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Electoral Reform In Virginia
Electoral reform in Virginia refers to efforts to change the electoral system in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia has undergone much electoral change since its settling in 1607, many of which were required by federal legislation. However, it remains a relatively conservative state in this respect compared to California and others which have experimented with various alternative systems. Direct election of U.S. Senators Originally, U.S. Senators were chosen by the Virginia General Assembly. On February 19, 1914, legislation was introduced in the Virginia House of Delegates calling for the direct election of United States senators by the voters of Virginia. This followed enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on April 8, 1913. Virginia had not voted to ratify the amendment. Ballot access There have been many changes designed to make the electoral system more favorable to third parties. These included allowing write-in ballots in U.S. president ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electoral Reform
Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of: * Voting systems, such as proportional representation, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant-runoff voting (alternative voting, ranked-choice voting, or preferential voting), Instant Round Robin Voting called Condorcet Voting, range voting, approval voting, citizen initiatives and referendums and recall elections. * Vote-counting procedures * Rules about political parties, typically changes to election laws * Eligibility to vote * How candidates and political parties are able to stand (nomination rules) and how they are able to get their names onto ballots (ballot access) * Electoral constituencies and election district borders * Ballot design and voting equipment * Scrutineering (election monitoring by candidates, political parties, etc.) * Safety of voters and election workers * Measures against bribery, coercion, and conflicts of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
MD, NJ, IL, HI, WA, MA, DC, VT, CA, RI, NY, CT, CO, DE, NM, OR MI, PA, TX The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is a proposed interstate compact among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome. , it has been adopted by states and the District of Columbia. These states have electoral votes, which is of the Electoral College and of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force. Certain legal questions may affect implementation of the compact. Some legal observers believe that the compact will require explicit congressional consent under the Compact Clause of Article I, Section X of the U.S. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DRE Voting Machine
A DRE voting machine, or direct-recording electronic voting machine, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter. These are typically buttons or a touchscreen; and they process data using a computer program to record voting data and ballot images in memory components. After the election, it produces a tabulation of the voting data stored in a removable memory component and as printed copy. The system may also provide a means for transmitting individual ballots or vote totals to a central location for consolidating and reporting results from precincts at the central location. The device started to be massively used in 1996 in Brazil where 100% of the elections voting system is carried out using machines. In 2004, 28.9% of the registered voters in the United States used some type of direct recording electronic voting system, up from 7.7% in 1996. History The idea of voting by push button wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marksense
An optical reader is a device found within most computer scanners that captures visual information and translates the image into digital information the computer is capable of understanding and displaying. An example of optical readers are marksense systems for elections where voters mark their choice by filling a rectangle, circle, or oval, or by completing an arrow. After the voting a tabulating device reads the votes using "dark mark logic", whereby the computer selects the darkest mark within a given set as the intended choice or vote. See also *Digital paper *Optical character recognition * Optical scan voting system *Optical mark recognition Optical mark recognition (also called optical mark reading and OMR) is the process of reading information that people mark on surveys, tests and other paper documents. OMR is used to read questionnaires, multiple choice examination papers in the ... References {{Optics-stub Optical devices ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voting Equipment
A voting machine is a machine used to record votes in an election without paper. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use ''electronic voting machines''. Traditionally, a voting machine has been defined by its mechanism, and whether the system tallies votes at each voting location, or centrally. Voting machines should not be confused with tabulating machines, which count votes done by paper ballot. Voting machines differ in usability, security, cost, speed, accuracy, and ability of the public to oversee elections. Machines may be more or less accessible to voters with different disabilities. Tallies are simplest in parliamentary systems where just one choice is on the ballot, and these are often tallied manually. In other political systems where many choices are on the same ballot, tallies are often done by machines to give faster results. Historical machines In ancient Athens (5th and 4th centuries BCE) voting was done by different ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Recording Electronic
