LOS ANGELES MAY VOTE FOR CHANGE INSTANT RUNOFFS, NEW DATES SOME PROPOSALS FOR COMBATING LOW TURNOUT.Byline: KERRY CAVANAUGH Staff Writer To entice Angelenos back to the polls after record-low turnouts in recent years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time city is mulling a host of changes, including new election dates, more mail-in voting and instant runoff voting Runoff voting can refer to:
In this year's elections, 10 percent of registered voters participated in the March primary and 7 percent turned out for the May general election. The reason? In a hearing Wednesday, voter education groups cited voter fatigue In politics, voter fatigue is the apathy that the electorate can experience when they are required to vote too often. It is often used as a criticism of the direct democracy system, in which voters are constantly asked to decide on policy via referendums. from too many elections, complicated initiatives, language barriers, negative campaigning Negative campaigning is trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies. , lack of interest in local races and a growing belief that voting doesn't matter. "We really need to bring back what the importance is of local elections," said Jimmy Valentine with the African American African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. Voter Registration Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens to check in with some central registry before being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to register is known as a voter registration drive. Centralized/compulsory vs. , Education and Participation Program. "Your council members, your school board members, those are the ones that figure in your daily lives in your community." One proposal to increase voter turnout -- or at least reduce voter fatigue -- is instant runoff voting. The system, now used in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , allows voters to rank the candidates in order of preference. To determine the winner, officials tally first-choice candidates. If a candidate has a majority, he or she wins. If there is no majority, the last place candidate is eliminated and ballots that listed the candidate as the first choice are recounted using the second choice. That elimination and recount process is continued until a candidate gets a majority of votes. Supporters said instant runoff voting would be cheaper since there's only one election and it could increase participation, since the number of voters tends to decrease in local elections between the primary and final election. Councilman Jose Huizar said he began pushing instant runoff voting after the last election when he went to vote for the community college board trustee runoff, and was told only two other people (beside him and his wife) had voted. "I asked myself, wasn't I just here a few months ago to vote for this person?" Huizar said. So far the proposal has support from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Antonio Ramon Villaraigosa (born Antonio (Tony) Ramon Villar, Jr. on January 23, 1953) is the mayor of Los Angeles, California. He is the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since Cristobal Aguilar in 1872. and several City Council members, but it's still in the discussion phase and would require changing the city charter and election code. kerry.cavanaugh@dailynews.com (213) 978-0390 |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion