If you're seen a Portland ballot it's pretty obvious why voting is down. It looks like a nightmare from a bad high school Scantron dream. So many bubbles!
The new voting scheme for city council (RCV with STV) that no one truly understands will be disenfranchising voters. And guess who will be disproportionally disenfranchised? POC and lower income individuals who mostly reside in East Portland. You know the ones who brought us Rene Gonzalez and Nathan Vasquez….ousting the extremist duo of Joanne Hardesdy and Mike Schmidt.
The non-representative, un-elected un-diverse Charter Commission chose this method as they felt it would give power to endorsements by the left leaning non-profits, PAC's and service unions as voters would be too confused to know what to do. Looks like it's working.
There is an air of inevitability and resignation among many Oregon voters of whatever stripe or viewpoint. Many know the results don’t really change and haven’t for several decades. The same in-crowd controls the politics and picks their successors. Just look at the endorsement game in the Voters’ Pamphlet. The apathy we are seeing is as much a part of “the plan” as the cookie-cutter candidates themselves. People concerned about the “death of democracy” don’t seem to acknowledge that democracy dies when the public thinks it doesn’t make any difference in the long run.
Voter fatigue? Too much campaigning? Out of state money? AVR? I think people have lost faith in Oregon's voting system. Years of one party rule, no matter the cause, has shown that the peoples voice has been muted. {Jeff's} coverage of measure 110 is is a prime example.
Although low probability, the described 2024 low-voter-turnout scenario for Mult Co Democrats (sic) could possibly be voter realization that Hitler is dead.
Great catch, Jeff...yet another news story that seems to evade our dinosaur media. I agree with the comments below...and might add that ",la" voters know their candidate will carry the state, so why bother with any of the other races, especially when progressive monsters such as Khanh Pham are running unopposed (Mayor Daley's Chicago Machine famously kept the city's GOP in business just to have another name on the ballot to keep the precinct captains on their toes--OR's machine is too dumb to understand this).
Speaking for myself and probably others I feel discouraged just contemplating the ballot and the entire endeavor:
- I have no idea who most of these people are.
- The candidate statements are all over the place in terms of style and content. How to compare?
- Someone is setting fire to the ballot boxes so I’ll actually have to take my ballot in to the post office to insure its safety.
- I have a low level of confidence that this new voting method will deliver a valid result. With so many on the ballot it seems ripe for gaming. I have an uncomfortable feeling that people smarter and with more of a sense of humor than me have already schemed the method.
- Those of us (including me) who live somewhere in or around that odd rectangle carved out of the middle of the voting map could not parse with any certainty what
voting district we fell into. I only know for certain because the ballot arrived and says I’m in District #2.
- The oligarchs have already gamed the system e.g. Elon Musk is holding a voting raffle, etc. so - is there a point?…
- …and so the sense of doom we are experiencing is demotivating and we are waiting to see if we start to feel better - or at least better enough to read the voter manual.
Is that enough? Let me know if it’s not cos I could go on…
You forgot to thank the City Club of Portland, which provided guidance to the Portland Charter Commission in designing this new system.
The wisdom behind three councilors for each of four geographic districts, elected via Ranked Choice Voting, is that it would increase the likelihood of women and “minorities” being elected.
The problem is that Portland is so integrated, it was difficult to establish geographic boundaries for smaller districts where a “minority” could be guaranteed a win. This assumption by progressives is that voters (of all skin colors) are bigoted and only vote for candidates "who look like them."
Sue...these objections you pose are features, not bugs. This is the way RCV/STV was designed (as Pam notes below). A confused, baffled, exhausted electorate is a plus for progressives. The 25-percent-and-you're-in charade is so illogical, so corrosive to any mandate or consensus that...well, it's intentional. Progressives want minority government--as long as the minority is them.
Jeff,
If you're seen a Portland ballot it's pretty obvious why voting is down. It looks like a nightmare from a bad high school Scantron dream. So many bubbles!
The new voting scheme for city council (RCV with STV) that no one truly understands will be disenfranchising voters. And guess who will be disproportionally disenfranchised? POC and lower income individuals who mostly reside in East Portland. You know the ones who brought us Rene Gonzalez and Nathan Vasquez….ousting the extremist duo of Joanne Hardesdy and Mike Schmidt.
The non-representative, un-elected un-diverse Charter Commission chose this method as they felt it would give power to endorsements by the left leaning non-profits, PAC's and service unions as voters would be too confused to know what to do. Looks like it's working.
There is an air of inevitability and resignation among many Oregon voters of whatever stripe or viewpoint. Many know the results don’t really change and haven’t for several decades. The same in-crowd controls the politics and picks their successors. Just look at the endorsement game in the Voters’ Pamphlet. The apathy we are seeing is as much a part of “the plan” as the cookie-cutter candidates themselves. People concerned about the “death of democracy” don’t seem to acknowledge that democracy dies when the public thinks it doesn’t make any difference in the long run.
Voter fatigue? Too much campaigning? Out of state money? AVR? I think people have lost faith in Oregon's voting system. Years of one party rule, no matter the cause, has shown that the peoples voice has been muted. {Jeff's} coverage of measure 110 is is a prime example.
Although low probability, the described 2024 low-voter-turnout scenario for Mult Co Democrats (sic) could possibly be voter realization that Hitler is dead.
Great catch, Jeff...yet another news story that seems to evade our dinosaur media. I agree with the comments below...and might add that ",la" voters know their candidate will carry the state, so why bother with any of the other races, especially when progressive monsters such as Khanh Pham are running unopposed (Mayor Daley's Chicago Machine famously kept the city's GOP in business just to have another name on the ballot to keep the precinct captains on their toes--OR's machine is too dumb to understand this).
Speaking for myself and probably others I feel discouraged just contemplating the ballot and the entire endeavor:
- I have no idea who most of these people are.
- The candidate statements are all over the place in terms of style and content. How to compare?
- Someone is setting fire to the ballot boxes so I’ll actually have to take my ballot in to the post office to insure its safety.
- I have a low level of confidence that this new voting method will deliver a valid result. With so many on the ballot it seems ripe for gaming. I have an uncomfortable feeling that people smarter and with more of a sense of humor than me have already schemed the method.
- Those of us (including me) who live somewhere in or around that odd rectangle carved out of the middle of the voting map could not parse with any certainty what
voting district we fell into. I only know for certain because the ballot arrived and says I’m in District #2.
- The oligarchs have already gamed the system e.g. Elon Musk is holding a voting raffle, etc. so - is there a point?…
- …and so the sense of doom we are experiencing is demotivating and we are waiting to see if we start to feel better - or at least better enough to read the voter manual.
Is that enough? Let me know if it’s not cos I could go on…
You forgot to thank the City Club of Portland, which provided guidance to the Portland Charter Commission in designing this new system.
The wisdom behind three councilors for each of four geographic districts, elected via Ranked Choice Voting, is that it would increase the likelihood of women and “minorities” being elected.
The problem is that Portland is so integrated, it was difficult to establish geographic boundaries for smaller districts where a “minority” could be guaranteed a win. This assumption by progressives is that voters (of all skin colors) are bigoted and only vote for candidates "who look like them."
Sue...these objections you pose are features, not bugs. This is the way RCV/STV was designed (as Pam notes below). A confused, baffled, exhausted electorate is a plus for progressives. The 25-percent-and-you're-in charade is so illogical, so corrosive to any mandate or consensus that...well, it's intentional. Progressives want minority government--as long as the minority is them.