Guest Post: Maine congressional election an important test of ranked-choice voting

Steven Mulroy, University of Memphis

In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, an innovative vote-counting system has had its trial run in a federal election.

No candidate received a majority of the overall vote in the 2018 midterms. Rather, the vote was split between four candidates – a Democrat, a Republican and two left-leaning independent candidates who garnered 8 percent of the votes between them. As a result, Maine used the ranked-choice voting counting process to determine a majority winner.

As a University of Memphis law professor, I’ve studied and published on ranked-choice voting for years, and have a book on it coming out next month. Naturally, I find the inaugural use of ranked-choice voting in a federal election fascinating. I also believe it’s a significant step forward for election reform.

Under ranked-choice voting (more precisely, the variety of ranked-choice voting also known as “instant runoffs”) voters can rank their candidates in order of preference – first, second, third and so on. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes, the system eliminates the candidate with the fewest first-place votes. In Maine, that meant eliminating independent candidate Will Hoar, who got only 2.4 percent of the vote.

The system then redistributes the votes for that eliminated candidate among the remaining candidates based on the second choices indicated by voters. If a candidate now has a majority of votes, that candidate wins. If there’s still no majority winner, the system again eliminates the weakest candidate and transfers the votes as before, with the process continuing until there is a majority winner.

Ranked-choice voting is used in more than 10 U.S. cities. Six states use it for overseas ballots. Australia has used it for over 100 years. The Oscars use it, as does the Heisman Trophy.

Maine voters adopted ranked-choice voting by referendum in 2016. Court challenges and state legislative action delayed implementation, but voters reaffirmed their support in a second referendum in 2018.

Proponents cite a number of advantages of this system. It allows for a majority winner without the trouble, expense and historically low turnout of a runoff. By reducing campaign costs for the runoff, it levels the playing field for lesser-funded candidates, making elections more competitive. It also encourages civil campaigns. Candidates want to be the first choice of their own base, but the second choice of their opponents’ bases. Thus, they’re less willing to risk alienating those voters with attack ads.

Critics say ranked-choice voting is too confusing for voters, or too hard to administer. However, it has been successfully implemented in over 200 local elections in over a dozen U.S. cities over the past 20 years, without mass voter confusion.

Ranked-choice voting also solves the “vote-splitting” problem common to plurality, or “first past the post” systems, where a candidate can win with less than 50 percent as long as he gets more votes than other candidates. If too many candidates who reflect the majority’s view run, they will split that vote. That allows a candidate with 40 percent of the vote to win – even though 60 percent of the voters would say, “anybody but him.” Maine elected controversial Gov. Paul LePage with only 37 percent of the vote. During that election, liberal voters were split between a Democrat and a left-leaning third-party candidate.

A similar dynamic occurred in Maine during the midterms. Two left-leaning independent candidates, Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar, got 5.8 percent and 2.4 percent of the vote respectfully, enough to deny both the Democratic and Republican candidate a majority.

Democratic nominee Golden ultimately won under ranked-choice voting. Many liberals who voted for the independent candidates ranked him second. As a result, this was the first time a Maine incumbent lost in over 100 years - demonstrating the rank-choice voting proponents’ claim that the system makes elections more competitive.

Fearing precisely that dynamic, Republican Poliquin who lost under rank choice voting filed a lawsuit challenging the process. A judge rejected his request for a temporary injunction blocking the ranked-choice counting process, but the underlying legal challenge continues.

The lawsuit alleges that anything other than a plurality election for the U.S. House violates the Constitution and federal civil rights statutes. But nothing in the text of the Constitution requires a plurality-only election for the U.S. House. The cases cited in the complaint merely say states are allowed to permit plurality elections, not that they must require them. Indeed, the Elections Clause of the Constitution provides that each state can “prescribe” the “Manner of holding Elections for … Representatives.” That’s how other states can and do require congressional candidates to win with a majority, using separate runoff elections where necessary

Moreover, this lawsuit is probably filed too late. The proper time to raise these issues would have been before the election.

For these reasons, I think the legal challenge will fail, and we will see, for the first time in U.S. history, a congressional race decided using this innovative new system.

Steven Mulroy, Law Professor in Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Election Law, University of Memphis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

From the Archives: 2013 Charlottesville voters may have historic election for constitutional posts

2013 Charlottesville voters may have historic election for constitutional posts
February 5, 2013 2:06 PM MST

What was so special about 1969?

A recent announcement by Lee Richards that he is retiring as Charlottesville's Commissioner of the Revenue after 20 years in that office raises the possibility that there could be a contested election for that job for the first time in many years.

Forty-four years, as it happens.

The first and last time that all five constitutional offices in Charlottesville were contested was 1969, which was also the first time that Virginia voters elected a Republican as governor (Linwood Holton).

