Considering the relatively poor turn-out in recent local elections, I worry about the growing lack of legitimacy in local democracy across Minnesota.
Minneapolis/Hennepin County should lead the way in 2005 by pushing for state law changes to allow voting my mail in our next election for mayor/city council. The facts are in ... while voting by mail for any reason doesn't seem to raise turn out much in national elections, it does in local elections. For example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1965521.stm Postal voting boosts turnout Some people cast their votes online Postal voting has been judged an unqualified success in the 2002 local elections, boosting turnout by an average of 28% in areas where it was trialled. Turnout Postal voting +28% E-voting +5% Online voting +1% No experiment +4% Senior figures indicated that the idea could now be rolled out to other parts of the country, although ministers are waiting for a report assessing the impact of postal votes from the Electoral Commission by the end of July. ... I was once told a story about cities in New Zealand that were given the opportunity to switch _away_ from all postal voting in local elections. They were worried because mail-in-only voter turn out had dropped below 50 percent (what are we around 25%?? in Minnesota local elections). The one city that dropped postal voting completely and replaced it with traditional voting booths saw their turn-out drop by almost half the next election. Like in Washington State, we should have a right to register as permanent absentee voters for any reason. In their recent 2003 elections, they had a state-wide local turn out of 40 percent of registered voters with 75 percent of the votes cast by mail (I am sure it was higher in highly contested cities, lower in others): http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=226 Check out these statistics: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/absentee_stats.aspx Here is the law that strengthens the legitimacy of local representative government: http://www.leg.wa.gov/RCW/index.cfm?fuseaction=section§ion=29.36.2 40 In my opinion, any election at any level of government which has a turn out of less than fifty percent of eligible voters demonstrates a system designed for exclusion and does not ensure the legitimacy required for democratic governance. Anyone interested in making something happen this session on this idea? Should/could Hennepin County/Minneapolis do this on their own without state approval? Steven Clift Carag [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. In St. Paul it looks like the turn-out among _registered_ voters (not voting age population which tends to be the base line in statewide election statistics) was only 22%: http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/elections/ Duluth seems to have done much better, but that stats related to the number of registered voters in the general election aren't on the city web site. They had 31,552 votes cast in the general and according to the Duluth newspaper, their were 57,152 registered voters in the primary election or 55% turn-out in a hotly contest open seat for mayor. In 2001, Minneapolis had 41% turn-out http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/elections/resultsarchive/general2001_w ard.html ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - M: +1.612.203.5181 Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://e-democracy.org/do My blogging experiment: http://travelscoops.com REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
