Commissioners election followup
I heard back from Mike Ashe, at the Durham BoE, who confirmed that a runoff election in the Board of County Commissioners race is only possible if fewer than 5 of the candidates receive a weighted vote of more than 40%. See the post directly below for an explanation of how that 40% figure is calculated. What this means is that if 6 candidates exceed the 40% threshold, there's no runoff between the 5th and 6th place finishers.
It also means, i think, that at least one, and possible all three of Durham's main political action committees (Durham Committee on the affairs of Black People, the People's Alliance, and the Friends of Durham) will endorse less than a full slate of candidates, and encourage their members and supporters to vote for only those candidates endorsed. The reason for this is that the more voters who cast an incomplete ballot, the lower the 40% threshold becomes, and the less likely that someone else sneaks above your candidate for the 5th seat on the Board. We saw this last year in the City Council race, where the Durham Committee only endorsed 2 candidates for the 3 open at-large seats, one of whom eked out a third place finish.
I have to say, i'm not liking this plan all that much.
Here's why.
Let's say, to use round numbers, that 5,000 people cast ballots for County Commissioner. If everyone votes for 5 commissioners, as they're entitled, that means there are 25,000 votes cast in the race, and the 40% threshold of 1/5 of the votes is 2,000. But, let's imagine that everyone only names 3 commissioners on their ballot. that means there's only 15,000 votes cast, and 40% of 1/5 of those is 1,200 votes. That's a significantly fewer number of people supporting what could end up being one or even two out of 5 people on the commission. And it also makes the necessity of a runoff that much less likely.
I'm thinking there's got to be a system that's less amenable to gaming than this.
It also means, i think, that at least one, and possible all three of Durham's main political action committees (Durham Committee on the affairs of Black People, the People's Alliance, and the Friends of Durham) will endorse less than a full slate of candidates, and encourage their members and supporters to vote for only those candidates endorsed. The reason for this is that the more voters who cast an incomplete ballot, the lower the 40% threshold becomes, and the less likely that someone else sneaks above your candidate for the 5th seat on the Board. We saw this last year in the City Council race, where the Durham Committee only endorsed 2 candidates for the 3 open at-large seats, one of whom eked out a third place finish.
I have to say, i'm not liking this plan all that much.
Here's why.
Let's say, to use round numbers, that 5,000 people cast ballots for County Commissioner. If everyone votes for 5 commissioners, as they're entitled, that means there are 25,000 votes cast in the race, and the 40% threshold of 1/5 of the votes is 2,000. But, let's imagine that everyone only names 3 commissioners on their ballot. that means there's only 15,000 votes cast, and 40% of 1/5 of those is 1,200 votes. That's a significantly fewer number of people supporting what could end up being one or even two out of 5 people on the commission. And it also makes the necessity of a runoff that much less likely.
I'm thinking there's got to be a system that's less amenable to gaming than this.
Labels: 2008 elections, local politics
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2 Comments:
I'm no political scientist or mathematician, but the Wikipedia article on voting systems seems to do a nice job of illustrating different systems and explaining why no one system is perfect. The best you can do it pick a system whose strengths do the most good for your situation (or whose imperfections do the least damage):
"It is impossible for one voting system to pass all criteria in common use. Economist Kenneth Arrow proved Arrow's impossibility theorem, which demonstrates that several desirable features of voting systems are mutually contradictory. For this reason, someone implementing a voting system has to decide which criteria are important for the election."
Full article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system
By
Unknown, at 2:59 PM
i think, give the fact that all seats for county commissioner are at-large, there are a couple of options that would make sense.
first is to keep the 40% threshold at the total number of ballots cast, and not reduce it in the event that a significant number of people only vote for two or three candidates, rather than all 5. You might end up with only one or two candidates exceeding that threshold on the first go-round, but it's likely that there'll be a runoff anyway. More likely, though, would be more coalition-building and horse-trading to make sure that your candidate (or slate of candidates) got enough support on the first round of balloting.
a second option, less desirable in my mind, but still interesting and perhaps worth a try, would be to allow people to cast more than one vote for a candidate, up to 5, if there were 5 open seats. In other words, for this election you could cast 5 votes for candidate A, or 3 votes for candidate A and 1 each for candidates C and D, etc.
Mike Ashe probably wouldn't like that.
but it would be interesting.
By
Barry, at 3:19 PM
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