It appears that Charlottesville Republicans were unusually well-organized in 1969, since the local party was able to recruit challengers for Commonwealth's Attorney, City Treasurer, Commissioner of the Revenue, City Sergeant (apparently the equivalent of today's Sheriff), and Clerk of the Corporation Court (apparently the equivalent of today's Clerk of the Circuit Court).

According to a front-page note in the Daily Progress of November 6, 1969, “Charlottesville, in a Democratic surge in contrast to its neighbor counties, re-elect[ed] all five constitutional officers over their first GOP challenge.”

Pensioners
There is no voter in Charlottesville younger than 65 years of age who has ever faced a general-election choice for Commissioner of Revenue or Treasurer.

As previously reported by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, an April 2 special election for City Treasurer will be the first contest for that office since November 1969. In that case, independent candidate John Pfaltz is challenging incumbent Democrat Jason Vandever, who succeeded Jennifer J. Brown after she retired for health reasons in October 2012. Brown was first elected on the same ticket as Lee Richards in 1993 and, like Richards, never faced a general-election opponent.

Richards succeeded Ora Maupin, a 17-year incumbent in 1969, retired after the 1993 election with a total of 38 years in office. Maupin had run unopposed in 1965 and in each subsequent election from 1973 through 1989. (A search through city election records found that those from before 1965 are incomplete.)

Maupin's 1969 Republican challenger was Charlotte Frame, described by the Daily Progress as a “teacher of exercise and crafts for the Charlottesville Department of Recreation.”

Two potential candidates have indicated their interest in seeking he Democratic party's nomination for Commissioner of Revenue in the June 11 party primary, Jonathan Stevens and Todd Divers, although neither has filed official candidacy papers. No Republican or independent candidates for the post have so far emerged.

The filing deadline for Democratic primary candidates is 5:00 p.m. on March 28; other candidates have until 7:00 p.m. of primary day, June 11, to get their names on the general election ballot.



Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 5, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: After the census: GMU political scientist Michael McDonald forecasts Virginia's 2011 redistricting

After the census: GMU political scientist Michael McDonald forecasts Virginia's 2011 redistricting
September 4, 2010 12:47 PM MST

The 2010 census was just the first stage in a process that will lead to the redesign of legislative districts all across the United States over the next two years. Districts for the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures, city councils, county boards of supervisors, and school boards will all be affected.

Michael P. McDonald

In Virginia, the redistricting process is accelerated because it is one of only four states that hold their state legislative elections in odd-numbered years.

George Mason University political scientist Michael P. McDonald is an expert on reapportionment and redistricting. He has served as a consultant on redistricting issues, sometimes “helping jurisdictions produce redistricting plans that are in conformance with federal and state criteria,” sometimes serving as an expert witness in lawsuits on behalf of either the plaintiff or the defendant, “defending or challenging whether or not a redistricting plan is legal.”

After McDonald spoke to local election officials from across the Commonwealth at the State Board of Elections’ annual Election Uniformity Workshop, McDonald answered questions from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about what Virginia voters can look forward to in the coming months.

Historical First
For the first time in Virginia history, redistricting in 2011 will be done by a General Assembly in which the House of Delegates is controlled by Republicans and the state Senate is controlled by Democrats. After the 1990 census, both houses were controlled by Democrats, and after the 2000 census, both houses had Republican majorities.

“How it’s played out in other states,” McDonald explained, “is that one chamber will draw its districts, the other chamber will draw its districts, and then the two will do a logroll,” in which each chamber approves the other’s proposal. In effect, McDonald said, “you will have two different partisan gerrymanders, one for each chamber.”

Virginia differs slightly from other states, however.

“The wrinkle that we have in Virginia,” McDonald pointed out, “is that the governor can amend legislation.” As a result, “there’s a little bit of concern on the Democratic side” that “even if the House passes their version of the Senate plan” the governor might not “keep his hands off of it.”

There is some discussion, McDonald said, that “the governor may form a commission or a committee of some sort to help assist him in evaluating the redistricting plans that come out of the legislature.” Such a commission, he explained, “may play a mediating role there.”

Time Constraints
Given how fast the state legislative elections are approaching (in November 2011), there is some concern about whether the General Assembly can pass a redistricting plan in time to meet the needs of the electoral calendar.

“Plenty of other states have done it,” McDonald said. “We’ve done it in the past in Virginia.”

Can the process be completed in time?

“Presumptively, yes, the answer should be yes, that we can do it in time,” McDonald noted, also pointing out that “if it is not done in time,” federal courts will intervene.

“That’s one thing that the voters of Virginia can know to be true,” he said, “that the federal courts will step in if the state government can’t produce a redistricting plan.”

The courts, he added, “will basically draw their own map or they will accept a map that was not considered during the legislative process.”


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 4, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 31, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting

“Every day you see the same message: ‘get out the vote, get out the vote, get out the vote,’” says philosophy professor Jason Brennan.

