Apportionment Standing Committee 2010 Delegation Apportionment Process Report

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The Apportionment Standing Committee (ASC) took as its basis the Delegate Calculation Spreadsheet developed by the 2007 ASC to apportion the GPUS National Committee, available here:

The 2010 Delegate Calculation Spreadsheet (hereinafter “Spreadsheet”) was copied directly from the 2007 Delegate Calculation Spreadsheet . Having verified that the formulas in the Spreadsheet accurately reflect the apportionment criteria outlined in “Article VI. Allocation Measures” of Proposal 272, the ASC made no changes to cell formulas other than to apply them uniformly throughout.

ASC updated the data in the Spreadsheet to reflect election results from the 2006-2009 four year election cycles as per the requirements of Proposal 272, ratified by Proposal 295 and amended by Proposals 418 and 429. The following updates were applied:

The Mountain Party of West Virginia, which affiliated with GPUS after adoption of the 2007 apportionment, was added to Row 46 of the spreadsheet, and the states following West Virginia in alphabetical collating sequence moved one row down.

The formulas in the column totals at the bottom of the spreadsheet were updated to reflect addition of West Virginia to the spreadsheet.

The contents of Column C were replaced with the numbers from the 2007 apportionment, and the column was relabeled accordingly.

Column D was relabeled to reflect the difference between the 2010 apportionment in Column B and 2007 apportionment in Column C.

The contents of Columns E and F, which previously contained sample data from 2007, were removed and the columns labeled “N/A”.

Column G was relabeled to reflect the pre-2007 apportionment.

Other column titles were updated to reflect the 2006-2009 election cycles

Election data for the 2006-2009 were obtained from the GPUS elections database maintained by the national party and stored as discrete annual worksheets in the Excel workbook containing the Spreadsheet. The annual worksheets were then modified to:

  • segregate statewide candidate votes from local candidate votes and highlight them in yellow;
  • produce candidate vote totals and maximums by state in the rows labeled “Totals” in Colum B;
  • highlight in green those candidates who were elected to office;
  • highlight in orange those candidates with less than 100 votes to estimate those who participated in races with less than 300 total votes.

The totals from the annual worksheets were used to populate the data columns of the Spreadsheet, except that GPUS elections data were replaced with data supplied by state parties whenever not clearly erroneous. The process was as follows:

Columns K and L were populated with Green Party registration and membership numbers, respectively obtained from responses to the apportionment questionnaire to meet the Membership requirement outlined in Article VI. 1 and 4.D. Where state parties did not submit an apportionment questionnaire, registration numbers from the table labeled “2008 OCTOBER REGISTRATION TOTALS” of the December, 2008 edition of Ballot Access News (ed. Richard Winger, http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/120108.html) were used to populate Column K. Absent a questionnaire response, membership numbers were carried forward from 2007 into Column L.

Column M was populated with the highest annual ballot access signature counts from 2006-2009 obtained from state party responses to the apportionment questionnaire to meet the Membership requirement outlined in Article VI. 1 and 4.D.

Columns T and U were populated with numbers of Green officeholders and officeholders elected in races with less than 300 votes to meet the Campaign Strength requirement outlined in Article VI.2.A.

Columns V through AC were populated with numbers of Green candidates and candidates in races with less than 300 votes to meet the Campaign Strength requirement outlined in Article VI.2.B.

Column AE was populated with the latest state population counts available from the U.S. Census Bureau to meet the requirements outlined in VI.2.C, 3.D, and 4.C.

Columns AJ through AQ were populated with votes for local and statewide Green candidates to meet the State Voting Strength requirement outlined in Article VI.3.A.

Columns AR through AU were populated with highest annual votes for Green candidates to meet the State Voting Strength requirement outlined in Article VI.3.B

Columns AW through AZ were populated with highest percentage vote for Green statewide partisan candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, US Senate, or Mayor of DC to meet the State Voting Strength requirement outlined in Article VI.3.C.

Columns BF and BG were populated with statewide presidential vote counts obtained from the FEC to meet the Presidential Voting Strength requirements of Article VI.4.A and B, respectively. Note. Presidential vote counts were not included in statewide vote counts in Columns AN through AQ and were removed from the statewide vote counts supplied by state parties.

No effort was actually required to apportion the delegation, as the spreadsheet automatically apportions the NC using the data provided.

At times the rules did not clearly indicate how to handle certain types of situations. In these cases, ASC interpreted the rules in a manner that most closely reflects their perceived intent, applying precedent where possible. Below are some assumptions that guided the committee’s work.

Votes cast for the Green Party Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates are entirely reflected in columns BF and BG (Article VI.4. Presidential Voting Strength) and not included in columns AJ — AZ (Article VI.3. State Voting Strength).

Presidential Voting Strength is measured by votes cast in the 2004 and 2008 Presidential General Election for the Green Party candidate. Votes cast in presidential primaries or caucuses (state or party run) are not counted.

Votes cast in non-partisan primaries for candidates who were defeated in those primaries were counted, where known. Votes cast in non-partisan primaries for candidates who went on to a general election were not counted, in favor of counting the votes those candidates received in the general election.

Votes cast in partisan primaries were not counted, regardless whether the candidates won the partisan primary or not. Instead the vote received in the general election by the winner of a partisan primary was counted, where known.

In cases where candidates were unopposed in the general election and no vote totals were counted for said election, historical precedent was used to determine whether the election would be counted as one in which “less than 300 votes were cast” or not.

State provided data was assumed to be correct, except for cases in which there was a clear discrepancy in the numbers provided. In those cases, the committee attempted to reconcile the discrepancy by seeking clarification from the state parties or verifying the data through other sources.