holder versus Hall, said FR Choice Voting satisfies the Voting Rights Act.[53]

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

Single-member district Instant Runoff Voting elections allow voters to select their runoff candidates at the same time as their first choice.  Voters indicate their first and runoff choices by ranking them on their ballots.  A majority[54] winner is determined in one election using runoff rankings, rather than having to accept a plurality winner without possible majority support or wait several weeks and voting all over again in a delayed runoff.  Instant Runoff Voting simulates a traditional runoff, with the added refinement of eliminating only one candidate at a time rather than all but the top two candidates.

Sample 4.  Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) U.S. digital ballot.

 

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) function as follows: Instead of just casting one vote for one candidate, voters rank favorite or acceptable candidates in descending choice order: one, two, three, and so on.  If no candidate receives a majority of first choice votes, Instant Runoff Voting eliminates the candidate having the least first choice votes.  Instant Runoff Voting then transfers second choice votes from these ballots to other candidates.  If no candidate receives a majority during the second round, Instant Runoff Voting eliminates the candidate having the least second round votes.  Instant Runoff Voting transfers second choice votes on these ballots to other candidates.  If some of these ballots had listed the first eliminated candidate of the first round as second choices, Instant Runoff Voting transfers third choice votes on these ballots to other candidates.  Instant Runoff Voting recount ballots and eliminate candidates in this method until a winner emerges with a majority of votes.

In other words, IRV count ballots as a series of runoffs.  In each round, ballots count as one vote for the top-ranked candidate who remains continuing or in the running.  If voters eliminate the first choice candidate by giving the candidate the least votes, then the vote counts towards the next choice candidate, and so on.  The election is over when one candidate wins by gaining a majority of votes.[57]

Ranking more than one candidate is optional.  Voters set in their ways or unfamiliar with more than one candidate are free to vote for a single candidate, just as they do in plurality voting.  In many contests, many voters will probably rank a candidate first who ends up being one of the final two candidates, meaning that their ballot will count for their top choice throughout the ballot count.

Even so, a voter has every incentive to rank more than one candidate because ranking additional candidates never harms a voter’s top-ranked candidate.  If there is any chance that other voters will eliminate a voter’s first choice candidate in the course of the count and if the voter has any preference among the remaining candidates, that voter should rank their next favorite candidate.  This would be identical to the voter returning to the polls for the second round of a traditional runoff election after their top choice lost in the first round.  Ranking other candidates increases the electoral chances of voters’ next choice candidates in case their first choice loses.

Sample 6.  Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) U.S. optical scan paper ballot.[58]

 

 

IRV differs from unfair Bucklin voting

Incidentally, IRV is not to be confused with the flawed or deficient Bucklin ‘preferential’ voting system[62] that was practiced in a number of U.S. state and local elections from about 1912 to 1935, including Grand Junction and Denver, Colorado;[63] all primary elections in Minnesota;[64] and municipalities in North Dakota.[65]  The defective Bucklin system tends to penalize voters who ranked their second and third or other choices at the expense of their first choices that result in minority instead of majority rule.  That is, the Bucklin system tend to penalize voters who sincerely select their second or subsequent choices on their ballots as these alternate choice votes may cause the defeat of their first or most preferred candidates.  In addition, voters had more than one vote per representation level per round and those who selected more alternate choices than others had more votes, which conflicted with the U.S. Constitution’s election principles of majority rule and one person having one vote.

In the Bucklin vote-counting system, if no candidate received the majority of first choices, the system added all second choices to the tallied first choices, and checked vote totals to see if any candidate reached the new majority threshold.[66]  Consequently, under the Bucklin system, some voters had their votes counted more than once, and a second choice vote for a candidate could function as a vote against a voter’s first choice.  To demonstrate, consider a voter who casts a first choice vote for Candidate A, a second choice for Candidate B, and a third or “other” choice vote for Candidate C.  If Candidate A had a plurality, but not a majority, of first choice votes, then the voter’s second choice would be added to the number of first choice Candidate B received, along with the second choices of all other voters.  In addition, all the candidates remain in the running, including the candidate receiving the least first round votes.  Therefore, the voter’s second choice for Candidate B has the effect of undermining the voter’s first choice, Candidate A, by giving Candidate B more total votes of first plus second choice votes than Candidate A.  This is why, while 92,659 voters cast valid ballots in the 1931 Denver election, the total number of votes counted, including first, second, and third or “other” choices for a ‘majority’ winner, was 168,512.  This is a difference of 75,853 votes, which is a forty-five percent increase with respect to the number of valid ballots.[67]

These Bucklin voting system flaws led the Minnesota Supreme Court to declare the Bucklin system unconstitutional.  The Court concluded that the Bucklin voting system in Duluth had the effect of giving some voters more than one vote and was troubled by how the system put voters in a position of undermining their first choice prospects when they indicated lower choices.[68]