“What if all the sentiments underlying that were just wrong?” he asks. What if they “could be shown to be wrong pretty easily?”

According to Brennan, his new book, The Ethics of Voting, shows those underlying sentiments to be, in fact, wrong.

Brennan, an assistant professor of business and philosophy at Georgetown University, summarized his book at a Cato Institute forum on July 21. After his presentation, he spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about what motivated him to write The Ethics of Voting, how the book has been received by academics, and his new research on private behavior and the common good.

Brennan has long been interested in the topic of the ethics of voting.

Is voting special?

“Growing up,” he said, “I kept hearing, over and over again, the American civic religion [says] that voting is special, that political participation is special, that serving in the military makes you an especially good person.”

These claims were not satisfying to Brennan, he explained.

“I never found myself gripped by that,” he said. “I always wondered: What were the grounds underlying that? Why did people believe it?”

He also discovered, he continued, that “at the same time, there’s a kind of interesting philosophical question about what you should do in situations where we as a group are doing something bad but that your individual input doesn’t make a difference. That happens a lot in politics.”

Those two different but related things brought him to this topic.

Is voting rational?

He had read some of the literature about voter behavior but George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan’s 2008 book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, provided extra stimulus to write his own book.

“After reading that, I asked myself, suppose he’s right that voters are irrational. What does that mean about what they should do?”

The answer is not simple, he said. One cannot simply say, “Well, if they’re rational they shouldn’t vote, because individual votes don’t make a difference.” Instead, “it’s actually a real philosophical puzzle as to why it would even matter at all [with regard to] what an individual does and why they should vote well or not.”

Caplan’s book, Brennan said, was “like the last straw” in how it “pushed me over the edge to have to write something more about the philosophy behind” the ethics of voting.

Reaction from scholars

Brennan has received feedback from other academic philosophers, as well as from political scientists. Most of it has been positive.

Jason Brennan at Cato Institute, July 2011

The reaction he has had from philosophers, he said, “has been overwhelmingly very positive. Even if they disagree with the conclusions -- and many of them do -- what they’ve tended to like about it is that it takes on common sense. What it does is start with rather simple, plausible premises and leads to counterintuitive results. Philosophers tend to like that.”

Moreover, he added, “what a lot of philosophers have recognized, too, is that there are just a lot of unfounded assumptions about how politics works and what we should do. At the very least, I’m being a devil’s advocate in challenging” those assumptions, and that challenge makes philosophers “recognize that common sense [claims] about voting need to be justified, if they are justified” at all.

The reaction of political scientists, he said, “has largely been the same,” but faculty in political science departments who do political theory, “which is sort of philosophy but done in political science,” have a tendency “to be more skeptical because they tend to have a much more strongly emotional attachment to democracy than philosophers do.”

Private behavior as a public good

Brennan is now conducting new research on how private behavior contributes to the public good, something “that ended up being a major premise even in this book.”

He explained that “we can express civic virtue anywhere: by running a good business that helps people [and] makes them richer, by coming up with inventions, by making art, and so on.”

All these things, he said, help “promote the common good. They’re doing as much good as politics is doing, perhaps even more.”

The practical effect of this for individuals is that, “if you’re a person who is publicly spirited and you want to promote the common good, that doesn’t mean you have to get out of the market and go to the forum,” Brennan explained. “It might instead mean you should stay in the market and work there.”

Giving two prominent examples, Professor Brennan pointed out that “Thomas Edison did a lot more for us with his inventions than he ever would have done as a voter. Michelangelo did a lot more with his art than he ever would have done as a voter.”

He concluded by noting that “private civil society is really important for promoting the common good. If civic virtue is about promoting the common good, then private civil society might be the way to do it.”

Brennan wrote The Ethics of Voting while he taught at Brown University; it was published in April by Princeton University Press.

From the Archives: Former NM Governor Gary Johnson talks about shutdown, surveillance, and Sarvis

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on October 25, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Former NM Governor Gary Johnson talks about shutdown, surveillance, and Sarvis

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson will be one of the primary speakers on Saturday, October 26, at a rally at the foot of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to protest the expanding surveillance state.

Known as “Stop Watching Us,” the rally at the Capitol Reflecting Pool will also feature such speakers as Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, gay-rights advocate Dan Choi, NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, former Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, national security analyst and author Bruce Schneier, and social critic Naomi Wolf. A video in support of the rally features celebrities John Cusack, Phil Donahue, Daniel Ellsberg, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Oliver Stone, and Wil Wheaton.

Protesters are gathering from around the country, with buses carrying them from far-flung places like New York City, Philadelphia, and Charlottesville, Virginia.

'Outrageous'

Two nights before the rally, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner spoke to Gary Johnson (who was also the 2012 Libertarian nominee for U.S. President) at a fundraising event for his non-profit organization, Our America Initiative.

In the course of the interview, Johnson expressed his outrage at the growth of government surveillance of American citizens and violations of privacy and constitutional protections.

