View source for Proposed Statutory Rules for DMC

== Article 1 ==

Each ballot shall list all qualified candidates for the office, and the voter shall be allowed to write in any reasonable number of other candidates.  On the ballot, the voter shall be allowed to rank candidates in order of preference, with the ability to express separate rank for each qualified and write-in candidate.  Ranking one candidate higher than another shall be considered equivalent to a vote cast for the higher-ranked candidate against the other in the ''pairwise'', or one-on-one, contest between those two candidates.  A voter also may give the same rank to more than one candidate, or leave some candidates unranked.  When a voter ranks two or more candidates equally, the voter shall be assumed to be casting no vote in the pairwise contest between any two of those candidates.  When a voter does not rank all candidates, it shall be assumed that this voter is casting a vote for each ranked candidate against each unranked candidate in their respective pairwise contests, and that this voter is casting no vote in any pairwise contest between any two unranked candidates.

== Article 2 ==

The ballot shall allow a voter to specify a ''Disapproved'' rank, either by ranking candidates above a predetermined rank or as a separate option on the ballot, in order to indicate that all candidates above Disapproved are to be considered approved, and all candidates at or below Disapproved are to be considered disapproved.  A voter shall be allowed to rank as many qualified or write-in candidates as desired above or below Disapproved, and if that voter ranks no candidates at or below Disapproved, all the voter's ranked candidates shall be considered approved. Ranking a candidate higher than Disapproved shall be considered equivalent to casting an ''approval'' vote for the candidate.  The ''approval rating'' of a candidate is the total number of valid ballots on which that candidate is ranked above Disapproved.

== Article 3 ==
# A ''majority winner'' is a candidate such that on a majority of the valid ballots this candidate is ranked above every other candidate other   than Disapproved.  If there is a majority winner, then that candidate wins   the election.
# Suppose that there is no majority winner.  Then a candidate X is called ''undefeated'' when for every other candidate Y other than Disapproved, X defeats Y in their pairwise contest.  If there is an undefeated candidate, then that candidate wins the election.  The majority winner, if it exists, will always be undefeated.
# Suppose there is no majority winner and no undefeated candidate.  A   candidate is ''definitively defeated'' if that candidate suffers a   pairwise defeat from any other higher-approved candidate.  When no undefeated candidate exists, the least-approved candidate must therefore be   definitively defeated.  The ''Definitive Majority Choice winner'' is that candidate who, after elimination of zero or more least-approved candidates, is undefeated against all remaining candidates.  While there is no Definitive Majority Choice winner, the least-approved remaining candidate is eliminated from the race.  As soon as a Definitive Majority Choice winner is created, that candidate wins the election.  The majority winner or the undefeated candidate, if either exists, will also always be the Definitive Majority Choice winner.

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