Politics

[abracanabra]

• It's pretty awesome having a hugging cat. Regularly scheduled cat-hug breaks from working!
• Fans of Jonathan Coulton might like The Funny Music Project (new songs x2 weekly): www.thefump.com/
• --Paranoid that the contractor boarded squirrels up inside our walls. Worried about them.
• Current effects of climate change (American Public Media): ping.fm/fHlTV
• There was/may still be a squirrel trapped under my floorboards. Phil can't fix this. Hating the world.
• Where the heck do I go to find a listing of the candidates on my ballot? (Answer: League of Women Voters)
• I have to figure out how my husband and I will be voting tomorrow. (Yes, my vote counts x2. Tremble!)
• The hospital-gowned girl flinched away from the carriage lantern, her hand before her eyes. IV tubes dangled from needle-pierced flesh. #nwm
• I'm still confused how rank choice voting works when there's multiple seats, since they say to only fill one oval under 1st choice.
• Part of political candidate's resume: "political sciense and history major, gradute student creative writing." Truefacts.
• Dear political candidates: Everyone experiences life. Thus, listing "Life" with your educational qualifications means nothing. Unoriginal.

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Comments

[ckd]

At least in Cambridge, the way preference voting in a multi-seat race works is this:

- For n seats, "quota" is set to #votes/(n+1). City Council is 9 seats, so quota is 1/10th of the total vote.

- Anyone with more #1 votes than the quota is elected. Their excess votes are distributed to the 2nd choice candidates. (I think the "excess" votes are randomly chosen from the total #1 votes.)

- All candidates under 50 #1 votes are eliminated and their votes redistributed.

- Now the main part starts. Whoever has the fewest #1 votes is eliminated. If anyone has gone over quota, they're elected (and excess distributed).

- Repeat until 9 candidates have gone over quota.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Huh. I guess that sort of makes sense--just seems weird, like it's reducing our choices (relatively speaking).

[ckd]

The intention is to (a) allow any sufficiently-sized group to elect an acceptable-to-them council member, even if they don't all agree on a first choice and (b) encourage voting for the candidate that you like best even if they're really unlikely to win a seat.

It has its flaws; the emphasis on #1 votes to avoid elimination is a major factor, and name recognition is as big a deal as in any election. Even so, it means that when I vote I can first list the newcomer that I like best, then possibly another one, but still support only the best of the incumbents if (more likely when) the others are eliminated.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand that, and I'm all for ranked-choice for single-seat elections--it's just, say, if there's four open seats and now I can only vote for my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice...it's one less.

[ckd]

On our ballots you can rank up to 9 candidates, so (assuming you like enough of them to need to) you can give all your choices some support.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Heh. We just get 3. I was unsure whether each seat available would get 3 choices, but I can see how that might end up being ridiculous.