Posted on 10/26/2009 7:10:12 AM PDT by MplsSteve
What's different about voting in Minneapolis this year?
You get to rank three candidates in each election contest. That's ranked-choice voting, the system the city is launching for municipal races. So in the 11-person mayor's race, you may rank one candidate as your first choice, another as your second, and a third as your final choice.
"It's a lot less confusing than it sounds once somebody explains it," Nancy Harrington, who rarely misses an election, said at an informational workshop at Webber Neighborhood Center last week.
But there are some pitfalls to avoid.
Think of the grid of candidates and choices as an expanded tic-tac-toe matrix.
You don't want to have more than one selection in any one vertical column. If you do, you've given the same ranking to two candidates. If that happens in your first-choice column, none of your selections will count. If you do it in your second- or third-choice column, only the choices before the column where there's a duplicated ranking will count.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Most of you already know what it is. I speak only for myself when I view it as unconstitutional as it violates the "one man, one vote" rule.
I anticipate that it will take several days 'til we know who won. Not that it'll matter a great deal because the winners are all gonna be Democrats or Green Party candidates/incumbents.
Two years ago, we held a referndum as to whether we wanted to have IRV for our local elections. The people pushing this hooey said that Republicans would benefit from this system. However, Minneapolis is such a one-sided party town that the people who do vote aren't gonna pick a Republican as their second or even third choice. They'll choose another Democrat or Green party candidate!
I'm tempted not to vote next week. I'm not confused by IRV - just irritated by it. Nonetheless, I think of what our founding fathers (and subsequent generations) did to give me this right and I can't ignore that. I'll go into the booth and vote for only one candidate for each office.
Comments or opinions - anyone?
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If I understand it correctly, I think I like this.
We have lost too many elections when a democrap has run pretending to be a hard right conservative, splitting the republican vote.
bill clintoon got elected even when 60% of the people voted against him.
If you were allowed to name your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice, I think we would eliminate that problem
I could be wrong
given the meager intellect of the democrat base, I predict kaos on election day and some surprising outcomes when the votes are tallied. Spoiled ballots may out number votes.
First, I’m surprised the Obama administration allows this, because it could confuse blacks who might not know which candidates are the black ones they are supposed to vote for.
Second, I’m surprised that people in this city, who aren’t likely any better at voting than the people in Florida who failed to punch their punch cards, or who screwed up the butterfly ballot, or who voted for two candidates in a race because they were told by the activists on their voting bus that they should vote “line one on every page” and the one contest spanned two pages, could possibly figure out how to rank their people in order.
Anyway, I’m not sure how IRV violates one-man, one-vote. IN a perfect world, every voter would be able to vote in every election — and the IRV is no more than a series of elections held one after another. (There is one substantive difference, which is that the voters have no ability to change their vote during the “series of votes”).
Top two vote getters get the seats
If you really want one candidate to win you only mark your candidate. That way you don’t give a vote to somebody who may steal the second seat from your guy. It’s called shotgun voting around here. (The way pellets are scattered around a target)
I would have to put more thought into your new system.
Gee in the recent Minnesota Senate race did the ACORN furnished ballots have Franken’s name listed three times and all three votes counted?
I think we need to be very careful about this type of voting. The people that I know that are really pushing this system of voting are hard core left wing activists.
If they strongly support such a voting system, I am automatically opposed to it. In the back of my mind, I have a feeling this will hurt Republicans.
court challenge?
And if the hard-core left doesn’t like the election results, they’ll STILL change them.
I actually like this idea. Conservatives can vote for a third party candidate, but still put the Republican as their second choice. It allows voting your conscious AND voting lesser of two evils at the same time.
There was a small group of conservative activists who challenged IRV but their case got tossed out of Hennepin County Court.
I’m not aware whether they are planning an appeal.
I wonder if they had IRV statewide would there still be a Senator Al Franken. Probably not.
In sonme suburbs and cities and maybe even in some states, this would be a good idea.
But for most of us, an idea like this wouldn’t help Republicans at all - especially in such politically one-sided cities such as Minneapolis.
The previous voting system in Minneapolis (a non-partisan primary where the top two finishers move on to the November election) was not kind to Republicans either but looking at it from a constitutional standpoint, it was preferable.
What alarms me the most about IRV is that the people and groups that have pushed it the most are from the far left. I find it hard to believe that they have altruistic motives at heart.
Got a feeling a lot of DFLers are going to accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan.
Now they can be disenfranchised thrice in one visit to the polls.
I totally disagree. Without some form of runoff voting, we’re locked into the present 1.5 party system forever. We need a voters bill of rights and the very first item of that has to be runoff elections for all public offices.
new rules for 4 ways stops per MNDOT /IRV Parody Group
car with plates ending in 3 get the right of way
2nd is plates ending in 5
3rd is plates ending in 9
4 is plates ending in 0
in the event of two cars with matching plates stopping at the same time, the car permitted to go 1st will be preference of
1. black
2. white
3. red
4. green
5. blue
in the event an illegal alien without insurance or license arrives 1st, he/she is permitted to run the stop sign and mow down whoever gets in their way,but only in declared “sanctuary cities”.
I agree it’s not going to do much to help conservatives in Minneapolis, because there aren’t many, but it could prove that the system works and it might spread elsewhere. It’s being pushed by people on the far left because much as we as conservatives are often frustrated by the GOP, many liberals get aggravated by the Democrats. This would benefit anyone who is frustrated by the two party system, and since more people in Minneapolis are left-leaning, it seems like it favors leftists.
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