Voted

[magid]

I know it was the before-work bubble, but it was still heartening to have to wait in line for a booth to vote in before 7:30 (the polls opened at 7). When I put my ballot into the machine a minute or two after 7:30, I was 70th to vote in Ward 6, out of a little more than 3000 people (assuming last year's numbers are a reasonable approximation for this year).

Ballot notes
• There were no Cambridge city elections, so no ranked voting, which makes the ballot simpler. (To me it makes more sense to use ranked voting for multiple-seat bodies, such as school committees or city councils, than for single-person offices.)
  
• It seems that, despite the governorship being Republican for the last decade-plus, Massachusetts is a massively Democratic state: some of the races were between a Democrat and a Green-Rainbow candidate, nary a Republican in sight.
  
• The three ballot questions were on the back of the ballot; in addition to a reminder printed on the bottom of the ballot itself, there were signs in the booths, and poll workers reminding people periodically that they should vote both sides of the ballot.

Nail-biting time now.

Comments

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

Yay! Voting!

How did you figure out that you were the 70th?

We actually got two ballot sheets, and the questions were on the back of one and one the front and back of the second sheet. Is it different for different cities?

I only waited in line behind one person (the_meanwhile, this was at 7:15 or so.) but a whole bunch of people showed up when I was walking out, including someone with a Healy/Hillman sign. (Before that there was only a Deval supporter, who happily exchanged a hearty good morning with us. I think he knew who we were voting for!)

Nail biting time it is.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I always look at the machine as it sucks in my ballot (or cranked in, back before it was automated; I really liked that), and it shows how many ballots have been put in. In years with two ballots, I divide by two.

Ballots are different for different cities, given that there are different people in different races (state representative/senator, for instance), and there may be additional local questions/races.

I've seen so many Patrick signs all over the place. (And while I'm looking forward to change in this state, the worst of the nail-biting is for races I can't vote in across the country, as hopefully the House and Senate races will show a certain president he's not got the mandate he'd assumed.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute: someone with a Healy/Hillman sign walked into the polling place? I thought all political signs had to be kept at least n feet away from wherever people were voting?

(And, yay for voting!)

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just meant walked into the parking lot of the senior center where we voted...

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes. There were sign-wavers in place on the corner by the time I went in, though I went in a side entrance, so I didn't pay attention to whose wavers they were.

Another data point: the polling place I passed in Boston a bit after 8 am had two Patrick signs and one for someone whose name I didn't know, presumably a Boston-local candidate.

PPS

[magid.livejournal.com]

Definitely different ballots: I know I filled in ovals, like a scantron test, while a friend had to connect arrows.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

Well suppose you could used ranked voting for the governor's race. Then for example if you liked Grace Lewis' view of the Commonwealth you could place her first and Deval Patrick second without fearing that you were wasting your vote.

In the Democratic primary for the 8th congressional district in 1998, Mike Capuano won with about ~19% of the vote (there were many credible candidates) and now he is congressman for life (not that I object). A smaller percentage of voters vote in Primaries; I just checked my voter database and in Cambridge of the currently registered voters, 59% of those who voted in the 1998 general election voted in the primary. So this means abut 11% of the actual voters chose the rep.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ranked voting in a single seat race: ok, I obviously didn't think this through enough. (See also Ckd's comment below.)

In a lot of obviously Blue/Red states, the real voting is in the primaries, it's true. I vote in all of 'em :-).
(Oh, and I rather like Capuano too.)

[ckd]

I voted at about 1000, and was #222 in my precinct (Cambridge, W2P1).

I'd like to see ranked voting used with multi-member districts for legislative races, myself. At the limit, MA could vote all ten US Representatives using single transferrable vote, just like the Cambridge City Council's nine seats.

No gerrymandering, and the minority parties (like Green-Rainbow, or Republican :-) could even have a chance to get one person into Congress.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Assuming they set up the precincts with approximately the same number of voters, the rate slowed considerably. It'll be interesting to see how many people vote. (I'm in W6P3, by the way.)

I hadn't thought about multi-member districts. It's an interesting idea, especially if ranked voting is used. You're right, minority parties would have a better chance for some representation, and there wouldn't be the same gerrymandering issue, but I'd be concerned that there'd be less specifically local representation, and that less populated areas wouldn't end up with any true representation at all. Hm.

[jwg.livejournal.com]

People really do care about local representation. A few years ago Massachuesetts redistricting was done because of the loss of seats due to population changes. Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket thought about ceceding from the Commonwealth and joining another state (VT, NH) because of loss of representation.

