Various and Sundry

Ranked Choice Voting comes to a Vote

Back in 2016, the state of Maine became the first state to use ranked choice voting in all their elections, including the Federal ones. There was something of a silly kerfuffle, as the paradigm shift hit established political power right in the comfort zone. But wait, what is ranked choice voting anyway? Well, here’s a fun video by CGP Grey to illustrate it with animals. As you might have gleaned above, I’m in favor of…

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Various and Sundry

Ranked Choice Voted First

My local primaries were not particularly interesting, but I found Maine’s primary elections very interesting to watch because they were using ranked-choice voting. What is ranked-choice voting, you ask? Why not explain it with dinosaurs? Or, you could look at this longer piece by CGP Grey: I like this because it also explains how ranked choice voting (here called “alternative vote/instant runoff voting”) is not the end-all, be-all panacea, yet has advantages over “first past…

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Rants Various and Sundry

Getting Rid of Gerrymandering

I have friends and colleagues all over the political spectrum, so their reactions to last Fall’s election was quite varied, though perhaps all of them might agree that our country, post-election, feels more fractured and partisan than ever. In wanting to be more politically engaged, I also wanted to find something that all (or, I guess, most) of said friends and colleagues could rally around as Americans. Surely we can all unite in eliminating gerrymandering. What…

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Various and Sundry

Registering to Vote, 2016 Edition

One area where I am very partisan is that citizens should be able to vote and have their vote counted. Besides my general Capra-esque take on civic duty, I served as an election official for a number of years (i.e. one of the people who check you in and staff the voting machines). In part because of those experiences, I was very happy to see today’s Google Doodle: It takes you to a tool which…

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