October 1, 2019 – The U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party (USTP) hereby announces the results of its 2019 Electronic Primary for the USTP’s endorsement of a candidate to run for the office of President of the United States. Detailed results have been tabulated here.

Between 8:30 p.m. Pacific Time on September 21, 2019, and 6:00 p.m. on September 30, 2019, 312 members of the USTP cast their ballots in the first-ever competitive USTP primary election among candidates. Consistent with the USTP’s commitment to ranked-preference voting, which is superior and more representative than single-choice plurality voting, this ballot required voters to rank-order all candidate options (nine candidates and “None of the Above” – which could have been selected as first, last, or in the middle of your options). While candidate Kimberly Forsythe withdrew from the race as voting was ongoing, candidates Johannon Ben Zion, Kristan T. Harris, Rachel Haywire, Charles Holsopple, John J. Kerecz, Jonathan Schattke, Matt Taylor, and Vrillon remained as choices on the ballot for voters to select until the end. The first 170 ballots that included Candidate Forsythe were subject to a de facto instant runoff where, after the removal of Candidate Forsythe, all of the choices which voters ranked less favorably than her were elevated by one ranking.

All votes cast during the election process were manually validated to ensure that they originated from genuine USTP members. While several duplicate votes were discarded, the USTP leadership believes that those votes were inadvertent and the result of technical difficulties or misunderstandings experienced by a small number of members. Detailed monitoring of the votes cast did not detect any voter fraud, sock-puppet accounts, or mass attempts by non-members to vote. USTP leadership is thus confident that election security was appropriately preserved.

After the entire 312 ballots were cast, an instant-runoff process was undertaken, and seven rounds of instant runoffs were required before a candidate achieved a numerical majority of reassigned votes. The instant-runoff process, along with the entirety of the anonymized individual ballots (ordered by randomly assigned Voter IDs to protect individual voters’ privacy), has been documented in this spreadsheet. The “manual” (Excel-based) instant-runoff process was externally validated by another, automated mechanism:  the open-source Instant-Runoff Voting Tool, developed by Peter Grassberger and available at https://petertheone.github.io/IRV/. The linked text file contains the inputs entered into the Instant-Runoff Voting Tool to produce output that exactly matched the results obtained through the USTP’s own internal calculation process. USTP leadership is thus confident in the accuracy of the instant-runoff calculations.

Below is a summary of the voter rankings given to each candidate that remained on the ballot until the conclusion of the election.

The candidates accordingly began the instant-runoff process with the following vote totals.

Round 1: Tally of First Choices

Johannon Ben Zion: 109 votes – 34.94%
Rachel Haywire:          72 votes – 23.08%
Kristan T. Harris:       35 votes – 11.22%
Charles Holsopple:     30 votes – 9.62%
John J. Kerecz:            19 votes – 6.09%
Matt Taylor:                  17 votes – 5.45%
None of the Above:     13 votes – 4.17%
Vrillon:                           9 votes – 2.88%
Jonathan Schattke:     8 votes – 2.56%

In Round 7 of the instant-runoff process, candidate Johannon Ben Zion achieved a majority of the reallocated votes.

Round 7: Tally of First Choices after Reassignment

Johannon Ben Zion: 160 votes – 51.28%
Rachel Haywire:              97 votes – 31.09%
Charles Holsopple:         55 votes – 17.63%

Therefore, Johannon Ben Zion has won the USTP 2019 Electronic Primary. Candidate Ben Zion is both the ranked-preference winner and the plurality winner of the election. Moreover, his lead in both absolute and relative terms is substantial and remained the case throughout the voting process.

In accordance with the preferences of the USTP membership, on October 1, 2019, USTP Chairman Gennady Stolyarov II declared pursuant to his authority in Article II of the USTP Constitution that the United States Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party hereby endorses Johannon Ben Zion for President of the United States in the 2020 general election.

Officially Candidate Ben Zion will be running as an independent candidate and will be personally responsible for any fundraising (should he choose to engage in it) and compliance with registration and campaign-finance requirements. However, the USTP and its team of Officers and volunteers will assist Candidate Ben Zion in any manner that is lawful and practicable. Moreover, if Candidate Ben Zion qualifies for inclusion on any States’ ballots, then, in approximately half of the jurisdictions in the United States, it would be possible to use a “political party designation” of “Transhumanist Party” to accompany the candidate’s name on the ballot.

The USTP leadership congratulates Johannon Ben Zion on his victory and looks forward to working with his campaign to maximize public awareness of the ideas of transhumanism and the many constructive policy applications to these ideas can be put. The USTP also encourages all of its members, and all transhumanists generally, to support the Ben Zion 2020 campaign and unite as a movement in advocating for the ideas of transhumanism to the general public. The candidacy of Johannon Ben Zion, with appropriate input and guidance from a broad spectrum of transhumanists – including those who supported other candidates in this election – can become a powerful vehicle for mainstreaming transhumanist aspirations. No matter whom you voted for in the primary, we welcome your support in this next stage of our endeavors – and we welcome other candidates continuing an active role in the projects of the USTP, including potentially pursuing other political offices.