Also in Mass many years ago some of the state rep districts were paired and there were 2 reps for the paired districts.

Take a look at the Center for Voting Democracy (http://www.fairvote.org/).

[magid.livejournal.com]

I was apparently asleep: I never heard that the islands might secede! (Though if they did, to be geographically tidy, I'd've wanted them to join RI rather than VT or NH.) I did read about intermediate (non census) year population estimates being challenged by Boston, among other places, and regaining many thousands of people, making a difference not only for governmental representation, but for federal funding and so on.

When were there paired districts? Why was it only some districts? (Did they get to choose?)

Interesting link; thank you.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

There are various different electoral systems that can provide a balance between local representation and proportional representation. The London Assembly uses the 'Additional Member' system, where we get one vote for a local representative, and another vote for a preferred party, and the parties get extra seats to make their proportion of members in the assembly closer to the overall proportion of votes cast for them.

I believe the Scottish parliament uses the additional member system too.

The London mayoral election had first and second choice votes, but no further ranking than that. The European parliament elections just use very large multi-member constituencies.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

Here's one of my favored societies (http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/votingsystems/systems.htm)

[magid.livejournal.com]

That looks like an English version of the organization JWG linked to above (with a much calmer website!).

[jaq.livejournal.com]

Yes, I will have to read that one too :-)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Nice userpic!

[magid.livejournal.com]

The 'Additional Member' system* sounds like a reasonable way to give some balance between local and proportional representation, but more for places that have a real multi-party system, not just the stranglehold two giant parties and tiny/local alternative parties.

There's only one mayor of London (Gah, all I can think now is Dick Whittington and his cat!), so I suppose it makes sense not to go further than second; in the Cambridge city council, for instance, there are nine councillors (they vote who will be mayor and vice-mayor after the election), with many more candidates than that, so you can keep ranking until you run out of candidates (tabulation of the 2005 results still defy my comprehension).


* I suspect if this were tried in the U.S., they'd change the name to avoid any possible off-color jokes...

[jaq.livejournal.com]

A 'first past the post' electoral system tends to encourage the two-party system: here's what Wikipedia says about it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_party_system). So it's not a coincidence that there are two dominant parties.

It has been interesting seeing how the new parliaments* in the UK have developed - they all have some minority parties represented who would never make it into Westminster, and Scotland is governed by a coalition because no party had an overall majority.

*Scotland, Wales, London. I won't mention Northern Ireland.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Interesting article. I wonder if there's anywhere that has 3-4 main parties, rather than either 2 or many. (I never got the hang of Israeli politics, with political parties springing up like mushrooms after a rain, but the bifurcation of the present system isn't working, given that one party's leadership seems content to demonize their opponents, rather than having actual discussion, debate, and compromise.)

Sounds like I should look at the Scottish parliament.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

The UK parliament is a bit of an aberration in that it has three major parties* despite a 'first past the post' system. I think it has come about due to regional splits and some tactical voting.

I think I read that Israel has proportional representation where the whole country is effectively one large multi-member constituency. I don't know much about their politics though.

*Some people don't accept that the Liberal Democrats are a major party, but I am a supporter of them so I would. They consistently poll around 20%.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Consistently getting 20%ish sounds like a fairly major party to me. On the whole, people here seem to be less tactical in their votes (third-party candidates in tight races have more than once split votes just enough to frustrate me, anyway).

Yes, that's the description I saw in Wikipedia. It seems new parties form all the time, and many manage to get at least a couple of seats in the Knesset, enough to springboard to greater things... or fail as the issue they formed around becomes less relevant to people. The larger, long-standing parties have more rounded platforms, but it seems like most of the small ones are single-issue parties.

[ckd]

On the other hand, you might get better representation as small towns in different areas of the state got together to elect a "small towns" candidate; Cambridge and Amherst might wind up together as well....

[magid.livejournal.com]

Interesting. So not necessarily top-down mandated districts, but municipalities banding together?

[ckd]

No districts. One ten-seat election for all of the US Reps at once, using STV; any group of at least 1/11th of the voters in that election can elect a candidate.

This may result in approximated districts as candidates run strong in particular areas, or it may result in there being a candidate for particular groups that are thinly spread across the state, or both.

Commonwealth Magazine has their conjectural 10 regions which don't map to existing Congressional districts, but could be an indication of how an election might shape up using STV. Their "Left Fields" region combines Camberville, the Outer Cape, and Western Mass, for example.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ah. Got it.

It's interesting to compare the "Left Fields" to the map the Globe has for where Patrick won :-).