Section 6. The Single Transferable Vote (Meek-Droop) Voting System for the Chamber of Deputies




PART ONE. GENERAL PROVISIONS FOR CHAMBER ELECTIONS



1. Citizens of the Talossan Republic may stand for the Chamber of Deputies

either as individuals or as part of a list.



2.Any individual citizen of the Talossan Republic who wishes to stand for

the Chamber of Deputies shall supply a statement, no longer than fifty words,

of the candidate's aims and objectives to the Secretary of State no more than

seven days after the dissolution of the Chamber.




3. Any party which wishes to stand a list of candidates for elections to

the Chamber of Deputies shall present to the Secretary of State:



a. a list of candidates, as well as



b. a statement, no longer than fifty words, of the party's aims and

objectives



to the Secretary of State no more than seven days after the dissolution of

the Chamber.




4. The Secretary of State may, if in the circumstances it seems expedient

to the creation of fairer elections, extend the deadline for nomination.



5. Upon the receipt of the nomination, if the candidate (or all the

candidates on a list) is qualified to sit in the Chamber, and the candidate or

list's statement is in order, the Secretary of State shall confirm to the

candidate or list that their nomination has been accepted. Otherwise, the

Secretary may ask the candidate or list to alter their statement, or a list to

revise its candidates.




6. Upon the close of nominations, the Secretary shall publish the name of

every candidate who has been nominated, individually or on a list, along with

their list affiliation (if any) and all the fifty-word statements of lists or

individual candidates.



PART TWO. COUNTING VOTES FOR THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES



1.The ballot papers for an election for seats in the Chamber of Deputies

shall be prepared as follows:




a) the names of all the candidates shall be placed in random order

according to surname, and followed by their list affiliation, if any.

Candidates without a list affiliation shall be listed as “Independent”.



b) each ballot paper shall have an "abstain" option listed last on the

ballot paper after the names of all the candidates; and



c) the ballot paper shall enable the voter to EITHER:

i) indicate the "abstain" option, OR:


ii) indicate a FIRST preference for one and only one candidate, AND to indicate second, third and subsequent preferences for all or some of the remaining candidates, if they so desire.



2. A ballot which contains no clear FIRST preference will be invalid entirely. Any preferences expressed after the "abstain" option has been marked shall be invalid. If a preference number is repeated, or skipped out, then all preferences including and after the repeated or skipped out number shall be invalid. A ballot which contains both valid and invalid preferences shall be counted as if it only contained the valid preferences.



3. If more than half of the ballots indicate the "abstain" option, then the

election shall be void and the Secretary shall restart the election by calling

for fresh nominations.



4. If the election is not void, then the successful candidates shall be

determined by the Meek method of single transferable vote, using a dynamic


fractional Droop quota. Unless otherwise agreed by the Secretary of State and the Minister

of Technology, the Secretary of State will count the votes using the

programme “OpenSTV”, available from stv.sourceforge.net.



5. The Government shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that

a) the Secretary of State is trained and competent in the use of the election software before the election process commences;

b) the Secretary of State is able to prepare and publish a ballot paper as described in section 1 above.





PART THREE: METHOD OF FILLING VACANCIES IN THE CHAMBER




Where a seat becomes vacant, a by-election for that seat shall be held, using

the same rules for election as those for Senators and President of the

Republic, as set out in Section 7 of this Act. Upon the close of the by-

election, the Secretary of State shall inform the Túischac’h in writing of the

successful candidate. If the by-election is void, then the seat shall remain

empty until the next general election of the Chamber.