fear mongering works

[mellowtigger]

I am disappointed.  Almost everything in the Minneapolis election went the way that I didn't want.

While voter participation reached a half-century high point for municipal-only voting, it seems that conceptually Minneapolis looked at the last 1.5 years of unrest and decided, "I'll have some more of that good stuff."  By voting against reforming the police department and simultaneously giving the mayor unique control over the police, they seemed to double down on what they were doing previously.  You know how I feel about this concept.

For the first time ever, for representation of my warzone area of north Minneapolis, I basically chose "None of the above".  We use ranked choice voting, so for all 3 opportunities for Ward 5, I filled in the bubble for "Write-In" and wrote down "none".  Ellison will continue as the Ward 5 representative.  He's the only choice in Ward 5 who agreed with me on police reform, but I never vote for family dynasties in politics.  Not ever.  I think that we're doing democracy wrong if political leaders can share their experience only with their own kin, and they never teach other seekers how to lead in government.

So, I am disappointed.  For a short while.  Then it's time to renew the work.  Even against the effective fear-mongering, the police reform proposal won 43% of voters.  Starting from that base, we can surely sway more minds when the police kill again.  You know they will.  The next ballot proposal could win.

As a reminder, the state of Minnesota once voted in state-wide referendum to ban gay marriage.  It's also the only state in the USA that later voted a 2nd time and instead granted gay marriage.  I believe Minneapolis will come around to my (and our) way of thinking.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome]

Why did you do the "none" thing?

[mellowtigger]

The others were formally against major police changes (effectively, send police to an HR training class then things will finally be okay), or they misrepresented and fear-mongered the actual effects of the "Yes On 2" ballot proposition (or did both), or they tried really hard to suggest those things without writing them down explicitly. Within my ward, Ellison was the only candidate who maintained the idea that police won't reform themselves, so we have to make substantive changes for them. Basically, on that topic it was either status quo or Ellison.

Edit: Oh, so to answer your question, there were no candidates that I wanted to represent my interests on the city government council. I voted. I voted "No confidence" in this crop of politicians.

[bitterlawngnome]

Does that actually get counted in any way in the US? in Canada that would just be a "spoiled ballot" and discarded.

[mellowtigger]

Interesting. I'm looking through the Minneapolis municipal code. I find these two definitions relevant:
"An overvote occurs when a voter ranks more than one (1) candidate at the same ranking.
Partially defective ballot means a ballot that is defective to the extent that the election judges are unable to determine the voter's intent with respect to the office being counted."

176.60.c.2 says:
"When a skipped ranking, overvote or repeat candidate ranking is encountered on a ballot, that ballot shall count towards the highest continuing ranking that is not a skipped ranking, an overvote or repeat candidate ranking."

So, I think that if they interpreted my 2nd and 3rd choice votes of the text string "none" to be overvotes where my intention is quite clear, then they would use my ballot's 1st choice vote of "none" as the only valid selection. So... I think I correctly filled it for my intentions. It seems unwise to leave any field blank, since a corrupt voting official with my ballot in their hand could theoretically add their own choices to the list. (Presumably the ballot checking machine into which we feed our ballots before any other human touches it would track metadata that would notify of such changes. But I really have no idea what that machine actually does.)

P.S. I see nothing about a candidate name not being a living human. Apparently that oversight is how animals sometimes get elected to govt office. I could've written "Bugs Bunny" to the same effect.

[bitterlawngnome]

It doesn't sound like they expected anyone to vote "none of the above" :)

[mellowtigger]

Addendum: Details are out about the vote here in Ward 5 that re-elected my current councilmember.

"Jeremiah Ellison, a popular progressive incumbent in north Minneapolis, won re-election to the city council seat in Ward 5 as the only candidate in the north-side ward who supported the public safety charter amendment. He faced a close race against Kristel Porter and won 93 more votes in the final round of balloting."
https://sahanjournal.com/democracy-politics/minneapolis-city-council-election-2021-results/

He received only 38% of the vote after all 3 rounds were counted, winning by 93 votes. This is maybe all of the limits of ranked choice voting in a single contest? Clearly my area of the warzone is just as conflicted as I am about our representation.

[mrdreamjeans]

I had a very different take on the election. We elected Mike Rainville as our council person. As you know, I live in a 62+ community. The language of "defund the police" was punished. You can't disband a police department without having the creation of something to replace it fully fleshed out and ready to go. My former council person, Steve Fletcher, who embraced this ridiculous phrase, received no votes in my building. He was asked to speak at our building and his campaign didn't get back to my neighbor who requested he come. (We wanted to give him an opportunity to explain/defend his actions.)

The only part of the election that didn't go the way I wanted was passing of the rent control measure. It will create a big mess. I lived in NYC and have friends who have been in their apartments since the 1970's. Yes, they're paying $300/month for their apt 40+ years later; but their buildings are a time warp. No improvements or changes. What's the incentive for landlords? St Paul's rent control measure capping increases at 3% per year was much more sensible.

[mellowtigger]

I agree that the language permits people to believe their own imagined worst-case scenario, even though it is specifically not a logical outcome of the written proposal. The city was as explicit as they could be that state law requires licensed officers for some things, so clearly the police weren't going to be eliminated. It's much the same problem facing national efforts to reduce military spending. It seems impossible to broach the subject without creating visceral alarmist reactions. :( It remains to be seen how "status quo" is going to address the problems that gave us 2020. That ball is entirely in Frey's court now.

Yeah, I am not nearly as well read on rent control histories and variations. I voted FOR Prop3, but not because I was committed to the specific wording of the proposal. I'd expect the exact nature of it to change in coming years as it's fine tuned. Keep an eye out for future ballot measures that will help, I guess? :)

[mrdreamjeans]

The rent control measure will be in the hands of the city council. I trust Mayor Frey and future mayors to do a better job thanthan I do the City Council and future city councils.

I am one of those dinosaurs - a Moderate Democrat.