“It's outrageous,” Johnson said, “that 125 billion cell phone conversations have been recorded or are authorized” to be archived for future probes.

“When you find out that a federal judge has said that it's OK for the [National Security Agency] to gather information from 113 million Verizon users,” he complained, “to me that is not the Fourth Amendment, to me that is not due process.”

Instead, it is “some sort of blanket 'government-knows-best'” policy that leads to the government “search[ing] your personal archives” and doing whatever they like with it, without constraints.

“This has got to stop,” Johnson said. “This really has to stop.”

'Chill out'
On another topic of recent concern, the temporary shutdown of the federal government that may recur in the near future, the 2012 presidential candidate explained what he would have said to the nation under those circumstances, if he were president.

“Here is what would have been coming out of my mouth,” Johnson said:

“'Chill out, citizens of the United States. I'm the executive. We're going to pay the bills. There's revenue coming in. We're going to pay the interest on our debt. Social Security checks are going to go out. I'm going to prioritize what's important in government and get it the funding and we'll manage our way through this.'”

Johnson said that his personal philosophy – not being a social conservative while also being “arguably the most fiscally conservative governor” in U.S. history – helped him reach across the aisle and work with a Democratic legislature as a Republican governor.

“I'm going to argue that” a libertarian philosophy like that “is reflective of most Americans and in a state that's two to one Democrat, [like] New Mexico, that resonates” with voters, he said.

Advice to Robert Sarvis
He offered his own experience as advice to Robert Sarvis, the Libertarian candidate for governor of Virginia this year.

If Sarvis is elected governor, Johnson said, he “can succeed on looking at issues first and politics last.”

That was “my promise running for governor of New Mexico, and I think I've fulfilled it,” Johnson said, emphasizing the slogan, “Politics last, issues first.”

In addition to speaking at Saturday afternoon's “Stop Watching Us” rally in Washington, Johnson and Sarvis will make a joint appearance that evening at the IOTA Club, 2832 Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.

Suggested Links


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From the Archives: UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on March 19, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee

James Ceaser teaches politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and is co-author (with Andrew Busch and John J. Pitney, Jr.) of the recent book, After Hope and Change: The 2012 Elections and American Politics.

Ceaser spoke about After Hope and Change at the 2014 Virginia Festival of the Book on March 19, participating in a panel discussion on “The United States in the World” with political scientist Stephen Farnsworth, historian Robert Rakove, and former ambassador Francis Rooney. The panel was moderated by Bob Gibson, a former political reporter with The Daily Progress.

After the panel, Professor Ceaser answered questions from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about lessons learned in the 2012 presidential campaign, the outlook for factional divisions in the Republican Party, and who the GOP presidential nominee might be in 2016.

'A different era'
In summing up his book, he explained that “After Hope and Change makes a comparison between the 2008 election, where 'hope and change' was the theme, where enthusiasm and uplift accompanied Obama's election, and 2012, which was kind of a letdown, [with] no inspiring theme [and] little enthusiasm.”

Those differences, he said, were recognized “by the Obama people themselves. They were contentious to win but” they knew that the electorate "had moved into a different era.”

The defining figure “was no longer the Obama of 2008,” Ceaser explained. “It was Obama elected in 2012 as a politician, not a cultural or moral leader of the whole world.”

One of the lessons learned from the 2012 election is that “the Democratic Party, as a base, has a slight advantage over the Republican Party,” he said. “I think that was confirmed. The Republicans went in thinking this was an election they could and should win, and they lost it.”

Swingers
Ceaser cautioned, however, that there is “still enough of a swing group in the American population that any election can swing to either party, given how people process the events under which they live. We may be seeing in 2014 a swing back to the Republicans. Who knows what will happen in 2016?”

What 2012 teaches us, he noted, is that the Democratic base has a slight advantage over the GOP but “enough people who still swing to make every election a struggle, the outcome of which is unknown.”

Divided Republicans
Factional differences between libertarians and social conservatives have been “part of the Republican Party for a long time,” Ceaser pointed out. “It all goes under the label of conservative, but you pick up the hood and you see that conservatism means different things to different people – hence conflict.”

This has historically “been the way things are,” he said, “but basically the Republicans have been able to come together sufficiently because of their opposition to the Democratic project to hang together, more or less.”

He warned, however, that people should not “expect the Republican party to be holding hands as various pieces are opposed on many issues.”

He pointed out that “perhaps the greatest division within the Republican party has been on foreign affairs,” and that it is significant that “the libertarian position [is] closer to a sort of softer isolationism than the rest of the party.”

GOP's 2016 nominee
Within this context, Ceaser has some general predictions about what to expect during the 2016 GOP presidential nomination contest.

“The libertarian candidate will do well, that is, maybe even have a plurality over a spread field but in the end will not have enough support to achieve the nomination, he said.

