Your "rank choices" didn't really matter
As last-minute votes roll in, they keep running updated versions of the goofy "rank choice" voting system being used to judge the Portland City Council races. But as of Friday lunchtime, the results are the same as they were Tuesday night. The winners are:
District 1 (four-year term): Candace Avalos, Loretta Smith, Jamie Dunphy
District 2 (four-year term): Dan Ryan, Elena Pirtle-Guiney, Sameer Kanal
District 3 (two-year term): Steve Novick, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo
District 4 (two-year term): Olivia Clark, Mitch Green, Eric Zimmerman
I was 0 for 12 on these races. It doesn't bode well for the future of the book club, or the city it governs.
Each rerun of the "rank choice" scenarios results in slightly different stories, but the bottom line is always the same. And here's maybe the most interesting aspect of it: In every district, the three top first-choice vote getters wound up winning. In other words, if you just had a "top three" election with no "rank choice," the results would have been the same.
Many voters got only one vote, even though there were three seats to be filled in their district. In contrast, the most avid supporters of the most unwanted candidates got their later choices counted. This is supposedly "better democracy." If you say so, kids.
UPDATE, Saturday morning: Things came out a little differently in later results. But only a little.
Thankfully we won't have to deal with this for statewide candidates.
ReplyDeleteWe are stuck with it in Portland. Voters here are as stupid as middle America, only with the opposite ideology.
DeleteYup.
DeleteLived in Portland almost 30 years. Raised in Hillsboro in 50s and 60s. All I can say is writhe Portland, writhe. You deserve every burning moment
ReplyDeleteI’m not cheerleading for rank choice, but I don’t really see how this is ‘worse’ than primaries and runoffs + the general?
ReplyDeleteI see that as funneling into ~3 picks most of the time by a less democratic method.
But I agree on the low information voters + possible (somehow) *worse* results in the short term?
Idk if I’d be too smug out there in Hellsburrito; sure it exploded with intel/ silicon forest in the late ‘80s early 90s and is still in the upswing, but its turn for decline, de industrialization & maintenance cycle in all the car-centric post war ticky-tacky w/terrible land use/footprint & fragile industry hanging on for now will come?
Maybe you guys have a little less ungainly colossal mess w/many crises cascading concentrating within the last 5-10 years to today all at once , but the tax revolt and ‘throw the bastards out’ knee-jerk reactionary general mode that breeds is likely gonna be a rough ride, regardless of the face cards &/or team blue or red, just sayin’?
Maybe you’ll get off a little better/go back to militias & gravel roads/septic and basic trails w/a few families remaining and attract some talent before everything wears out, but I wouldn’t count on it being a ‘slam dunk’ &/or wildly amazingly better, don’t kid yourself?
Concerning jack’s previous post and comments being turned off;
Amen (for the most part?).