In contrast to the unconstitutional Bucklin voting system, IRV based on Choice Voting follows U.S. Constitution’s election principles of majority rule and one person having one vote.  In a similar election under IRV, each voter would have one vote, which IRV would count for each voter’s highest choice candidate who was eligible to receive it.  The total number of votes would not change, except for voters who exhausted their votes by not selecting or naming a second or subsequent choice if other voters eliminated their first choice candidate after receiving the least votes during the first round of counting.  The practical effect would be no different from having a runoff election to narrow the number of candidates to two, except that it would occur instantaneously.[69]

Full Representation (FR) Choice Voting

Multimember district Full Representation elections allow voters to select their candidates for fair representations.  That is, nearly all voters can receive representation and parties or voluntary associations can influence legislations in proportion to their electoral persuasions.  Given the number of seats in a multimember district, voters elect people to serve those seats and vote total proportions or percentages determine seat or member distribution.

In Full Representation, the privilege of decision belongs to the majority, but the privilege of representation to all.  Full Representation allows voter groups to elect their fair share of candidates.  Gaining more than half and less than all of the popular votes wins a membership majority, but not all.  One-fifth of the vote wins one-in-five memberships rather than none.  Full Representation means real representative democracy—most voters would win.[70]

Comparisons.  Single-member and multimember district comparisons.

Conceptually, the Full Representation Choice Voting process is similar to pupils forming a school committee with their feet.  In 1821, Thomas Wright Hill introduced the Full Representation principle after noting informal committee election practice by pupils at his boys’ school.  Enid Lakeman, in her book How Democracies Vote, described Thomas Hill’s simple Choice Voting observations by saying:

…his pupils were asked to elect a committee by standing beside the boy they liked best.  This first produced a number of unequal groups, but soon the boys in the largest groups came to the conclusion that not all of them were actually necessary for the election of their favorite and some moved on to help another candidate, while on the other hand the few supporters of an unpopular boy gave him up as hopeless and transferred themselves to the candidate they considered the next best.  The final result was that a number of candidates equal to the number required for the committee were each surrounded by the same number of supporters….[71]

In Full Representation Choice Voting, voters rank their favorite or acceptable candidates in descending choice order on their ballots: one, two, three, and so on.  Winners are determined in one election using the number of valid ballots[72] and voter choices to establish winner threshold,[73] transfer votes from last-place candidates, and transfer surplus fractional votes from newly elected officials.[74]  Full Representation Choice Voting iterates this process until the district membership is complete.

In other words, since multimember district representatives have equal voting power, they should each represent an equal number of election threshold voters.  The larger the number of district representatives, the greater the probability that representatives will speak for every voter’s voice or views.  For example, if a party receives forty percent of the vote, it would receive about forty percent of the memberships.  With this, political or constituency minorities can have some representation as people’s votes can make a difference.  In addition, decisions requiring majority support can be genuine and authentic.

In pursuit of this, if a candidate receives more than enough votes to win a multimember seat, the surplus factored votes above the winning threshold will count toward the voters’ next choice candidates.  That is, if any candidates receive a number of votes exceeding the threshold, the system split ballots assigned to the candidate into a fraction that stays with that candidate and a remaining fraction that will count toward continuing candidates in subsequent rounds.  All of the winning official’s voters have an equal privilege to decide how their official’s surplus vote transfers to their preferences.  Consequently, Full Representation Choice Voting transfers all the elected official’s votes in proportion to the size of the official’s surplus votes.  Before a candidate wins a threshold, the system count ballots for the top-ranked candidate as long as the candidate remains continuing or in the running.[75]

As with IRV, ranking more than one candidate is optional.  With FR Choice Voting, ranking at least the same number of candidates as there are district memberships is preferable.  If the voter wishes, the voter can vote for all candidates within a party that the voter identifies with.  Just as with IRV, a voter has every incentive to rank more than one candidate because ranking additional candidates never harms a voter’s top-ranked candidate.

Sample 7.  Full Representation (FR) Choice Voting U.S. digital ballot.

 

 

Sample 8.  Full Representation (FR) Choice Voting U.S. optical scan paper ballot.[78]

 

Voting equipment and counting methods

While voters can use paper, optical scan paper, or electronic push-button voting equipment for Fair Choice Voting and counting, digital voting equipment[82] may be easier to use, especially for ballots having a large number of candidates.  Digital voting equipment, such as a touch- or pointing cursor- display screen, can allow a voter to remove unacceptable candidates from display to view only acceptable candidates before ranking these remaining candidates.  In removing unacceptable candidates from display and consideration, a voter can remove individual candidates and/or candidates from certain parties.  This unacceptable candidate removal feature before ranking acceptable candidates can narrow the ballot field, making it easier for a voter to choose candidates.

