Strange new voting machinery clanks ahead; the mob dashes for City Council's payday; DEI eats its own; sex 'n' art 'n' money; let's tinker with the constitution; details-details-details...
There have always been legitimate options for motivated voters to wrest control from the powers that be. It’s been called “bullet voting,” or “single-shot voting.”
Early in my reporting career I worked on a small daily in the Bay Area of Northern California. Vallejo was a diverse city that had open city council seats — and a frustrated black population that felt ignored.
There came a city council election where three seats were up for grabs. An unknown black candidate appeared out of nowhere to run for office. None of the usual City Hall crowd gave Lionel Hodge much thought. Nobody had heard of him.
On the Sunday before Tuesday’s election, every black minister in town delivered the same sermon: When you go to the voting booth on Tuesday, you’ll have a chance to vote for three candidates. Don’t. Instead, vote for only one — Lionel Hodge.
Come Election Night, Hodge won a city council seat. It was the only time in my reporting career that I got to call a candidate and tell him he had just won. When Hodge answered his phone, there were no celebratory sounds in the background. He hadn’t expected to win, and there was no party.
He didn’t believe me at first when I told him he had won.
“I really want to believe this,” he said.
As we all know, there’s more to politics than winning.
Hodge served one term, and that was it. He later served a term in prison for attempted murder after he shot his wife.
Now look at the mess Portland voters have created to presumably create a more diverse city council.
Occam's razor: the simplest path to winning an election is preferable. I doubt that any politician could explain to voters the concept of ranked choice voting or the 'surplus fraction'. Given the amount of money spent on this program, they should have tested this concept with a small random sample of voters and then record and publish the results before full rollout... check out https://youtu.be/XXdmq_pTr8A?si=WLv7kw8xp9QZ3yzZ
What if voters don’t want to play this game? The city can’t force voters to vote. What happens if a voter selects three candidates, and leaves the others blank with no ranking because she doesn’t like them?
Given the selection right now in my district, there is only one candidate I would vote for. Could I give that candidate a number one ranking, and leave the others blank?
If supporters for one particular candidate did that —vote for only one and not rank any of the others — could that skew the results?
The progressive machine loveslovesloves confused voters--who tend to fall back on the old familiars. Anyone who thinks the machine would put together a voting machine that didn't work to their advantage is drinking the Kool-Aid.
Jun 26Liked by Richard Cheverton, Pamela Fitzsimmons
What if no candidate gets to 25 percent? What if there are 10 candidates and each get 10 percent? Who's elected then?
Also, I'd like to see how a recount works with this new system. If you put the ballots through the machine again, would we get the same result? If you only need 25 percent to get elected, but a candidate is the top choice of 30 percent, whose second choice becomes the first? Are they the ones counted after the first candidate gets in? If so, then the order of counting would seem to affect the outcome.
There have always been legitimate options for motivated voters to wrest control from the powers that be. It’s been called “bullet voting,” or “single-shot voting.”
Early in my reporting career I worked on a small daily in the Bay Area of Northern California. Vallejo was a diverse city that had open city council seats — and a frustrated black population that felt ignored.
There came a city council election where three seats were up for grabs. An unknown black candidate appeared out of nowhere to run for office. None of the usual City Hall crowd gave Lionel Hodge much thought. Nobody had heard of him.
On the Sunday before Tuesday’s election, every black minister in town delivered the same sermon: When you go to the voting booth on Tuesday, you’ll have a chance to vote for three candidates. Don’t. Instead, vote for only one — Lionel Hodge.
Come Election Night, Hodge won a city council seat. It was the only time in my reporting career that I got to call a candidate and tell him he had just won. When Hodge answered his phone, there were no celebratory sounds in the background. He hadn’t expected to win, and there was no party.
He didn’t believe me at first when I told him he had won.
“I really want to believe this,” he said.
As we all know, there’s more to politics than winning.
Hodge served one term, and that was it. He later served a term in prison for attempted murder after he shot his wife.
Now look at the mess Portland voters have created to presumably create a more diverse city council.
Occam's razor: the simplest path to winning an election is preferable. I doubt that any politician could explain to voters the concept of ranked choice voting or the 'surplus fraction'. Given the amount of money spent on this program, they should have tested this concept with a small random sample of voters and then record and publish the results before full rollout... check out https://youtu.be/XXdmq_pTr8A?si=WLv7kw8xp9QZ3yzZ
What if voters don’t want to play this game? The city can’t force voters to vote. What happens if a voter selects three candidates, and leaves the others blank with no ranking because she doesn’t like them?
Given the selection right now in my district, there is only one candidate I would vote for. Could I give that candidate a number one ranking, and leave the others blank?
If supporters for one particular candidate did that —vote for only one and not rank any of the others — could that skew the results?
The progressive machine loveslovesloves confused voters--who tend to fall back on the old familiars. Anyone who thinks the machine would put together a voting machine that didn't work to their advantage is drinking the Kool-Aid.
What if no candidate gets to 25 percent? What if there are 10 candidates and each get 10 percent? Who's elected then?
Also, I'd like to see how a recount works with this new system. If you put the ballots through the machine again, would we get the same result? If you only need 25 percent to get elected, but a candidate is the top choice of 30 percent, whose second choice becomes the first? Are they the ones counted after the first candidate gets in? If so, then the order of counting would seem to affect the outcome.
All election schemes can (and will) be gamed.