[EM] Remember Toby

[Juho Laatu]

On 9.6.2011, at 4.51, Dave Ketchum wrote:

> On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote:
>> On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote:

>>> 2. Voters submit approval ballots, with up to two write-ins. "Do not delegate" is a valid write-in.
>> 
>> Your definition seems to define also the used ballot format. That's ok although often the formal descriptions of methods don't cover this. Note that most countries of the world don't use the write-in option. Is this a recommendation that if they start using SODA they should support write-ins in general or that they should have a write-in slot to support the "do not delegate" feature?
>> 
> Nothing said here of ballot format except for being Approval and capable of two write-ins.  "Do not delegate" is a command entered as if a write-in.

I was thinking about the write-ins. They were actually mentioned already in the previous bullet, but this bullet said that there should be two such slots. I guessed that if there are such write-in slots, maybe there is also an assumption that regular candidate names are listed next to the write-ins. I could at least guess what kind of ballot was intended.

Alternatives to what I described above could include ballots and elections that do not recognize write-ins (I guess write-ins are not an essential part of the SODA method anyway). One could also e.g. vote based on candidate numbers and white ballots to write those numbers in. I thus considered the ballot format that I imagined based on the description to be maybe one good approach but not the only possible or mandatory format for SODA.

Juho