Hey Young Dems,

We are sending out the proposed EBYD Bylaw amendments for everyone to have and review. These will be discussed at tomorrow's meeting so please go over them to provide whatever input you may have. We look forward to hearing from everyone!

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Draft Insertions to East Bay Young Democrats Bylaws:

Ranked-Choice Voting Endorsements Text in boxes is notes, not part of proposed bylaws.

Definitions

“Election voters”: voters in a local, state, or federal election

“Endorsement voters”: EBYD members voting on a potential EBYD endorsement

A. One- or Two-Choice Elections

For endorsements in all election types where election voters have only one or two listed choices on the ballot, including yes/no ballot measures and races with one or two candidates, the EBYD endorsement ballot shall contain the election choices eligible for endorsement as well as “No Endorsement” and “No Position”, and each endorsement voter shall have one vote. An endorsement will be made if one of the election options receives at least 60% of all votes cast, including “No Endorsement” in the denominator but excluding “No Position”.

For election types where election voters have three or more listed choices on the ballot, one of the methods B through D shall be used. The EBYD board may by two-thirds majority and with notice to membership adopt protocols to clarify, but not amend, the following procedures.

This section does not apply to elections where two candidates are on the ballot but two candidates will be elected: section (D) below applies to such elections.

B. Multiple Votes, One Seat

For endorsements in all election types where election voters have more than one vote to cast, but only one candidate will be elected - e.g., Ranked-Choice Voting - the following procedure shall be used.

The ballot shall leave space for each endorsement voter to rank as many candidates as are eligible for endorsement, in order from 1, most preferred, to last, least preferred, plus one additional space. The ballot shall instruct endorsement voters not to rank candidates they do not wish EBYD to endorse, and shall instruct them of the availability and meaning of “No Endorsement” and “No Position” as options.

EBYD will make endorsements of no more than three candidates based on the results of the vote tally, noting the rank order of support received.

In all of the following calculations, a candidate’s share of votes shall be defined as the ballots that select them at the top (#1 or reallocated choices) divided by the total of all ballots, excluding those that indicated “No Position”, but including those that indicated “No Endorsement”. “No Endorsement” shall never be reallocated. If all of an endorsement voter’s ranked candidates are eliminated and there is neither “No Position” nor “No Endorsement” anywhere, the ballot will still be counted in the denominator for the share of votes.

Intention behind continuing to count such ballots is that these are cases where the voter did not indicate whether their final preference was “no endorsement” or “no position”, and if they didn’t say, we want to be cautious about reducing the 60% threshold where possibly that’s not their intention. Membership could indicate a different preference on this matter.

If a ballot ranks the same candidate in multiple spaces, the counting will skip those repeats. If a ballot indicates “No Position” in rank order above a named candidate, that candidate will be considered before the ballot is removed from the tally. If a ballot indicates “No Endorsement” in rank order above a named candidate, that lower candidate will not be considered.

i. Bottom-up reallocation

In the first phase, all the candidates will be counted by number of #1 rankings they received from endorsement voters, and their vote shares will be calculated.

If one candidate’s share is at least 60%, they will be considered the winner of this endorsement round, and the process will skip to (ii) below. After such an endorsement, if the maximum endorsement number has not been reached, the process will skip to (ii) below.

If there is no endorsed candidate, the candidate with the lowest vote share will be eliminated from the count and the ballots of the voters who ranked that candidate #1 will be reallocated to the option they indicated next. In the case of ties, see (iii) below.

After reallocation, the shares will be recalculated. If a 60% winner is identified, they will be endorsed and the process will skip to (ii) below. If not, this process of bottom-up reallocation and share recalculation will repeat until the first of: (a) a 60% winner has been identified, or (b) only two candidates remain, neither of which have 60%.

If on discussion the club prefers not to endorse more than one candidate, edit above deleting (B)(ii) on top-down allocation, and in the paragraph further up, edit to “EBYD may make endorsements of no more than three candidates”. Or, if the club prefers for simplicity to endorse no more than two candidates, edit “three” to “two” above and no other edits are required.

ii. Top-down reallocation

Eliminate the top, endorsed, candidate identified in (i) above and reallocate the ballots of those who voted for that candidate to their next choices. Then, return to the bottom-up reallocation process in (i) above to see if an additional winner with at least 60% support can be found.

iii. Ties

In case two or more candidates each have the fewest #1 votes, or the most, it is necessary to pick one to eliminate before the other in the order above. First, they will be compared by how many #2 (or next-in-order) rankings they have; if there is still a tie, by #3 rankings; and so forth. In the rare event that all rankings have been examined and they are still tied, a random process will be used to determine which candidate is eliminated before the next. This random choice and its outcome will be disclosed as part of the ballot disclosure.

iv. Ballot disclosure

In elections where ballots are reallocated, all ballot choices and ranks will be disclosed in an anonymized form that does not show any handwriting or other means of identifying voters. All calculations made (reallocations, vote share calculations, etc.) will be disclosed in a comprehensible format. This disclosure shall be accessible upon request to any EBYD member eligible to vote in that election. If a computer program is used to perform the tally, the source code will also be accessible.

C. One Vote, One Seat

In elections where each election voter has only one vote, and the election will pick a single officeholder (e.g., top-two primaries and nonpartisan primaries), the same process as in (B) above shall be followed, except that EBYD shall endorse no more than one candidate, and no top-down reallocation as in (B)(ii) shall be used.

D. Multiple Votes, Multiple Seats

In elections where each election voter has more than one vote, and the election will pick two or more officeholders (e.g., at-large elections), no reallocation mechanism will be used. Each endorsement voter will be allowed to cast the same number of votes as the election voter will have. Candidate(s) that pass the threshold, as a percent of total votes cast shall be endorsed. The threshold shall be 60% divided by the number of officeholders to be chosen: 30% for two candidates, 20% for three, etc. No Endorsement and No Position shall be options, and No Endorsement, but not No Position, votes shall be in the vote denominator.

EBYD will endorse no more than the number of officeholders to be chosen, and will not endorse in rank order. If more candidates than this number pass the threshold, only the highest vote-getters will be endorsed.

This is the same procedure we already have for such elections, just written out in more detail. (Example: Alameda City Council)

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