 

 

 

Sample 11.  Economic and personal freedom U.S. digital ballot voter accommodation.						Sample 12.  Independent choice U.S. digital ballot voter accommodation.
		Candidates for City Council						Candidates for City Council
Rank				District One (Three to be elected)		Rank			District One (Three to be elected)
	—		€	Linda West ,  Libertarian			—	€	Susan Flickinger ,  Republican
	—		€	Bonnie Hawk ,  Libertarian			—	€	Mark Barnett ,  Democrat
	—		€	Ralph Hayden ,  Independent			—	€	Linda West ,  Libertarian
	—		€	None of these candidates			—	€	David Stoops ,  Green
							—	€	Ralph Hayden ,  Independent
							—	€	None of these candidates

 

Sample 13.  U.S. digital ballot display options.

In any case, if a voter finds that there are too many acceptable candidates among ballot candidates to easily rank acceptable candidates, the voter can prepare their preferences in advance using a prioritizing method.  One useful prioritizing method is Richard N. Bolles’ Prioritizing Grid through which a voter can consider candidates two at a time.[84]

Table 1.  Ranked ballots counting methods.[85]

 

Office election benefits

The Center for Voting and Democracy,[86] Midwest Democracy Center,[87] Illinois Citizens for Proportional Representation,[88] and PR Library Professor Douglas J. Amy[89] present the following Fair Choice Voting office election benefits:

Fair Choice Voting office election benefit

·       Voters can communicate office election decisions, priorities, and trade-offs.

·       More candidates, including independent and third or minor party candidates, can participate in a contest, without participants accusing them of “spoiling” the election.  Even if a voter’s favorite candidate came in last, the process would count the voter’s next favorite or acceptable candidate.

In a Full Representation Choice Voting election, if a voter’s favorite candidate wins a seat, Choice Voting can factor the voter’s next favorite or acceptable candidate toward another seat based on the number of surplus votes.

·       Service and issue-based campaign promotion.  To win, candidates need to obtain some second and third choice votes, as well as first choice votes.  They would be less likely to pursue negative campaigning if they need their opponents’ voters too.

·       Mandate clarification for winning officials, which give better policy-making direction.  With Fair Choice Voting, candidates can campaign by being themselves and communicating their service principles instead of determining what potential voters want and attempting to campaign as individuals they are not.

In an Instant Runoff Voting election, there is a majority winner when there are more than two candidates.  Without single-member district Instant Runoff Voting, the winner may win with less than fifty percent of the vote, having only a plurality.  In addition, without Instant Runoff Voting, the majority of voters may split their votes among similar candidates in such a way to make the plurality winner the majority worst choice.

·       Encourage voter participation by allowing more candidate and party choices.  People can vote for candidates they really support instead of settling for ‘lesser evil’ candidates they do not really like.  In other words, people can vote for candidates sincerely instead of tactically.

In Full Representation elections, parties can have fair competitions with each other instead of unfairly protecting major parties in power from competition.  In other words, parties can receive representation that they deserve.  Up to eighty to ninety percent of the voters can elect someone, compared to fifty to sixty percent in most population-based single-member district plurality voting[90] elections.[91]  If a party receives forty percent of the vote, it would receive about forty percent of the seats instead of twenty to sixty percent.  That is, political minorities can have some representation as people’s votes can make a difference.

In addition, Full Representation elections can virtually eliminate major party gerrymandering during legislative representation reapportionment after periodic population census.  District boundaries or lines can have little, if any, representation significant impact.  All parties can receive their fair share of seats in multimember districts regardless of party majority or minority status, particularly those districts having five or more seats.[92]  That is, representation or party legislative control would not depend on district line developments.  With this, legislatures can develop district lines based on geography, which includes communities, earth surface features, natural borders, resources, economics, and industries, in addition to human population and political considerations.

Population-based single-member district lines, on the other hand, favor major parties and incumbents in power as elected officials develop district lines to deny other parties their fair share.  In other words, major parties choose their constituencies or voters they want before their voters choose them when developing population-based single-member district boundaries.  Multimember Full Representation districts would purge this sordid gerrymandering practice.

·       Single election money savings.  Some states and local elections hold runoffs weeks later to determine the winner, costing money.  Fair Choice Voting eliminates or minimizes the need for party primaries before the general election, depending on the number of candidates.  This practice can facilitate shorter campaigns for voter appeal as well as money savings.

·       Follows U.S. Constitution’s election principles of majority rule and one person having one vote.  That is, each person has one vote counted for each district representation level or domain during each round and majority rule reflect majority votes counted.

Robert’s Rules of Order (RRO) recommends preferential voting, which is the same as Instant Runoff Voting, to determine a majority winner for a single-member district where open-ended re-voting is not practical.[93]

As for Full Representation Choice Voting, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia in Holder versus Hall, said Full Representation Choice Voting satisfies the Voting Rights Act.[94]

Summary

To summarize, Fair Choice Voting can allow voters to communicate election decisions, priorities, and trade-offs.  For office elections, Fair Choice Voting can give voters a variety of viable candidate and party choices, promote service and issue-based campaigns, establish winner mandates, and save money.  In addition, voters can use Fair Choice Voting to either settle on a single plan among alternatives or an accommodation or priority plan made up of parts or sections.   Fair Choice Voting…it is as easy as 1-2-3.

Objective Thinker

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