Bylaws Proposal - Candidate Elimination

[Secretary LNC]

Please attached proposal form.

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In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

[Secretary LNC]

The wrong form was attached.  I updated it but it did  not save properly.  I do not intend on dealing with write-ins on this proposal. as I am doing further research  I will address that separately, my apologies for attaching the wrong form.

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

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Committee members, download the Proposal Form here: https://tinyurl.com/2024Bylaws-SubmissionForm
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[Mike Seebeck]

As the Head Teller for the past 2 conventions, I will happily co-sponsor this.

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[Secretary LNC]

I am intending on adding a provison for no write ins in a separate proposal, I removed it from this one as two separate issues and since RONR strongly allows write ins, I want to more carefully consider the wording 

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[Mike Seebeck]

I still support it.  RONR never contemplated the B.S. that write-ins caused in Reno.

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[Paul Bracco]

I too will support removing write-ins, at least in theory. However I'd like to see the proposal language before officially co-sponsoring anything.

Paul Bracco

Vice Chair - Libertarian Party of Virginia

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[Ken Moellman]

So unless I'm missing the context here, my quick thoughts are to change " Write-in candidates are prohibited." to instead be " Write-in candidates are prohibited where tokens are required for nomination, and after the first round of voting."

I think it's important to allow the delegates to do what they want to do, but within reason.  If tokens are required for nomination, then write-ins make no sense; you didn't qualify, so too bad. If it's a multi-round election, where one or more candidates are eliminated per round, then any subsequent round should be narrowing the options not allowing for additional candidates to get thrown into the mix.

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Ken C. Moellman, Jr.

Executive Director

Libertarian Party of Kentucky

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[Mike Seebeck]

Tell that to Virginia and California, who abused the process in Reno, to the detriment of my teller team.

Frankly, if we went to full petitions (NOT any blasted tokens!) for all internal positions, and thus denying write-ins, that is far better and simpler than what we do now.

In DC next year, if an affiliate pulls again what VA and CA did in Reno, on camera, I will personally get on the microphone and tear them a new #2 for wasting everyone's time and important media exposure, decorum be damned.  I won't stand for that again, and yes, I do feel that strongly about it.

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[Secretary LNC]

The teller team was abused and every other delegate was disrespected.  People also used that opportunity to name call people in write ins using such things as writing in John [insult calumny here] Smith.  It was disgraceful.

Having petitions AND write ins is nonsensical- the purpose of petitions is to prove a modicum of intent and support to end time wasting.  I know it mostly means in speeches but we've learned it should be more than that.

Also forget about moving to easy electronic ballots with write ins.

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[ken.mo...@lpky.org]

Well part of that is that approval voting is dumb and let's you cast a vote for an infinite number of candidates.  Last term we had a proposal to swap approval with rcv in single-winner and cumulative voting (certain number of tokens) in multi-winner.

Ken 

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[Tom Rowlette]

Ken, I think it would make more sense to change your "and" into an "or".

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[Tom Rowlette]

Also, instead of saying "write-ins candidates are prohibited" we might have better luck with "write-in votes will not be recorded."

If I had no experience with this and I was a first-time convention goer, my gut reaction would be that we don't want to prohibit anyone from making any kind of vote.

[Secretary LNC]

Yes Mr. Rowlette, it's one reason I m delaying on that part.

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[Paul Bracco]

I would like to request an agenda item for our upcoming meeting to discuss write-ins. Clearly there are a lot of complicated thoughts on this and I think we’d be better off discussing this on the Zoom call vs trying to hash things out over email. The end of the agenda is fine with me.

Paul Bracco

Vice Chair - Libertarian Party of Virginia

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[Secretary LNC]

I will put it down in the rolling agenda, but it will go in order of requests.  I do not believe it will come up this meeting, but if we reach that point, we can discuss, otherwise without a vote of the committee to or a scheduling decision by the Chair, things are placed in order received.

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[Rob Latham]

Am favorable to Mr. Rowlette's compromise proposal.

There's a LP tradition of affiliate delegation chairs announcing votes for un-nominated/write-in candidates for president by some delegates, often tongue-in-cheek, during the first-round roll call of the affiliates at a nominating convention.

Accommodating such announcements during that roll call, but not requiring un-nominated/write-in candidates to be recorded, would seem to address the concerns that have been raised.

It does raise a separate concern/question: under the current Bylaws/Rules would votes for such un-nominated/write-in candidates be included toward calculating the winning threshold?

Would be unfortunate if a nominated candidate failed to be elected during the first or subsequent rounds because of un-nominated/write-in candidates.

Accordingly, I would lean in favor of an additional Bylaw/Rule language that votes cast for un-nominated/write-in candidates would not be counted toward calculating the winning threshold.

Rob Latham

[Tom Rowlette]

I agree with that.  Votes for Micky Mouse shouldn't change the amount it takes to win.

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[Secretary LNC]

There are very distinct RONR rules on this - a lot of situations are getting lumped in here.  Some things are safe to rewrite but rewriting the entire way votes are counted per RONR is at our peril.  Please please read those sections of RONR first..... we cannot be proposing things without being very familiar with the rules for vote telling.

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

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[Secretary LNC]

For instance,  in approval voting, it is not "votes" taken to win (the number of votes is not denominator, the number of BALLOTS is - and those two different things).  In a single winner race, things are different, but we have to tread very carefully.

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

[Secretary LNC]

I think I may have some wording that will work - I am always very cautious when proposing something "new" to try to envision any unforseen traps or holes.

___________________________________________________

In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos

LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250

[Rob Latham]

Giving fellow committee members a heads-up on this proposed substitute for Proposal F - Candidate Elimination:

The language is intended to accommodate electoral methods like ranked choice voting and single transferable vote, and also accommodate a rule to mitigate what has been termed the "Center-Squeeze Effect." An article describing the problem and offering a solution is at:
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-2343967/v1

Substitute motion

The convention special rules of order may provide a mechanisms (voting methods) under by which, when either no candidate initially for Party officer receives a majority or no candidate for at-large member of the National Committee or the Judicial Committee exceeds the winning threshold, the candidate receiving the fewest votes least voter support is removed from further consideration.

(Because color and strikethroughs don't copy over to this list, italics substitute for strikethroughs. That said, a proposal with the substitute is attached and maintains the mark-up legend with colors and strikethroughs.

In liberty,

Rob Latham