This is a brief summary of the new rules for Presidential Elections outlined in the proposed Article II, 2016 version.
The word "state" in this document refers to the states and the District of Columbia.
First Round Ballot access:
States will include on the ballot the candidates chosen by the five largest parties in the state, and the other candidates having the most petition signatures in that state.
The default limit is 25, but states may limit the number of first round candidates to as few as 10.
Ballot access fees are prohibited.
First Round Election:
Held in every state on the same day in early June.
Absentee ballots shall be made available.
Each voter may vote for up to two candidates.
Each state will report the vote count of its top 4 candidates to the Congress.
Second Round Ballot Access:
The Congress tallies the popular vote, the top 4 vote getters in the First Round tally will advance to the Second Round election.
Any candidate for Vice President must be officially selected as a running mate by one of the four Presidential candidates.
Second Round Election:
The second round Presidential Election Day will take place in the fall, and will be a national holiday.
Voters must vote in person, with identification if required by the state. Absentee ballots are prohibited. The Federal government shall provide registration and polling for citizens serving the United States abroad.
All ballots will include the same 4 tickets of candidates for President and Vice President, and one write-in line for President.
Voters may vote for 0, 1, or 2 tickets.
States report 2nd round popular vote totals to the Congress.
Bonus votes:
To create a more fair balance of influence of individuals versus states, a formula to determine the number of bonus votes for each state will make the bonus votes around 6% of the total votes in an average election, possibly lower with greater voter turnout, and possibly over 20% with very low turnout. The old state bonus was 19% of electoral votes, and made a vote in D.C. or Alaska count for 3 times the vote of a person in California. Bonus votes will be calculated with this formula,
(U.S. Population)/(Fifty times the number of states) = (Bonus votes of each state) and round up to the next 10,000. However, a state's bonus votes may not exceed its number of regular votes.
The Congress will tally the second-round popular vote, and allocate bonus votes as appropriate, and the ticket receiving the most votes will be the winner.
In the event of a national tie, or an impassable deadlock, the Statehood Bonus shall be disregarded, and the popular vote of the Election shall determine the winner.
If there is then still a tie, the acting President of the United States shall cast a tie-breaking vote.
