Left In Lowell

Can Ya Count To 9?

13 Responses to “Can Ya Count To 9?”

1. ax41 Says:
   September 30th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

   Proportional Representation is a goal , not a method .
   Instant Runoff Voting is employed in Burlington , Vermont.IRV is not designed to attain PR.
   Most legislative races - such as City Council at Large - employ Single Transferrable Voting which is intended to achieve PR .
   Fair Vote Lowell and many commentators are using the language of IRV to discuss PR - hence , confusion since they seem to be proposing actually a fractional vote variant of STV.

2. Jack Mitchell Says:
   September 30th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

   Dig in at MMC:
   What You Really Want to Know About: CHOICE VOTING (Part 1)
   What You Really Want to Know: CHOICE VOTING (Part 2)

3. Jack Mitchell Says:
   September 30th, 2009 at 8:26 pm

   More at MMC:
   What You Really Want to Know: CHOICE VOTING (Part 3)

4. Victoria Says:
   October 1st, 2009 at 6:16 am

   ax41: The post is talking about using a ranked system on the ballot. The ballots are the same with these systems except for the number of candidates. That was the point. Further, I clearly explained the difference on the Mill City Post, when Ned was asking about losing his bid as high school president. The purpose of using any ranked system is so that votes are not wasted, as they are in the current system. Ranked systems focus on empowering voters and producing results, ie. candidates, that better reflect the will of ALL the people. Also, “minority” candidates are made up of a lot of groups - people from unrepresented neighborhoods, from interest groups, etc. as well as ethnic groups. The system is about the voters, especially those who are alienated from the process. The current system we use was outlawed for federal elections in 1967 and currently in MA only 6 cities still use it (we are the only one with Plan E). If we can have something better, why wouldn’t we want to at least think about it?

5. ax41 Says:
   October 1st, 2009 at 8:43 am

   My concern/conundrum is that Fair Choice is describing the merits of apples when all they have to sell are oranges .
   According to the FAQ section at www.Burlingtonvotes.org, Instant Runoff Voting(IRV) was introduced in that city for the election of the Mayor ( not the City Council )in 2005;and its purpose was to remedy a perceived violation of the principle of majority rule - not to promote proportional representation.It is analogized to the method used to elect the President of Ireland .
   The proposal before the voters of Lowell this November is to create a Single Transferrable Vote for the election of Councillors in a multi-member constituency.The Irish analogy to that is the election of the Senate.
   When discussing the cost , it is , in my untutored opinion , a vastly more complex programming problem to design a system that accounts for excess votes , recursion , etc.than to allocate whole votes in an IRV format. 25 cents per voter may be the case in Vermont , but why should we assume that the STV proposal in Lowell will cost the same ?
   The ballot may appear similar , but the allocation of votes is far more complex.

6. Terry Bouricius Says:
   October 1st, 2009 at 10:25 am

   I live in Burlington (VT), and with the League of Women Voters helped get ranked voting implemented here in 2005. My hope is to get the multi-seat propotional representation variant of this system as used in Cambridge (MA) and proposed for Lowell, implemented for Burlington City Council as well, but currently the ranked voting is only used in the mayor’s race. It works very well and voters have no difficulty using the ranked ballots(Over 99.9% of the votes in the ranked ballot contest were valid) The scientific exit poll in 2006 showed that voters overwhelmingly preferred using the ranked ballot over the former system. As to the tallying software…it was developed for Cambridge, and can handle the fractional method proposed for Lowell as a built in option. The software is now freeware, so there are not costs associated with it.

7. Lowell Resident Says:
   October 1st, 2009 at 2:55 pm

   This “you don’t need to worry about the vote tabulation” argument is a really bad one.

   Yes. I understand what voters need to do. rank them 1-9. That part is simple. Everyone understands that.

   But people want to know why they should change it. This “it’s better” argument is a just an opinion. So you need more than just saying its better to sell people.

   I was opposed to it at first, now I’m a little more open to it. But I think the way its being argued for is doing it no favors.

   Why should I only pick 1 candidate I want on the council “the most” as opposed to voting for all 9 when there are 9 slots? I’m not even sure which I’m going to vote on it, but I think there are valid arguments to keeping it as is, and just to dismiss them makes you seem out of touch.

   my $0.02

8. Lowell Resident Says:
   October 1st, 2009 at 2:59 pm

   also Erin Smith used to be a reporter for the Cambridge Chronicle. So she actually comes from working for a newspaper in the only place in the Commonwealth that uses this voting system.

9. ax41 Says:
   October 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm

   In the article it is asserted that Mehmed Ali would have won a seat on the City Councilin 2007 if we had the proposed new system in place. From what I can tell , there is no way to verify that .
   18 of the 21 candidates on the ballot got a vote total in excess of the Droop Quota for that election .It is the level of passion , the intensity of support, for the individual candidates that determines which nine get in . Based on cumulative vote totals from that year , we can not measure preference .
   To further complicate matters , there are tactical voting strategies , such as ” push-over or turkey-raising” that can be employed ( sometimes with unfortunate consequences).
   For example , Councillor Rita Mercier might be the second choice of more than half the voters casting ballots ; depending upon the distribution of the first preferemces , she might not get a seat .The nine seats might go to nine people who have smaller , but more devoted , supporters.

10. joe from Lowell Says:
    October 5th, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    In a really extreme, laboratory-based theoretical, ax41.

    In practice, a broadly popular candidate like Rita sails in on the first ballot under any remotely realistic scenario.

    We’re talking about real voters and real ballots in the City Council elections, not the strange things one can do with implausible thought experiments.

11. ax41 Says:
    October 6th, 2009 at 9:32 am

    joe from Lowell:
    Perhaps I am too much of an advocate for Talib’s “Black Swan robust society” , but I do not feel that we can ignore outcomes beyond the realm of normal expectations.
    In the last election to the European Parliament , Proportional Representation allowed the British National Party to win two seats. Representation of ” minority views ” is not always a progressive result .
    This should be of especial concern in Lowell since within at least my memory we had a Congressman swept into office on anti-immigrant backlash against Chester Atkins .
    So I repeat my question : “How can we be sure that PR would have guaranteed Mehmed Ali a seat in 2007 ?”

12. joe from Lowell Says:
    October 10th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    Two seats, in the European Parliament. So?

    So, all of the NP members voided their ability to have any influence at all over the issue of who can form a governing coalition and what legislation can move, in return for two seats.

    Let’s say something comparable happens in Lowell - the Communists elect a City Councilor. Again, so? So, whenever anything remotely communistic comes before the council, it goes down 8-1. In the meantime, the range of debate is broadened, and a minority gets a minority voice.

    On the one hand, there’s the threat of instability resulting from a fractious City Council that can’t produce a working majority to take care of business, and of extreme voices from the fringe controlling the debate. On the other hand, there’s the threat of an overly-narrow council that lacks vision and different viewpoints, ignores the perspectives of minority groups (immigrants, Acre residents, Republicans), and governs only in the interest of the most establishment segment of the city.

    I daresay that, at this particular time in our history, we have a great deal more to fear from the latter threat than the former.

13. Jon Says:
    October 26th, 2009 at 3:36 am

    Erin Smith? Sad story actually. Erin makes a living trashing people trying to live thier lives in peace. Don’t put ANY wieght in the words published by her or him.

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