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RESOLUTION
TO
Provide guidance on election administration to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
RESOLUTION
TO
Provide guidance on election administration to the Ministry of Internal Affairs
1 - About this Resolution
(1) This Resolution
(a) may be cited as the Resolution on Election Guidance.
(b) has been authored by MPs Capt11543 and ItsStormcraft.
(c) has been co-sponsored by Prime Minister Dartanboy.
2 - Foundation
(1) The election is broken up into three distinct phases:
(a) First, a Candidate Ballot to fill half of the seats via direct mandates, determined using STV.
(b) Second, Seat Apportionment to achieve proportional representation, determined using Sainte-Lague.
3. Finally, Seat Assignment to place candidates in seats.
(2) Important notes:
(a) A direct mandate does not guarantee a seat and should not be treated equal to winning a seat.
(b) Even though direct candidates (usually) make up half of Parliament, all seats are still proportionally allocated.
(c) The Candidate Ballot and Seat Apportionment phases operate independently of each other.
3 - Candidate Ballot
(1) Important notes for the candidate ballot:
(a) Vote counting is split into multiple rounds. Counting proceeds until all direct mandates are awarded.
(a) An individual ballot is never worth more than 1 vote. In the base round, 100% of every ballot contributes to its first-choice candidate.
(a) A ballot’s “next valid choice” is its highest-ranking candidate who has not been eliminated or elected. If a ballot has no next valid choice, it is considered exhausted and can no longer be counted.
(2) The Candidate Ballot election should be set up as a Preferential election with 5 minimum votes. Every candidate who declared as a direct candidate, whether for a party or as an independent, should be included in the poll.
(3) Calculate the threshold for a candidate to receive a direct mandate using the formula: T_D = V / (M + 1), where V is the total number of votes, and M is the total number of direct mandates.
(4) For each candidate, determine if their vote total is greater than or equal to the threshold. If yes, they are awarded a direct mandate, and their excess votes are transferred according to the following procedure:
(a) Calculate a surplus factor for the candidate according to the following formula: F = (v - T_D) / V, where V is the number of votes the candidate has and T_D is the vote threshold calculated in subsection (3).
(b) For each ballot contributing to the candidate, multiply the vote amount it contributes to the candidate’s total by the surplus value, and transfer a vote amount equal to that product to the ballot’s next valid choice.
(i) Be sure to keep track of how much of a ballot contributes to which candidates throughout the process, as fractional votes can be transferred again.
(c) Example: The direct mandate threshold is 10 votes. Candidate A has a total of 20 votes. Ballot #1 contributes 1 vote to Candidate A. The surplus factor for Candidate A is ([20] - [10]) / [20] = 10 / [20] = 0.5. Ballot #1 ranked Candidate B as its next valid choice, so 0.5 votes are transferred from Candidate A to Candidate B. After all ballots contributing to Candidate A are evaluated using this process, Candidate A will have exactly 10 votes.
(5) If no candidate reaches the threshold in a round, eliminate the candidate with the least number of votes. Transfer ALL ballots contributing to that candidate to their next valid choice.
(a) In the case of a tie, eliminate all of the tied candidates unless doing so would leave less candidates remaining than there are direct mandates to award. In that case, the tie should be broken according to the following procedure:
(i) Eliminate the candidate who had less votes in the previous round.
(ii) If a tie persists, backtrack as many rounds as are necessary to break the tie.
(iii) If a tie still persists, randomly select a candidate to eliminate using a publicly verifiable, computer-generated method.
(6) Repeat this process for as many rounds as necessary, until all direct mandates have been awarded.
(7) If, at any point, the number of candidates remaining is equal to the number of unawarded direct mandates, award all remaining candidates a direct mandate.
4 - Seat Allocation
(1) The party ballot should be set up as a Preferential election with 2 minimum votes. Each declared party should be listed as a candidate, as well as a candidate labeled “Independent”.
(2) Calculate the threshold to be allocated a seat using the formula: T_A = V / S, where V is the total number of votes, and S is the total number of seats in Parliament.
(3) If any party has less primary votes than the seat allocation threshold, transfer each ballot which voted for that party to that ballot's substitute vote.
(a) If a ballot's primary and substitute vote are both eliminated by failing to reach the seat threshold, the ballot is considered exhausted.
(4) For each round of seat allocation, calculate a quotient for all parties using the formula: Q = v / (s * 2 + 1), where v is the number of votes that party received, and s is the number of seats that party has been allocated so far.
(a) s starts at 0, because no seats have been allocated before the first round. This means that (s * 2 + 1) = 1 for the first round.
(5) One seat is allocated per round. Allocate that seat to the party with the highest Q value. Then, increase that party’s s value by 1.
(a) No tiebreaker is prescribed by law, so Parliament recommends breaking the tie by allocating the seat to the party with the highest number of votes. If the tie persists, randomly select a party using a publicly verifiable, computer-generated method.
(6) Repeat this process for as many rounds as is necessary to allocate all seats.
(a) If the independent bloc has been allocated as many seats as there are independent candidates who were awarded a direct mandate, do not allocate any more seats to the independent bloc. (It may help to consider the independent bloc’s Q value to be 0 from then on.)
(7) Example: Party A has 25 votes, Party B has 18 votes, Party C has 7 votes, and the independent bloc has 13 votes. (s * 2 + 1) for each party is 1, so the Q value for each party is the same as their number of votes in the first round. Thus, Party A is allocated a seat in the first round. Its new s value is 1, making its new Q value is [25] / ([1] * 2 + 1) = [25] / (2 + 1) = [25] / 3 = 8.33, while all other parties retain the same Q value. In the second round, Party B is allocated a seat, their s value becomes 1, and their Q value becomes 6. In the third round, the independent bloc is allocated a seat, and so on and so forth until all seats are filled.
5 - Seat Assignment
(1) By this point, all seats have been allocated, and all direct mandates have been awarded.
(2) Fill each seat allocated to each party, including the independent bloc, in the following order:
(a) First, party candidates who were awarded a direct mandate are elected to seats in order of first-choice votes received.
(i)The independent bloc will only have direct candidates and should never have more seats than there were successful direct candidates.
(b) After all successful direct candidates have been elected, candidates from each party’s party list are elected in the order they are listed.
(i) Skip any candidates on the party list who were already elected as successful direct candidates.
(3) A party may never have more candidates elected than there were seats allocated to it.
(a) This means that some party candidates who were awarded a direct mandate may not receive a seat.
(4) Any unfilled seats may be filled by the party they were allocated to within 14 days.
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