Ceaser said the 2016 candidate will not be someone who “will be very surprising,” but rather will be someone like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, or Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

The nominee, he predicted, will be “someone who has some elements of respect for libertarians but is not himself libertarian.”

What about Rand Paul?
If Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is a candidate, he added, “he'll do quite well.”

Expressing some admiration for Paul's political skills, Ceaser offered that “it's one of the more amazing stories of American politics: This young senator from Kentucky, whose father was regarded in many ways as an extremist, [yet] Rand Paul has been able to take this movement and make it into something a lot larger in a very short period of time and acquire status as a significant player in the Republican party.”

Rand Paul, he concluded, is a “potential very strong candidate, even though I don't think he'll be over the top in 2016.”

The complete audio version of this interview will soon be available as a podcast on Bearing Drift radio, “The Score.”

SUGGESTED LINKS

Former U.S. ambassador to Vatican talks diplomacy at Virginia book festival
Sorensen Institute chief Bob Gibson assesses the state of news media in Virginia
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Immigration laws may make United States poorer, says economist Daniel Lin
Attorney Bruce Fein discusses NSA lawsuit, DHS spying, and FCC intrusions

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/uva-political-scientist-analyzes-2012-election-looks-toward-2016-gop-nominee

From the Archives: Charlottesville write-in voters honor former candidates, South Park characters

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 4, 2015, following Virginia's general election.  The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Charlottesville write-in voters honor former candidates, South Park characters

Local radio hosts Rob Schilling and Joe Thomas proved they have followers by winning dozens of write-in votes on Election Day in Charlottesville. The two talkers got write-ins in all five contests that were on the ballot.

The November 3 election featured uncontested races for state Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates, five candidates competing for three seats the Charlottesville City Council, four candidates for four seats on the city's School Board, and three candidates for two open positions on the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water Conservation District.

According to unofficial write-in totals released by the Charlottesville Electoral Board, WINA-AM's Schilling, a former City Council member who was elected as a Republican in 2002, got seven votes in that contest while WCHV-AM & FM's Thomas got nine. Schilling also got four votes for state Senate in the 25th District (which was won by incumbent R. Creigh Deeds with 90.5 percent of the vote) while Thomas got six. In the House of Delegates race won by House Minority Leader David Toscano (with 89.95 percent), Schilling had six votes and Thomas had three.

Thomas outpaced Schilling in the write-in votes for School Board by six votes to one. Schilling had two votes for Soil and Water District Director to Thomas' one vote.

Thomas Jefferson remembered
It is often said that in the Charlottesville area, founding father Thomas Jefferson is often spoken of “as if he just left the room,” and the Sage of Monticello was written in by voters in every contest on Tuesday: four votes for state Senate, four votes for his former seat in the House of Delegates, and one vote each for City Council, School Board, and -- in the district named for him -- Soil and Water District Director.

City Council member Dede Smith, who failed to win renomination by the local Democratic party in the June primary, received 121 votes from supporters who wanted to see her retain her seat. She also received three votes each for School Board and Soil and Water District Director.

Previous City Council candidates Brandon Collins, Mike Farruggio, and Charles “Buddy” Weber received four, three, and four votes, respectively, in that contest.

Weber and Farruggio both received one vote in the race for state Senate, as did T. J. Aldous, who was the Republican nominee for that office in 2011. Former Charlottesville City Council candidate Jon Bright got nine votes in that contest as well as two in the 57th District House of Delegates race. Tom McCrystal, who was the Republican nominee for that delegate seat in 2005, received two votes.

Sabato, Lark, and Parker
Local celebrities who received votes for state Senate included political scientist Larry J. Sabato , former national chairman of the Libertarian Party James W. Lark, former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate James Webb, 2016 Fifth District congressional candidate Jane Dittmar, and 2015 Republican City Council candidate Anson Parker. So did Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner Rick Sincere.

Former independent candidate for the House of Delegates Robert Brandon Smith III and local GOP activist James Neale both received votes in the 57th District delegate race.

Lena Seville, who ran for the Democratic City Council nomination in the June primary, received two votes in that contest, while Peter Kleeman, who ran for that office as an independent in 2007.

Willa Neale, who chose not to run for another term on the School Board, received two write-in votes.

South Park fans may be pleased to learn that Kyle Brofloski, Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick all received votes for School Board, as did PC Principal and “Mr. Garrison.”

Suggested Links

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UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee
Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/charlottesville-write-voters-honor-former-candidates-south-park-characters

I endorse Governor Gary Johnson for President in 2016

I have been publishing this and other blogs for more than eleven years, in addition to contributing to Examiner.com, Bearing Drift, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch op-ed page over that period.  I've spent countless hours discussing politics as a guest commentator (and guest host) on local radio and TV programs.

