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 St. Paul, Minnesota, the Twin Cities Daily Planet has published interviews with two Green Party city council candidates. Johnny Howard is running in Ward 1:

“I want to change the culture of leadership,” says Johnny Howard who is competing in the race for the Saint Paul city council against incumbent council member Melvin Carter in Ward One. “Too often, there is a pretense of neighborhood involvement that disguises top-down leadership.”

Read the full interview with Johnny Howard.

Bee Kevin Xiong is running in Ward 6:

What is it like in the day of a city council candidate? Between 9 a.m. and noon, Xiong is in meetings. In afternoon to early evenings, Xiong and his team of volunteers are going door to door, talking to the residents of the sixth ward. He asks what the resident which issues they are concerned about in the ward and then explains his plan and why he’s running for city council. “I’m endorsed by the Green Party, which means we are a grassroots democracy – we care about people. We treat them with dignity and respect. We put people first.”

Read the full interview with Bee Kevin Xiong at the Twin Cities Planet.

The St. Paul Green Party has one more city council candidate and a school board candidate in the upcoming election, which will use instant runoff voting for the first time in the city’s history. Learn more about all the candidates at GreenSaintPaul.org.

From the Green Party of the United States:

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party candidates have continued to receive endorsements in local races across the US.

59 Greens will be on ballots in the November 8, 2011 general election. Ten Greens have been elected to public office in elections held earlier this year, out of 34 candidates who competed.

Green candidates in St. Paul, Minnesota, received several endorsements. For the first time, St. Paul will use Ranked Choice Voting (also called Instant Runofff Voting) in City Council elections, which will increase the chances of a Green election victory.

TakeAction Minnesota, a progressive grassroots coalition, has endorsed Jim Ivey for Ward 2 (http://iveyforsaintpaul.org) and Bee Kevin Xiong (http://xiongforsaintpaul.org) for Ward 6 in City Council races.
http://www.takeactionminnesota.org/_assets/document/St._Paul_City_Council_Endorsements.pdf
http://iveyforsaintpaul.org/news/jim-ivey-endorsed-takeaction-mn

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 has also endorsed Mr. Ivey and Mr. Xiong.
http://www.ufcw789.org/newsletter/vol2issue5.pdf
http://iveyforsaintpaul.org/news/united-food-and-commercial-workers-endorse-jim read more »

In 2009, Green candidates won 35% of municipal elections that they entered. Given this figure, it’s not hard to see that with more Greens running in more local elections around the country, the Green Party could become America’s third major party in the course of a few election cycles. Here’s a shout-out to cities where Greens are leading the way by running more than one candidate in 2011 elections, roughly arranged by population. Will your town be next?

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Cheri Honkala, Philadelphia Sheriff

Brian Rudnick, Philadelphia City Council District 8

Baltimore, Maryland

Bill Barry, Baltimore City Council District 3

Douglas Armstrong, Baltimore City Council District 14

Tucson, Arizona

Mary DeCamp, Tucson Mayor read more »

From the Twin Cities Daily Planet (read the full thing here, there is a lot more information in the article itself):

The Green Party of St. Paul began a new effort to recruit candidates for upcoming 2011 local elections June 16, as candidates and around 40 supporters gathered to launch the effort dubbed Green St. Paul.The campaign is an attempt to change the party’s sporadic track record in local elections by recruiting candidates to run for local office, said Green St. Paul co-chair Roger Meyer…

The Green Party has officially endorsed three candidates in local races. Johnny Howard and Jim Ivey are running for St. Paul City Council seats in Wards 1 and 2, respectively, while Devin Miller is running for the St. Paul School Board…

Meyer said the recruitment campaign was inspired by St. Paul’s adoption of ranked choice voting. The elections this November will see the first implementation of the ranked choice voting system that St. Paul voters approved in a referendum in 2009.

The system allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If one candidate receives more than 50 percent of the first choice votes, they win outright. Otherwise, the candidate with the lowest number of first choice votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the voter’s second choice. The process is repeated until one candidate crosses the threshold needed to win.

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 St Paul Greens are running two candidates for office. Chris Chopik is running for local office while Deborah Donnelly is running for federal office.

Just in case you are from St. Paul Minnesota I suppose I should make it clear. The St. Paul Green Party I am talking about here is the Canadian chapter, in Ontario.

One thing that unites Greens from St. Paul in every nation is our Four Pillars of Ecological Wisdom, Non-Violence, Grassroots Democracy and Social Justice. Throw in a bit of fun and darn if you don’t have a real party!

Black Talk Radio affiliate Radio Free Nation reports from the streets of St. Paul. The program is hosted by Scotty of One Black Man’s View.