2017 Green Party of Utah officer election

The Green Party of Utah formed in 2017 and held a small election for Chairs and Treasurers using Score voting on a 0-9 scale.

There were 34 voters, with 2 winners in each race. The winners were calculated using total score (not average), so blank votes counted as 0.

Documents:

• Description of the procedure is on their forum.
• Scans of all completed ballots
• Spreadsheet of all votes

Results

Co-Treasurer

Candidate	Total	Average
Adam Guymon	191	6.0
Jeremy Twitchell	243	7.4
Matt Styles	268	8.1

The winners were Jeremy Twitchell and Matt Styles, and this would have been the same if using average scores.

Co-Chair

Candidate	Total	Average
Adam Davis	226	6.8
Ashlee Phillips	263	7.7
Edward Bodily	241	7.1
Jessica Bronson	240	7.3

The winners were Adam Phillips and Edward Bodily, but Edward beat Jessica Bronson by only 1 point, and Jessica would have won instead, if average scores had been used (since she received one blank vote).

Analysis

Overall score distribution for both races (including blanks, which scored as 0)

Summary of voter behavior:

• There were zero bullet votes and zero min/max (Approval-style) ballots
• 97% of voters scored every candidate
• Only 1 voter gave explicit 0s to any candidate (3%), and was the only voter to explicitly use the entire range of scores.
• 3 voters gave maximum scores to all candidates (9%)
• 71% of ballots gave equal scores to multiple candidates
• Average score was 7, median score 8, for all candidates and voters

They had a positive experience overall, and intend to continue using Score voting:

We fully intend to utilize this system again next year, and would encourage other state parties to consider doing the same. I have heard concerns that it could be "too complicated". I feel that rating something on a scale of 1-10 (or 0-9 in this case) is a pretty basic concept. There was little to no confusion about how to do it. As far as complications tabulating the results... the spreadsheet did all of the dirty work. We just transposed the numbers from the ballot into the spreadsheet, and let the program do the math. We double-checked the results, and had a result very quickly.