Throughout that time, I have refrained from endorsing candidates for public office at any level.  To be fair, I have written nice things about candidates I like and snarky things about candidates I dislike, but I have never issued an explicit endorsement.

This year, that changes.  This year, the stakes are too high.

In 2016, with Hillary Clinton on the left and Donald Trump on the alt-right, I am morally bound to oppose them both.  Yet I am not content to vote for the least of three (or four) evils.  Instead, I can enthusiastically endorse the most qualified of any of the candidates for president who will appear on the ballots of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

The letter below was released earlier today on Facebook.  I felt compelled to write it because of the risk that my fellow Libertarians may grasp defeat and despair from the jaws of opportunity and success.

Governor Gary Johnson represents the best hope for a Libertarian ascendancy in the 45-year history of the party.  Gary Johnson will have my vote in Orlando on May 29, and my vote in Virginia on November 8.

I urge my compatriots in the LPVA to do the same at the convention next weekend, and my fellow citizens to do the same in the general election.

May 20, 2016

To my fellow delegates to the 2016 Libertarian National Convention
and to all American voters:

I am firm in my support of Governor Gary Johnson and endorse him for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination without reservation.

To be honest, I have known Governor Johnson for six years and he is the warmest, most unassuming politician I've ever met - - and I've met many, including every Virginia governor since Chuck Robb and nearly every candidate for Virginia statewide office since at least 2001. He is also among the most intelligent and thoughtful people I know.


You can't ignore the unprecedented flood of positive media attention that Gary has induced. Polls show him winning vote percentages in the double digits, on the cusp of an invitation to the debates this fall, with the minimum potential of doubling or tripling the LP's record-high totals of 2012. If any other candidate wins the nomination on May 29, all of that will be dust in the wind, and the party's presidential vote totals will descend to Michael Badnarik - - or worse, Dave Bergland - - levels. The added advantages of drawing new and energetic members into the party, bringing libertarian ideas to a wider audience, and changing the terms of the country’s policy discussions are incalculable.

Disaffected Republicans who vow #NeverTrump will not cast their votes for another erratic businessman with no political foundation, nor for a never-elected neophyte with a thin résumé. They are looking for someone with solid credentials and a proven track record. Similarly, disaffected Democrats who prefer Bernie Sanders’ misdirected idealism to a Clinton dynasty will find Gary’s clear vision of fiscal prudence and social progress compelling.

Gary Johnson is a credible, pragmatic, experienced chief executive with a libertarian core. I can't imagine a better combination as the LP's standard bearer or as President of the United States.

-- Rick Sincere
   Chairman, Libertarian Party of Virginia, 1991-1996
   Cofounder and President, Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty
   Former Chairman, City of Charlottesville Electoral Board

I hope to see many of my readers in Orlando and I look forward to a vigorous, civil debate about the nominations and the issues.

Has It Been Ten Years Already?

Today marks the tenth anniversary of my blogging life.

Starting here on December 17, 2004, this writing platform has expanded to include Book Reviews by Rick Sincere, Where Are the Copy Editors?, Bearing Drift, and the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, with a few smaller projects along the way. The orbit of this blog includes three YouTube channels (see the sidebar to your left).

By coincidence, I produced several interesting blog posts on December 17, without making explicit reference to its being a blogoversary.

By far the most popular of these has been one from last year, headlined "Obligatory Dylan Sprouse Nude Selfie Blog Post." To date, that report on the former Disney Channel star's naked mishap and his deft handling of it has been viewed 4,723 times, which is a pretty good rate.  It's remarkable how interested people are in seeing a celebrity's genitals.

On this date in 2007, I noted that that was the ten-year anniversary of the blog itself.

Quoting Kai Ryssdal, the host of the public radio show, Marketplace, at the time:

The blog is celebrating an anniversary today. Ten years ago a guy named Jorn Barger coined the term "weblog" to describe his website Robot Wisdom. It was shortened to "blog" two years later by someobody else.

Back then only about 23 websites were properly considered blogs. These days, whether you write them or read them, blogs are a pretty common pursuit.

Estimates are that 120,000 new ones are created everyday. No word, though, on how many are actually read.

There are a lot more than 23 "weblogs" today, that's for sure.

The most-viewed post on this blog was "Snowpocalypse!," a collection of photos from the big snowstorm of December 2009 -- published, coincidentally, on December 18.

The second most popular post is an oddity: "Shirtless and Circumcised," which traces strange search terms that lead readers to this blog.

Other blogoversary posts have included "Christmas Carols: The Odd and the New," a review of the Daily Telegraph Book of Carols, also from 2009.

On December 17, 2006, I took the Washington Post ombudsman to task for sloppy writing in "Small Pool."

Two years later, I reported on the progress of the breathtaking recount in the razor-thin race between then-Congressman Virgil Goode (R-Rocky Mount) and future former Congressman Tom Perriello (D-Ivy) in "Fifth District Recount Continues."

