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PLEASE DO NOT CONFUSE STRAIGHT PARTY WITH PARTY PREFERENCE RACES.
Sorry to yell but this is big. Straight party should better be known as candidate endorsement. It works by having a race of endorsers (call them straight parties, slates, or whatever) that applies to a set of one or more races. Endorsed candidates within the applicable races can automatically receive votes when their endorser is voted subject to the type of straight party voting selected. Preference races are a totally different concept. Partisan races are used only in primary elections and are to be voted only by members of that party. In the case of an open primary, races of different parties cannot be voted on the same ballot (this is by definition). If the ballot does have cross-over votes, then it is either rejected (if so selected by the reject parameters) or else none of the partisan races are counted. Non-partisan races are not affected. If you use a party preference race and a party is selected in it (both are optional), partisan races of other parties are totally ignored even if they have been voted. There can be only one party preference race on a ballot. The endorsement races can be used in conjunction with partisan races to do what is commonly known as slate voting. In this case you would normally use a separate endorsement race for each primary party that has races on the ballot. You can also have other endorsement races for the non-partisan races. End of lecture. Questions? Guy Nel Finberg wrote: John, implement this as an open primary with a preference race. The preference race will contain all of the political parties represented in the election and will appear at the top of the ballot. The voter selects the desired party in the preference race, then continues with candidate selections. The AccuVote ignores any candidate selections in races not endorsed by the party selected in the preference race, so that only selections in races endorsed by the party selected in the preference race are counted as well as any non-partisan race selections. Nel |