Election with preference race
An election is defined with a preference
race with Republican, Democrat and Unaffiliated voter groups, followed by
Democrat, Republican and Unaffiliated candidacies, followed by a non-partisan
amendment and candidacy. Each candidacy is vote for one and is defined
with a write-in space; the write-in tally rule is override. The election
is set up to reject ballots for all possible rejection conditions as well as
print corresponding override messages. 1.94p firmware is
employed.
Ballot
rejection
- Ballots are returned with a blank ballot
return message if the preference race is not marked. Isn't the
preference race optional?
- A candidate and write-in selected in a vote for one race are returned
as overvoted, even though the override write-in rule should effect the
selection of the write-in only.
- If the first partisan race following the
preference race is overvoted the race is returned as overvoted where a
political party different from that of the party endorsing the partisan race
is selected in the preference race.
- A ballot is rejected with the preference
race and first partisan candidacy as blank and multi-party votes in all
three partisan candidacies where the preference race has been left blank and
candidates selected in all three partisan races. Since all three races
should be discarded as blank (due to multi-party overvote, there should
either be a blank race return message for all three candidacies or none at
all (since the three partisan candidacies are already being returned due to
multi-party votes).
Tallying
- Candidacies marked with a candidate as
well as a write-in are being tallied as overvoted even though they should be
tallied as write-in using the override write-in rule.
- The Republican party is selected in the preference race, one
candidate in the Democrat candidacy and no candidates in either the
Republican or Unaffiliated candidacies - the Democrat candidate marked on
the ballot is tallied even though the Democrat candidacy should be tallied
as blank voted.
- The Democrat party is selected in the preference race, two candidates
in each of the vote for one Democrat and Republican candidacies and a
candidate and write-in in the Unaffiliated candidacy. The Democrat
candidacy should be logged with an overvote and the Republican and
Unaffiliated candidacies with blank votes, yet all three partisan
candidacies are returned as blank voted.
Conditions
I understand the preference race to conform
to the following logic in a closed primary (all races on a single ballot):
If no selection is made in the
preference race and only selections
are made in partisan races endorsed by one party, all partisan race choices are
considered. If no selection is made in the
preference race and selections are made in races belonging to more than one political party,
all partisan race choices are discarded. If a valid selection is made in
the preference race only the results of races endorsed by the political party
selected in the preference race are taken.
I understand the override write-in tally
rule to cause only write-in selections to be taken in a race in which the
combination of candidate and write-in selections cause an
overvote.
Nel Finberg
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