Tag Archives: rank-choice voting

Election of the Week: NYC Mayoral Primary

primaries,

There are lots of reasons to watch the NYC Democratic primary this week. It will be another opportunity to see whether rank-choice voting moderates who emerges out of a party’s primary. It is also just amusing to see the consternation that the primary seems to be eliciting among Democratic Party elites:

“Centrist Democrats are sounding the alarm that a surging democratic socialist mayoral candidate in New York City’s Tuesday primary could further set back the party’s already beleaguered national brand.”

This no doubt explains why James E. Clyburn and Bill Clinton have endorsed Cuomo, and why Bloomberg is throwing a lot of money into the race. Interestingly, as far as I am aware, Hillary Clinton has not endorsed Cuomo. Is that a sign?

Most importantly, if Cuomo wins, as is expected, it won’t necessarily be because of Bloomberg’s money. Cuomo does have significant union support that has also been driving his ground game.

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“A Setback for Election Reformers?”

primaries, ,

Walter Olson at Cato has the following reflection on the recent round of election reform in which he cautions commentators to distinguish “ambitious” reforms that “abolish[] party primaries and then employ[] RCV in a general election” (like in Alaska) from more moderate efforts to introduce rank-choice voting into the existing party primary system.

“On the whole, RCV finds more of a footing in places where politics is dominated by one party—large cities are the model case—and where reformers can pitch it as a way to make primaries work better.”

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“Ranked choice voting and open primaries retained in Alaska after final ballot count”

primaries, ,

An update on the Alaska ballot initiative from the Anchorage Daily News. The total ballot count in the end was 340,510. The repeal effort appears to have failed by 664 votes.

“A coalition of left-leaning and moderate legislators in the Alaska House has announced its plans to form a majority in the coming legislative session.

Members of the coalition — which is slated to include mostly Democrats and independents alongside two GOP lawmakers — have indicated they hope that additional Republicans will join. But those Republicans have not committed to joining such a coalition as they await the fate of Alaska’s open primary system.”

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“Under the Radar, Right-Wing Push to Tighten Voting Laws Persists”

The Voting Wars, voting,

N.Y. Times article bout a second, concerted wave of republican-sponsored legislative efforts to restrict voting, funded by “billionaire-backed advocacy groups” allied with Trump. The key point is that this new wave is based on a strategy of “radical incrementalism”–an effort to make changes without grabbing attention. Their next target: rank-choice voting.

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