Competing Ballot Propositions

I have occasionally written about vote-counting protocols.

Onondaga County is to the west of me. Syracuse, NY, is their major city. Members of the county legislature currently have term limits of 12 years. Twelve years is three terms. They are currently arguing about term limits for the County Executive, of 12 or 16 years. The Democrats support the former, and the Republicans support the latter. The County Executive is currently a Republican.

The County Executive has proposed a curious set of ballot initiatives, leaving it up to the voters. One initiative will set a term limit of twelve years. Another will set a term limit of sixteen years. If neither initiative gets a majority of votes, the County Executive will continue to serve without a term limit. If both pass, the one with more votes will prevail.

I do not know if any precedent exists in New York State for dueling ballot initiatives, and, apparently, some argument exists among the county legislature about this question. I suspect the results of votes on California ballot initiatives have posed some such challenge of interpretation.

How to draw district lines and how to count votes is an interesting mathematical question. This question is often entangled with racism in the United States, both in ensuring white supremacy and in fighting it.