Statement IN FAVOR by Carl R
Comrades, I urge you to vote FOR this amendment. While I remain principally a supporter of the approval method for chapter elections, I believe this amendment assuages some of my personal holdups about STV. Firstly, it makes it much easier for people to vote: above the line allows comrades to rank slates, instead of having to handle the shockingly unwieldy process of ranking many candidates. Secondly, it also removes the gamification element of STV elections wherein first round votes count much higher than all other votes. It’s quite clear the chapter supports STV for national convention delegate elections, so we might as well do a version that is accessible to all members and also promotes the whole reasoning behind STV, namely its proportionality.
Statement IN FAVOR by Ben D
Please vote YES on Amendment 2 to the amendment to the chapter standing election rules. This is a cross-tendency amendment with buy-in from across the chapter’s political spectrum, which will help our democracy. STV elections were not designed for 51 winners or 80 candidates. Many members complained about the size of the ballot and the time commitment required to fill it out in our delegate elections. This resulted in a large number of exhausted ballots, meaning some members’ votes didn’t count as much as others, which also distorted the proportionality of the election. It also almost certainly artificially lowered turnout. This provides a simple fix that other countries using STV for larger elections have used for years. It allows members to place politics ahead of personalities, giving members more input into the actual substance of convention by allowing them to endorse a specific platform and know how their representatives will be voting at the convention. It also highly encourages different political tendencies to work collaboratively and campaign positively, by ranking each other on each other’s lists, while the current system encourages slates to emphasize their distinctiveness at the exclusion of others. This sort of slate proportional system is how most socialist parties around the world work, and the standard system that socialist parties have pushed for to be adopted across our society.
Statement IN FAVOR by Julian A
I am proud to be an author of this amendment. Having heard some of the arguments against STV, I sympathize, in the sense that it can be cumbersome to produce a ranking of dozens of candidates, particularly for members less involved with the chapter. However, it is important to preserve STV election tallying in order to produce proportional election outcomes (seen in our recent delegate elections, where each slate won delegates close to exactly the percent of first place votes they received). Introducing above-the-line voting as an option allows for the best of both worlds, which is why it has been authored from members who ran on all 3 slates in this year’s elections. Voters who want to cast a detailed STV ranking may still do so. However, voters who know that they just want to mark the candidates being recommended by a given slate could do so with a single vote. So comrades, I ask you to vote YES on this amendment and allow for us to have proportional representation with easy-to-cast ballots.
Statement IN FAVOR by Claudia S
Comrades, I urge you to vote YES on Amendment GR07-A02. What GR07-A01 claims to do, this Amendment actually does without nullifying its purpose: it simplifies the process of ranking a lengthy number of candidates using the tested, democratic STV.
It also allows for flexibility: chapter members who wish to apply their own preferred rankings (as we all did in 2025 national convention delegate elections) are free to do so, and members who prefer a simpler, cleaner ranking system are able to do so as well, by applying slates’ predetermined ranking suggestions. Members can easily indicate their preference with “below the line” in the former case and “above the line” in the latter case.
This amendment adds to the (very important) base resolution an element of simplicity that I imagine many of our members will value. It does not, however, water down the efficacy of a truly proportionate method of voting—STV.
Statement IN FAVOR by Sam D
I support this idea because it offers a remedy to some of the concerns raised about ranked-choice Single Transferable Voting (STV), that the ballots are confusing to rank with the number of candidates and delegate slots. While I think we should aim to have a membership informed enough on chapter issues to handle complicated ballots, and should expect active members to see doing so as part of their responsibility to the chapter, we will also always have new members who are getting used to chapter democracy. The “above the line” method is easy to implement through OpaVote (they have a provided guide) and will allow members to choose to follow the approved ranking of a slate they trust or to individually rank all the candidates they want. I suspect most of our active members will do the latter, but making it possible for newer members to still make informed decisions on their ballot (by slate, rather than candidate) will strengthen our democracy.
Statement IN FAVOR by Ken B
Comrades, I’m writing today to encourage you to vote YES on Amendment 2 to Resolution 2025-06-GR07: For Ranked Choice Voting in MDC “Standing Rules for Internal Elections.” During our most recent delegate election, many voters found it arduous to rank over 70 candidates, which is one of many issues with the Single Transferrable Vote method that we used this cycle. Another issue is that STV favors candidates with a small network of personal relationships over ones with a broader but more diffuse base, which encourages divisiveness and polarization. STV also pitches each candidate directly against each other since candidates are incentivized to prioritize their personal #1 ranks over votes for others on their slate.
This amendment would mitigate these issues, if not eliminate them entirely. Adding an “Above the line” voting option will allow voters to select a predetermined list that has been submitted by a slate, candidate, or group of candidates ahead of time, simply by checking a box, while preserving the ability of voters who wish to rank each candidate on their own to do so. This will be mathematically similar to a List PR system, which is not supported by OpaVote. It would also take pressure off candidates to compete directly against their slate mates and make it easier to whip for a whole slate, and would reduce polarization by giving slates an incentive to include each other on their ranking order. Most importantly, it would shift the focus of debate from the individual candidates to the slates and their political platforms.
I think this final point is the critical one, and would vastly improve the quality of political discourse during our elections. Instead of candidates trying to sell themselves to ensure they get the most #1 ranks, they can sell their slate and its platform to make sure it gets the most votes overall. Rather than focusing on personal preferences or gripes, voters will vote based on their preferences for the different ideological visions being put forth.
It’s also important to note that this amendment is sponsored by members of all three slates that ran in the last delegate election, and represents a compromise between factions which have been divided on the issue of voting method in the past. This amendment will heal divisions in our chapter and let us move forward in shared struggle while focusing our debates on our genuine political disagreements rather than bureaucratic technicalities. I hope you will all join me in voting in favor.
Statement IN FAVOR by Bakari W
This amendment is supported across multiple tendencies in the chapter that often disagree, and allows for a sort of “party list” style of voting where in addition to ranking all candidates one-by-one, voters also get the option to vote for a specific slate’s submitted list of candidates. This does not impede a voters ability to rank the candidates of their choice in a particular order (I suspect I will choose that option most of the time) but it’s a good option to have available to members. So I encourage you to vote YES on this amendment!
Statement IN FAVOR by Eduarda S
I support this amendment and encourage others to vote YES as well! The main goal here is to make the ballot more user-friendly for voters. While STV has been a big step forward in improving our delegate elections, it’s also created a new challenge by asking members to sort through a list of 70+ candidates and rank them individually. We should do everything we can to reduce the burden of voting in our elections to make them accessible for all.
Above The Line voting would make it easier for people to support the slates that reflect their politics and priorities for convention, without having to rank every candidate manually. It’s a simple, practical reform that lowers the barrier to participation while keeping our elections