[EM] Re: Candidate withdrawal option

[James Green-Armytage]

Russ,
	There are multiple possible answers to your questions. I can suggest a
few solutions below, but they are not necessarily the best, and not
necessarily applicable in all cases.
>
>I don't know the details of CWO, but let me bring up a few potential 
>concerns regarding implementation.

	I don't think that there are too many details to know. The basic idea is
that after the initial tally, a candidate can withdraw and order a
re-tally as if they had not participated. You seem to have this already. A
remaining issue for me is whether a withdrawing candidate should be
required to be a non-winning candidate, but we can talk about that later.
>
>If you're talking about a procedure that could change the result of an 
>election, the procedure needs to be spelled out in precise legalistic 
>terms. Does a candidate need to be physically present at a pre-specified 
>location to officially withdraw? 

	Yes, that might be best. Or perhaps there might be multiple official
locations where one could potentially appear, i.e. various election
commission headquarters, courthouses, legislative chambers. It doesn't
matter where, as long as the list of acceptable places is agreed-on
beforehand, and they are reasonably accessible. (e.g. not in the south
pole or at the bottom of the sea.)

>What if the candidate is ill and can't 
>show up in person? Can he withdraw by phone? If so, how is the 
>candidate's identity verified?

	I think that doing it over the phone is not a good idea. I doubt that
this would be an issue very often, but...
	In another thread, we talked about succession rules for office holders,
and one possibility there was that every candidate should name (publicly
or in a sealed document) an ordered list successors in the event of their
death or incapacitation. If that was the rule in general, it could be used
here.
>
>
>What is the time limit for withdrawal? Is it hours, days, or weeks? And 
>what if the results are very close or the counting process hits a 
>technical snag? Does the candidate get extra time to wait for confirmed 
>counts before he must decide?

	I would say that the time limit should start after the raw count results
have been made official. Then, I'd probably give the candidates a few days
to decide. (In many cases, of course, no non-winning candidate withdrawal
could change the outcome, and in those cases, the tally could probably be
made official right away.)
>
>Is it possible that one candidate might want to withdraw only after 
>another particular candidate withdraws? 

	Yes, it is possible.

>If so, this could get 
>complicated. What if the first candidate tries to withdraw at the last 
>second to deny the second candidate enough time to withdraw? Would the 
>second candidate get some sort of minimum additional time to withdraw?

	I would say yes. Let's say that the candidates have an initial three days
to decide. On the second day, candidate R announces his withdrawal. If
another outcome-changing withdrawal is possible, then there would be
another three days for people to decide... and so on, with each withdrawal
renewing the decision period.

my best,
James