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Exhausted ballot: Difference between revisions
I'm going to start a "Truncated ballot" article, since that term is frequently referred to here on electowiki and on English Wikipedia. I've also shuffled some of the prose a bit.
(Some editing of the prose to make the merged text sorta make sense. There's more work to be done here.) |
(I'm going to start a "Truncated ballot" article, since that term is frequently referred to here on electowiki and on English Wikipedia. I've also shuffled some of the prose a bit.) |
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An '''exhausted ballot''' can occur when a voter overvotes, undervotes, or voter ranks only candidates that are eliminated from race. Because these votes are not tabulated in the final round, that ballot does not influence the election after it becomes exhausted. The term "ballot exhaustion" refers to processing a ranked choice voting contest on a cast ballot, when that ballot becomes inactive and cannot be advanced in the tabulation for a contest because there are no further valid rankings on the ballot for continuing contest options.▼
An '''exhausted ballot''' is a ballot with rankings that are not considered in rounds of an election using some variation of IRV / RCV (single winner) and [[Single Transferable Vote|Single Transferable Vote (STV)]] due to elimination in prior rounds. The ballot rankings get eliminated because ''all'' candidates who appear in the particular ballot/ranking were eliminated from the election's prior rounds of tallying. The practice of eliminating ballots from consideration is sometimes referred to as '''ballot exhaustion'''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ballot exhaustion |url=https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_exhaustion |access-date=2023-02-27 |website=Ballotpedia |language=en}}</ref> Single-winner STV is
▲An
==Terminology==
Single-winner STV is sometimes referred to as "instant-runoff voting" because of the way the ballot count simulates a series of runoffs, similar to an [[exhaustive ballot]] system, except that voter preferences do not change between rounds.<ref>[[User:RobLa]] quoted oldid 1141090457 of [[w:Instant-runoff voting|]]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Instant-runoff_voting&oldid=1141090457</ref><ref name="publications.parliament.uk">{{cite web |date=15 February 2001 |title=Second Report: Election of a Speaker |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmselect/cmproced/40/4005.htm |access-date=18 February 2008 |publisher=House of Commons Select Committee on Procedure}}<!--This ref describes similarities/differences between IRV and exhaustive ballot.--></ref> It is also known as the alternative vote, transferable vote, ranked-choice voting (RCV), single-seat ranked-choice voting, or preferential vote.
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For example, it's possible for 10% of rankings are exhausted in the first round of a tally, but the winner to only beat the loser by only 5% of the remaining votes If voters who had their ballots/rankings exhaust in this example election were permitted to choose again (e.g. in a top-two runoff election) a different winner might emerge with a clear majority of votes cast in the runoff. Advocates of RCV argue that voters should provide as complete of a ranking as possible to avoid this uncomfortable situation.
=== Undervoting and truncated ballots ===
=== Spoiled ballots and spoiled choices ===
{{Main|Spoiled ballot}}
Because the ballot marking is more complex, there can be an increase in [[Spoiled ballot|spoiled ballots]]. According to [[FairVote]], an "inactive" or "exhausted" ballot counts for candidates in the first round but not in the final round.<ref>https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting-information/#_13-what-are-inactive-or-exhausted-ballots</ref> Ballots can become inactive for the following reasons:
* Election administrators limit voters to a certain number of rankings, such as three, and all of their ranked candidates are eliminated during the round-by-round count. This is known as '''"'''involuntary exhaustion".
* A partially-spoiled ballot may be the result of an "overvote". This ballot is disqualified due to
In some jurisdictions, election officials ignore overvotes and undervotes in the first round of tabulation, skipping to the voter's second preference during the tabulation process. Overvotes and undervotes in the second and subsequent rounds of tabulation may also be ignored rather than treating them as [[Spoiled ballot|spoiled ballots]] and discarding them entirely.
▲** Undervote: The voter doesn’t rank all candidates, and all of their ranked candidates are eliminated during the round-by-round count. Also known as "voluntary abstention", this is the most common source of inactive votes.
▲In some jurisdictions, election officials ignore overvotes and undervotes in the first round of tabulation, skipping to the voter's second preference during the tabulation process. Overvotes and undervotes in the second and subsequent rounds of tabulation may also be ignored rather than treating them as [[Spoiled ballot|spoiled ballots]] and discarding them entirely. In cases where a voter has ranked only candidates that did not make it to the final round of counting, it is only then that the voter's ballot is said to have been exhausted.
==== Other terminology ====
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On balance, we believe RCV is much, much, more inclusive of voter preferences than it is exclusive.
=See also=
* [[Spoiled_ballot | Spoiled ballot]]
=Links=
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