…when the left was screeching blue murder over electronic balloting? How “Diebold” was in the bag for Republicans, and how transparency in the voting process was the most important factor in democracy?
Hey, I don’t disagree. Transparency is good.
So where all those “transparency is king” people now that the Twin Cities are both being beset by an electoral system that virtually nobody understands, gives an electoral edge to people who don’t get the most votes, and virtually guarantees that more elections will end up in the sort of costly re-election brouhahas we’ve had in 2008 and 2010 in Minnesota?
Mostly supporting electoral politics’ shiniest new toy, “Ranked Choice Voting”. Saint Paul’s first ranked-choice election has led to a recall among the city’s seven city council races – the fractious race in Ward Two, where incumbent Dave Thune got 39 percent of the vote. That would have been a weak plurality win in a normal election.
This time, it means the “Green Party” candidate, Jim Ivey, whose campaign was largely based on trying to game the Ranked Voting system (and whose party is one of “IRV”‘s biggest proponents, for this very reason) and who got 26 percent in the first round, stands to potentially benefit in today’s recount:
Ivey has what looks like an edge. With about 1,300 second-place votes, he has a 4-3 edge over Thune among second-choice designations. But according to Ramsey County elections manager Joe Mansky, it’s not that simple.
“Because we know that not every ballot has a second choice,”Mansky said. “More to the point, the lowest-ranked candidates get counted first, meaning they have the greatest impact on the results.”
That means the reallocation will be a ballot-by-ballot battle, watched over by the candidates’ supporters in St. Paul.
And if nobody gets over 51%? Chaos reigns!
Quite possibly the most idiotic challenge to democracy in recent memory. One person, one vote. Don’t like the result? TFB. Or maybe we should just scrub this whole democracy thing and let our betters decide.
Instead of stupid policy that a weak plurality like, now Saint Paul will get crazy policy that a minority likes.
Progress!
If Thune’s on the ballot, I vote for Chaos.
Question is IRV/RCV/TFUSTNU limited to Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s local elections or does it go beyond that, e.g. does it apply those of us who live and vote in other parts of Ramsey and Hennepin Counties?
So St Paul may go from having a fat crazed terrorist loving leftwinger on the board, to having a crazed socialist leftwinger on the board.
But as long as fat f*ck Dave Thune loses, then it is a good day in my world. I shall taunt him.
Does anyone know if Fat Dave supported this voting method. I will doubly taunt him if he did.
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
Can anyone explain why this situation requires a manual “recount”? Why can’t the automatic counting equipment be programmed to do the math in adding the second choices to the first choice counts (or whatever the heck the algorithm is?)
Skipper50, I was thinking the same thing. This is really basic programming with a few sums and if-thens.
Pehaps the people who came up with this didn’t think that far ahead.
How can a convoluted system where you can actually lose an election by getting too many votes be constitutional?