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Comment by googthrowaway42 | Hacker News Reader

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googthrowaway42·

Can you put the same person for all of your choices?

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I guess. There would be no benefit to doing so though.

Writing the same candidate for all choices is the same as only filling in the first choice and leaving the rest blank.

If it's anything like the Australian approach, you indicate preferences by numbering boxes[0][1]. The ordering of names on the ballot is determined by drawing names at random.

[0] https://peo.gov.au/assets/images/image-library/have-your-say...

[1] https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e5ace64c596cd5aa508068ac...

No you can't, your ballot will be invalid.

The ballot shown in the article explicitly says "Fill in no more than one oval for each candidate".

This is false for Maine. It is a valid way to vote for a single candidate and not rank the rest. The ballot advises you not to do this, but it doesn't explicitly invalidate your ballot. See slide #6:

https://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/upcoming/pdf/RCVMarkedBal...

You can vote for a single candidate across all your choices/rounds (across a single row), but voting for multiple candidates in the same choice will invalidate your ballot (down a single column). Multiples down a column would be like filling in all the circles for all candidates on a normal ballot, or even not filling any in. Same difference.

I stand corrected. The ballot says "do not fill more than one oval for each candidate", but apparently doing so does not invalidate the vote.

Unlikely. You usually rank by putting numbers in boxes against a printed list on the ballot.

> Can you put the same person for all of your choices?

No. That would invalidate your ballot. Unless you mean the degenerate case, where you only vote for one person.

The Maine ballot specifically instructs you not to do that

The Maine ballot allows for it, though.

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