Only once, nine years ago, in 2005, did I make an explicit commemoration of the start of my blogging in "Anniversary Waltz." In fact, for a long time, I thought my blog-start was on December 22. I had to look up the correct date as I prepared for this post!

Let's hope I have at least ten more good years of filling this space with compelling words arranged in sentences and paragraphs.

Cheers!

Fuzzy memories of elections past

An odd letter made its way into the Charlottesville Daily Progress today.

The letter, submitted by Albemarle County resident Hubert Hawkins, makes an argument about retaining Virginia's tradition of open primary elections, in which any voter, regardless of party affiliation, can participate in either the Democratic or Republican party's primaries for nominating candidates for the general election. (Virginia voters do not register by political party, so "party affiliation" is determined by the voter's own individual preference and observations of primary voting patterns and recorded financial contributions to candidates and party committees.)

Mr. Hawkins tries to undergird his point by reminiscing about the only time he crossed party lines to vote in a Republican primary:

Years ago when Oliver North opposed John Warner in the Republican primary, I was a Democrat who never sought to meddle in Republican elections. But I knew that my senator was going to be a Republican, no matter who won the party’s primary, because my party had no competitive candidate. So I voted in the Republican primary, fearful of what outcome might ensue from the victory of such a controversial character as North.

I have never regretted my vote, and I have always been grateful that Virginia law allows all voters to participate realistically in the future of the state and nation without restrictions on what party they may have belonged to.

The problem with that example? Oliver North never challenged John Warner for the Republican Party of Virginia's nomination for the U.S. Senate, in a primary or through any other method.

John Warner, Larry Sabato, and Mark Warner at UVA, June 2014

John Warner ran unopposed for the GOP nomination in 1990, and he had no Democratic opponent in the November election. Nancy Spannaus, a devotee of political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, was the only other candidate on the ballot that year. Warner beat Spannaus by sweeping every county and city and earning 80.9 percent of the vote.  The absence of a Democratic general election candidate that year may be what Mr. Hawkins is trying to recall in his letter to the editor.

In 1994, Oliver North sought the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate and winning it in a convention against former Reagan administration official James C. Miller III. There was no primary election that year, and John Warner was not on the ballot. North went on to lose the general election to incumbent Democrat Chuck Robb in a three-way race that also included independent J. Marshall Coleman. That election was the subject of a popular documentary film, A Perfect Candidate.

In 1996, Jim Miller challenged John Warner for the nomination in a primary election but Warner won and went on to face Democrat Mark Warner in the general election.

After serving one term as Virginia''s governor, Mark Warner eventually won John Warner's U.S. Senate seat in 2008, after John Warner decided to retire.  The two of them remain on friendly terms (as seen in this video from earlier this year) and, in fact, John Warner has endorsed Mark Warner's re-election bid this year.

Regardless of what one thinks about the merits of Mr. Hawkins' argument about open primaries, it's important that the person making that argument have his facts straight. For that matter, it is the responsibility of the newspaper's editors to ensure that such factual errors do not make their way into print.

Interviews with 4 Virginia GOP Senate candidates

Senator Mark Warner greets a voter

This weekend in Roanoke, the Republican Party of Virginia will hold a convention whose main order of business will be to nominate a candidate for the U.S. Senate. 

The winner after Saturday's vote will go on to face incumbent Mark Warner (D-Alexandria) in the November general election, and possibly also Libertarian Party nominee Robert Sarvis, who is still collecting petition signatures in anticipation of a June 10 filing deadline.

The four candidates facing off in Roanoke on Saturday, June 7, are Tony DeTora, Ed Gillespie, Shak Hill, and Chuck Moss.

I have interviewed all four candidates -- although my interview with Hill was more than a year ago -- and the interviews have all been posted to Examiner.com and to Bearing Drift's podcast, "The Score."  (Except, that is, for the interview with Shak Hill.  The audio of that interview can be found on Virginia Politics on Demand.)

Here are links to all four interviews and to YouTube videos of the candidates' speeches at the Fifth Congressional District Republican convention, which was held on May 17 at Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville:

"GOP Senate hopeful Tony DeTora favors marijuana law reform, opposes Mark Warner"
Tony DeTora podcast
DeTora speech at Fifth District convention (video)

"GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists"
Ed Gillespie podcast
Gillespie speech at Fifth District convention (video)

"GOP Senate candidate Shak Hill thinks government is 'overreaching'"
Shak Hill podcast
Shak Hill speech at Fifth District convention (video)

"GOP Senate candidate Chuck Moss emphasizes technology issues, outsider status"
Chuck Moss podcast
Chuck Moss speech at Fifth District convention (video)

I will be at the convention this Saturday to report on the results and, I hope, to interview the victorious candidate after the delegates vote. Videos from that event may end up on my YouTube channel, as well.  Watch my Twitter feed for breaking news reports.