A DRE voting machine, or direct-recording electronic voting machine, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter. These are typically buttons or a touchscreen; and they process data using a computer program to record voting data and ballot images in memory components. After the election, it produces a tabulation of the voting data stored in a removable memory component and as printed copy. The system may also provide a means for transmitting individual ballots or vote totals to a central location for consolidating and reporting results from precincts at the central location. The device started to be massively used in 1996 in Brazil where 100% of the elections voting system is carried out using machines. In 2004, 28.9% of the registered voters in the United States used some type of direct recording electronic voting system, up from 7.7% in 1996. History The idea of voting by push button w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Voting Machine
An electronic voting machine is a voting machine based on electronics. Two main technologies exist: '' optical scanning'' and '' direct recording'' (DRE). Optical scanning In an optical scan voting system, or marksense, each voter's choices are marked on one or more pieces of paper, which then go through a scanner. The scanner creates an electronic image of each ballot, interprets it, creates a tally for each candidate, and usually stores the image for later review. The voter may mark the paper directly, usually in a specific location for each candidate. Or the voter may select choices on an electronic screen, which then prints the chosen names, and a bar code or QR code summarizing all choices, on a sheet of paper to put in the scanner. Hundreds of errors in optical scan systems have been found, from feeding ballots upside down, multiple ballots pulled through at once in central counts, paper jams, broken, blocked or overheated sensors which misinterpret some or many ball ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voter Verified Paper Ballot
Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results. It contains the name of the candidate (for whom vote has been cast) and symbol of the party/individual candidate. While it has gained in use in the United States compared with ballotless voting systems without it, it looks unlikely to overtake hand-marked ballots. The VVPAT offers some fundamental differences as a paper, rather than electronic recording medium when storing votes. A paper VVPAT is readable by the human eye and voters can directly interpret their vote. Computer memory requires a device and software which potentially is proprietary. Insecure voting machine reco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
School Board
A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional area, such as a city, county, state, or province. Frequently, a board of directors power with a larger institution, such as a higher government's department of education. The name of such board is also often used to refer to the school system under such board's control. The government department that administered education in the United Kingdom before the foundation of the Ministry of Education was formerly called the Board of Education A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are .... See also * National Association of State Boards of Ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single Transferable Vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in the district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another. Under STV, no one party or voting bloc can take all the seats in a district unless the number of seats in the district is very small or almost all the votes cast are cast for one party's candidates (which is seldom the case). This makes it different from other district voting systems. In majoritarian/plurality systems such as first-past-the-post (FPTP), instant-runoff voting (IRV; also known as the alternative vote), block voting, and ranked-vote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plurality Voting System
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which a candidate, or candidates, who poll more than any other counterpart (that is, receive a plurality), are elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects just one member per district and may also be referred to as first-past-the-post (FPTP), single-member plurality (SMP/SMDP), single-choice voting (an imprecise term as non-plurality voting systems may also use a single choice), simple plurality or relative majority (as opposed to an ''absolute majorit''y, where more than half of votes is needed, this is called ''majority voting''). A system which elects multiple winners elected at once with the plurality rule, such as one based on multi-seat districts, is referred to as plurality block voting. Plurality voting is distinguished from ''majority voting'', in which a winning candidate must receive an absolute majority of votes: more than half of all votes (more than all other candidates combined if each voter ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approval Voting
Approval voting is an electoral system in which voters can select many candidates instead of selecting only one candidate. Description Approval voting ballots show a list of the options of candidates running. Approval voting lets each voter indicate support for one or more candidates. Final tallies show how many votes each candidate received, and the winner is the candidate with the most support. Effect on elections Approval voting advocates Steven Brams and Dudley R. Herschbach predict that approval voting should increase voter participation, prevent minor-party candidates from being spoilers, and reduce negative campaigning. FairVote published a position paper arguing that approval voting has three flaws that undercut it as a method of voting and political vehicle (the group instead advocates for Instant-runoff voting). They argue that it can result in the defeat of a candidate who would win an absolute majority in a plurality election, can allow a candidate to win who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
