All of which suggests an even more important and pressing question:  What
happens if NOTA does, in fact, succeed in garnering more votes than one of
the candidates?  

A quick survey of laws around the globe that formally adopt NOTA suggests
that the most common option is the one we have already rejected -- viz, that
the vote for NOTA is an expression of displeasure and the next most popular
candidate gets the slot.  [Interestingly, in doing this research I learned
that NOTA actually defeated 6 gubernatorial candidates in Nevada in the 2014
Democratic primary -- it was the largest votegetter in a field of 6 with
roughly 30%.  The nomination went to the highest non-NOTA vote getter].  

As I said, however, we've rejected that choice.  What then?  Some of the
posts to the list seem to implicitly assume that such a result would mean
that the election would be re-run with a new nomination process.  But what I
learned in my quick survey is that the re-run option is far from mandatory
and it is not even the plurality rule for NOTA (at least as far as I can
find with a small bit of research).  

In Spain, for example, at the local level NOTA's victory means that the seat
remains vacant for the term of the election -- apparently this was used by
some voters to reduce the number of politicians (a goal many of us will, I'm
sure sympathize with [joke]).  We could adopt that rule and thus leave the
Councilor (or Chair) seat vacant).

In some elections in Britain, the victory of NOTA means that the position is
filled by appointment, not by a new election.  Under this model someone (the
Chair?  The EC?) would appoint someone to serve in the position.

In other British elections there is actual a formal possibility known as
"RON" -- Reopen Nomination, which is an explicit call to re-run the entire
process.  We have not adopted that explicitly, but we might say that NOTA's
victory has a RON effect.

In any event the consequences of a NOTA victory are not at all clear -- and
they are certainly not specified in the Charter.  This election has already
been something of a shambles.  If NOTA were to win, without any clear
understanding of what it meant, that would make the election even more
chaotic.  
And it seems to me that at this juncture we cannot, reasonably, expect
anyone to choose among these options in a neutral way -- since the choice of
consequence will be outcome determinative in a situation where we know what
the contest is about.  I suspect, though, that the EC needs to try -- they
need to tell us BEFORE the vote closes so that one can alter ones vote based
on the rule adopted -- what they intend to do if NOTA wins.

All of which is, in and of itself, is another reason to be dubious about
NOTA.   

Paul

Paul Rosenzweig
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-----Original Message-----
From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dan
Krimm
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 9:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Voting rules & NotA significance

All granted, Milton.  Yet the EC decision has been made for this particular
election, yes?  I'd absolutely concur that there is a
(nonzero) chance that NotA could matter this time, but I am happy to offer
that it would not be because of my vote, personally.  I also don't know how
big that chance is, I hope it is not particularly likely.  
There may still be a pretty good chance that it might not matter!

All that does not invalidate the need to correct it for any future elections
(if it does not turn out to matter this election, then we will have dodged a
bullet and it guarantees nothing in the future), and so why not do it now
while the issue is salient before us.

I fully support for making such a correction for future elections, as soon
as it can be done.  (And for some reason you included my name twice, so if
that means I have two votes, you can count them both in support... ;-) )

Dan



On 8/25/16 6:01 PM, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
> Dan, Neal, Enrique, Dan:
>
> Seems there is an emerging agreement that to do NoTA properly the ballot
should have been redesigned. I just want you to know (see the minutes) that
that is exactly what the backers of the appeal argued for strenuously, but
for some reason Tapani would not accept it and since we were operating on a
full consensus basis the appellants had to accept the current, flawed NoTA
voting rules as part of the compromise.
>
> To that I have to add that those who contend this all doesn't matter
because "we have 4 sterling candidates" who are all going to be elected
anyway - that to me is bollocks. We insisted on a NOTA option because we
didn't want anyone to win simply because they were the only ones on the
ballot. We wanted to empower voters to express their lack of support in a
consequential way.
>
> Further, when NOTA votes are summed and count against all 3 Council
candidates there is actually a chance that NOTA will matter in this
election.
>
> Milton L Mueller
> Professor, School of Public Policy
> Georgia Institute of Technology
>
>> On Aug 25, 2016, at 14:16, Dan Krimm <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Have not weighed-in here except signing on to the appeal (and now I have
cast my ballot).
>>
>> Let me just say this:
>>
>> (1) EC made its decision: we will continue the current election under the
process given by the EC announcement: NotA is counted as a "candidate" and
can beat out other candidates to prevent them from winning.
>>
>> (2) The logic of NotA in a multi-seat race is clearly potentially 
>> problematic in principle.  However my guess is that this will not in 
>> fact come into play this election.  (NotA typically does not receive 
>> a lot of votes in our past experience, and it is not likely that any 
>> of the three candidates will be prevented from taking office by NotA 
>> this time around.)
>>
>> (3) I would support formal procedures to correct the logic problems with
NotA moving forward, and I hope we can get this fixed very quickly so it
doesn't get forgotten.  Having NotA for each candidate in multi-seat races
makes good sense to me, though a few other options could work as well.  But
my instinct is to go for the most minimal change in procedure compared to
status quo that is sufficient to make the logic work without unintended
outcomes.  NotA for each candidate in multi-seat races seems the most
similar option, to me.
>>
>> Do we need to discuss much more here?  Let's try to simplify.  :-)
>>
>> Dan