My 1991 Interview with Geraldine Ferraro

Hank Stuever's review in Friday's Washington Post of a new Showtime documentary about 1984 Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro reminded me that I once interviewed her.

Rick Sincere interviews Geraldine Ferraro, 1991

The occasion was a Human Rights Campaign Fund (now Human Rights Campaign) fundraising dinner in late 1991. I was a correpondent for Gay Fairfax, a local TV magazine show in Northern Virginia that also appeared on various public-access cable channels around the country. The interview, which was cut away from excerpts of Ferraro's speech that night, was broadcast months later, on February 10, 1992.

At the time, Ferraro was embarking on a campaign to unseat then-Senator Alfonse D'Amato in New York. D'Amato was a Republican who had first been elected in the Reagan landslide of 1980.

As John Peter Olinger later noted about Ferraro's appearance at the HRCF banquet in an undated paper for the Rainbow History Project, "It was striking to watch as the crowd at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in 1992 [sic] cheered wildly as Geraldine Ferraro said she was running against Senator D’Amato and to realize that just six years later that same organization endorsed Senator D’Amato’s re-election."

As it turns out, the former congresswoman did not even win the Democratic primary to face D'Amato in November. She lost that election to New York attorney general Robert Abrams in a crowded field that also included pre-MSNBC Al Sharpton, New York City comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman, and U.S. Representative Robert Mrazek.

My interview was rather short (although, if you watch closely, you can see that some of it must have ended up on the cutting-room floor).  Note the references to Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense for President George H.W. Bush, and the military gay ban, which a little over two years later would become Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, with repeal two decades in the future.

Ferraro also refers to "the gay rights act," which I interpret to mean ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, another bill that has been in Congress for decades without being passed into law.

The first question I posed mentioned a book Ferraro was working on.  She notes that she had deferred finishing it while running for the Senate, but a search on Amazon.com reveals that no book by Ferraro on that topic -- tensions between the First and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution --  was ever published.

Here is a complete transcript, including introductions by Gay Fairfax anchors Beth Goodman and Dave Hughes.

Beth Goodman: Gay Fairfax correspondent Rick Sincere recently got an exclusive interview from Geraldine Ferraro at the 1991 Human Rights Campaign Fund banquet.

Dave Hughes: Miss Ferraro ran for the United States Senate in New York State. Rick asked her about her views on gay and lesbian issues.

Rick Sincere: Welcome to Gay Fairfax.

Geraldine Ferraro: Thank you.

Sincere: And welcome to the Human Rights Campaign Fund annual dinner.

One of the questions I'd like to ask you is about the book you're working on about the conflict between the First Amendment and privacy rights. Could you comment on how that relates to the question of outing and ...

Ferraro: It doesn't. It doesn't. What it is is it's a book on the tension between the first and sixth amendments. The sixth amendment is the right to a fair trial. I'm a former prosecutor and so out of my experiences over the last number of years, I've sat down and really tried to analyze how much of an impact a good deal of publicity has on a person's right to have a fair trial. But to be very honest, I'm not really writing the book anymore. I've put it aside; I'm now running for the United States Senate. That preoccupies all of my time so the book will be put on the back burner for another day. Perhaps after I'm in the Senate a couple of terms.

Sincere: Right. Give it another twelve years or so, you can get back to it. Tell us about your relationship to the gay and lesbian rights movement. You've been a long term, long-time supporter of gay rights and here you are the Human Rights Campaign Fund dinner. What do you think is top on the agenda for the gay and lesbian community?

Ferraro: Well, I think the issue of funding for AIDS research into to move along i think that's probably most immediate problem, I mean there are obviously others, the immigration laws, the gay rights act which is in the Senate and in the House, I'd like to see that moved.

But again, I think, evidently funding and finding a cure for a disease that is just destroying this nation.

Sincere: What do you think about the problem of the military's discrimination against gay men and lesbians? Do you think there's hope for movement in that direction?

Ferraro: I sure hope so. I think Secretary Cheney has a very good opportunity to make some significant rules on the issue now especially in light of the report that just came out that indicates that gays and lesbians have no impact on security, no problem with security. Take a look at what happened during Desert Storm, the number of people who served and served valiantly who are gays and lesbians.

I know Dick Cheney. He was in my class in the Congress. I think he is an honorable man, and I would hope that he would be also a man of conscience and would take a very close look at what's happening in the military.

We're facing some very, very tough times and we need the talents of all of our people. We shouldn't discriminate because of race or gender or sexual orientation or anything else, or religion. So I look forward to being able to talk a little bit tonight about the issue, and I look forward to being able to come down in the Senate and doing something about it.

You can watch Ferraro's speech, my interview, and a musical performance by an a capella group, The Flirtations, here on Gay Fairfax:

Ferraro passed away in 2011 at the age of 75. The new Showtime movie about her is called Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way. It is directed by her daughter, Donna Zaccaro.