> From: Cameron A. Gordon >
>> ... City Council will still be made up of 13 Council Members but only
six will come from wards ... The other seven 'at large' council members
will be elected from among independents and party lists by all the voters in
the city. ... each voter will have two votes, the first for the ward
council member, the second for one of the lists of up to 7 city-wide 'at
large' members. ... A party's (or list's) number of council members will
be determined by its share of the total vote. One thirteenth, or
approximately 7.7 %, of the vote will be enough to elect one candidate. If
a party receives 16% of the vote, they win 16% (or 2) of the seats on the
council. If the receive 56% vote they win 56% of the seats. ... >>
I am glad that Cameron Gordon brought up the concepts of
proportional representation and instant runoff. I do not think that these
two ideas were mentioned on the previous posts by Daniel Boivin and others
about Charter Commission dialogue. These are the two reform ideas that I
find most exciting and appealing.
However, Cameron, or anyone, please tell me why I am confused by the
percentage vote point in the above description of proportional election of
the City Council. I am thinking that if only 7 members are elected
proportionally, then wouldn't it take one-seventh of the at-large votes, or
14.3%, to elect one member?
Instant runoff would be great. It would greatly reduce or eliminate the
anguish over whether or not to vote our "true preference" or vote for the
"lesser of two evils".
Dave Stack
Harrison
