Green Party Watch

Rob Richie and Dorothy Scheeline of Fairvote have written some interesting analysis of last week’s elections that used instant runoff voting, aka ranked choice voting. Instant runoff voting was used in San Francisco, CA, St. Paul, MN, and Portland, ME; in all three cities, Greens both helped enact IRV and ran in last Tuesday’s elections. For the mayoral elections in Portland and San Francisco, Fairvote has graphs that show the breakdown of votes round by round until someone takes a majority (in Portland, Greens David Marshall and John Eder finished 4th and 12th of 15; in SF, Green Terry Baum finished 11th of 16). In a Huffington Post article, Richie and Scheeline focus on the story of IRV’s success in Portland:

Repeatedly, we are seeing RCV winners being the candidates who do a particularly effective job at reaching out to voters, often with direct contact involving community debates, local events, and door-knocking. One Portland candidate, David Marshall, said he knocked on 20,000 doors. He didn’t win, but it was ballots from his supporters that provided a particularly strong boost to the new mayor’s win total.

In Portland, Maine’s largest city, the city’s first mayoral election in decades features two candidates from the Green Independent Party: former State House member John Eder and City Councilor David Marshall. Both have been featured recently in the Portland Press Herald.

In his interview, Eder said that affordable housing would be the central issue in his administration:

“We’re on the verge of the creative economy toppling the artists and workers who helped make Portland become what it is,” he said. “We can’t lose those people.”

Marshall pointed to a record of accomplishment in five years on the council and presented his plan:

Marshall’s five-point platform includes investing in the city’s school facilities, converting homes and businesses from oil to alternative fuels, and creating a streetcar line.

Those programs would cost a significant amount up front, as some opponents have pointed out. Marshall calls them “investments.” He points to a record of saving the city money.

The election will be conducted using instant runoff voting, which Green Anna Trevorrow played a key role in enacting as a member of Portland’s charter commission. Ben Chipman, an independent State House member who is closely aligned with the Greens, is also quoted in the article about Marshall.

From the Portland Daily Sun:

Portland this year embarks on an elected-mayor campaign that replaces a council-appointed mayor with one elected to an at-large seat. Through a city charter change, voters also will choose their next mayor through rank choice voting, where if any candidate falls short of a majority, then the “second choice” votes come into play in the tabulation.

MacMillan is working on the mayoral campaign for Portland’s David Marshall, an incumbent city councilor and Green Party member seeking the elected-mayor office. Another Maine Green Party member, former state legislator John Eder of Portland, announced in February his candidacy for the Mayor of Portland.

Green Party members said rank choice allows people to vote their conscience instead of feeling they’re casting a vote on a potential “spoiler” who could drain votes away from one of the two major parties.

From Fairvote:

Non-Majority Rule in American Elections

More than a Dozen U.S. Senate and GOvernor’s Races Won with <50%

A FairVote Innovative Analysis by Chris Marchsteiner / Rob Richie on “IRV” in NC

FairVote intern Chris Marchstein has done a weekly series of blog posts this election season from the “non-majority rule” desk, profiling the many stories from the fall about partisans running “faux” third party candidates to split the vote, major candidates being asked to drop out to avoid “spoiling” and examples of how our plurality voting system fails to accommodate voter choice. Following is his latest blogpost and an update from FairVote’s Rob Richie on the first-ever statewide general election with instant runoff voting.

Non-Majority Winners and “Spoilers” in Election 2010

FairVote is hosting a ranked-choice poll for Governor of Minnesota. The poll is a chance to see IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) applied in a race with several, third party candidates. The poll is at:

http://fairvotemn.org/node/1826/simplevote

There are seven candidates on the ballot. In this exercise, voters may choose 6 candidates. read more »

On Nov. 3rd, voters in St. Paul, MN followed in the footsteps of their Minneapolis neighbors by approving the use of instant runoff voting in municipal elections by a vote of roughly 52%-48%. The St. Paul Green Party supported the measure, which faced organized opposition from a group called the Minnesota Voter’s Alliance. St. Paul’s dominant Democratic-Farmer-Labor party was split on the issue. IRV opponents have pledged to challenge the result in court, as they did after voters approved it in Minneapolis. Minnesota, where Jesse Ventura of the Independence Party was elected governor in recent years, could become the first state to use instant runoff voting on a statewide level. See the Pioneer Press for the full story.

The Green-Rainbow Party is supporting an effort to hold a statewide referendum in 2010 on instituting instant runoff voting in Massachusetts. They need 66,000 signatures by November 18th. The time period is short, and they could surely use some help in this extremely important undertaking.

Want to revolutionize elections in Massachusetts?

Then you should hear about a ballot referendum campaign that just burst upon the scene. It’s called Voter Choice, and its goal is to change the way Massachusetts votes by implementing an instant runoff voting (IRV) system in Massachusetts. read more »

Lynne Serpe, the Green Party candidate for New York City Council in District 22 (Astoria), responded to the recent primary runoff elections in NYC with an editorial in the New York Daily News championing instant runoff voting:

Holding two elections is expensive. It’s inconvenient. Voters get burned out and confused.

What’s the solution? A simple reform called instant runoff voting. Instant runoff guarantees majority winners in a single election by allowing voters to rank the candidates in their order of preference (1,2,3) on the very first ballot, rather than making them return to the polls two weeks later. (See the full article)