[EL] Overseas SC voters who cast ballots for Perry or Huntsman....

[Rob Richie]

... must be feeling rather disappointed right now, given that both
candidates have now dropped out. Overseas voters from SC are not alone: a
number of states with primaries in the next few weeks have already printed
and mailed their ballots to overseas voters with these candidates' names,
including some with with other candidates who have dropped out like Cain
and Bachmann.

Ironically, South Carolina already has developed and used a mechanism for
its overseas voters in runoff elections that would have avoided this
problem. In federal and state elections in South Carolina that use runoffs
to uphold majority rule, overseas voters receive a ranked choice ballot
along with their regular ballot. They rank candidates on the ranked choice
ballot, and return that ballot in an envelope with their regular ballot. If
there are any runoffs, the ranked choice ballots are counted toward
whichever runoff candidate is ranked higher on that ballot. SC election
officials (along with officials in other states doing this, including
Arkansas and Louisiana) are pleased with how it's worked in practice.

Such a system would make a lot of sense in volatile presidential nomination
contests where candidates drop out as the contest unfolds. FairVote
suggests a policy that would rely on a similar procedure -- although in
this case just return a single ranked choice ballot. There's no runoff, of
course, but a ranked choice ballot would count for the next active
candidate if the first choice candidate had formally withdrawn from the
contest.

You can see our detailed legal analysis linked from this blogpost here:
http://www.fairvote.org/ranked-choice-absentee-ballots-preventing-the-disenfranchisement-of-military-and-overseas-voters

Other resources are here: Includeeveryvoter.org

As a coda to this point, a lot of SC voters would like to have a ranked
choice ballot right now. Indeed, Newt Gingrich said this week that "a vote
for Santorum is a vote for Romney." That can be true in our perverse
plurality system, but would not be a factor for voters if SC and other
states used instant runoff voting (instantrunoff.com) in such contests. And
it's not just an anti-Romney argument: given how polls are showing Romney
is gaining strength as a second choice preference of candidates, he might
like the system too as helping indicate that he actually could be winning
these contests with majority support over his top opponent.

- Rob

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"

Rob Richie
Executive Director

FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org  <http://www.fairvote.org> rr at fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616

Please support FairVote through action and tax-deductible donations -- see
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