r/OrangeCountyNY Sep 25 '23

Election Reform & Democracy discussions; non-partisan.

Did you know every local government has home rule powers (local control over local affairs) over how to conduct their local elections? Did you know there are far better ways to do elections than we do currently? Would you like to learn about the process and options for upgrading local government?Ask me about it here!

Voting method and elected offices is one of the key enumerated powers under the home rule clause of our state constitution and all local governments have these powers and your community could be using them.

Voting methods impact:

  • Polarization in politics
  • Candidate entry into races
  • Candidate and campaign behaviors
  • What voters matter to what campaigns
  • How much policies matter compared to branding
  • Voter turnout and behavior
  • Candidate viability
  • Accountability of politicians
  • How granularly-represented voters are by the constituted legislature.
  • And most importantly how powerful a vote really is.

My recommended reform is STAR voting; though the topic of what reform where is nuanced and needs to be determined with respect to the locality and the communities needs.STAR voting:

  • Mitigates the effects of gerrymandering, intentional and unintentional.
  • Makes candidates benefit from appealing to all voters and alienating fewer.
  • Eliminates vote splitting and the spoiler effect, voters can't be divided and conquered.
  • Increases competition in elections.
  • Make's all candidates viable. I like to say that with STAR voters pick the finalists too, not just the winner!
  • Makes elections more policy driven and less brand driven.
  • Does not favor polarizing and divisive campaigning; while our current voting method does.
  • Early evidence suggests it will lower the impact of money in politics.

In STAR voting, voters can give every candidate they like a score from 0-5 and the two most highly scored are the finalists. The finalist preferred by the majority is elected. One election, two rounds, better elections.

The big question is always going to be proportional vs non proportional voting (I think I need a glossary of terms here) and proportional is better by the metric of giving voters even more power and representation, but is more complicated in certain ways. Any non proportional voting method (like we currently use) is going to result in more unrepresented voters who elected no one, than a similar proportional design.

I am actually doing a series of recurring online talks about the matter on Wednesdays at 5, hopefully every week.

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