Former Lake County States Attorney Chris Giles edged ahead this time in the race for the Lake County Commission GOP nominations, but Giles, Goeman, and Pedersen comprised the top three, just like last time. The Madville Times hazards no predictions based on these results, however: Hagemann has jumped out with yard signs (Dr. Schaff would give him the edge), and Dan Bohl has been out mowing a lot of lawns. Now wouldn't it be something if grass were a voting issue in the GOP primary....
In the Senate GOP primary vote, we should be alarmed that Trent people/animal doctor, obsessed xenophobe, and teller of tall tales Charles Lyonel Gonyo can get any votes, anywhere.
Looking at the semi-rational candidates, Kephart again edged Dykstra. Can Kephart surprise the Republican establishment on Tuesday? Or are his showings in the Madville Times polls just a manifestation of his support among the more liberal thinkers who might find their way to this blog? We'll find out in four days!
I think Goeman had signs out about three weeks ago. Nice to see another candidate put up signs too.
ReplyDeleteI'm hearing a lot of talk of voting for just one candidate to push your fave to the top. Does that work?
Undervoting (I just heard some other cool term for it... anyone know it?) is an interesting strategy. It helps your candidate only so long as not everyone does it.
ReplyDeleteImagine an election with 3 candidates (A, B, and C) vying for 2 seats. Imagine there are 12 voters. Voters 1-4 like A; voters 5-8 like B; voters 9-12 like C. Suppose the voters' preferences for second place are evenly distributed and everyone votes for 2:
Voter:Votes
1:AB
2:AB
3:AC
4:AC
5:BA
6:BA
7:BC
8:BC
9:CA
10:CA
11:CB
12:CB
That's a tie, 8 votes for each candidate. Now, suppose A whispers to her people, "Psst -- vote for me only!" B and C each lose two votes, get 6 total. A still gets 8 votes and wins. Clever!
Ah, but don't get too clever: if B and C catch on and urge their supporters to do the same and everyone undervotes, we're back to a tie.
But the chances of everyone udnervoting are pretty slim. By my calculations, in the last Madison school board election, only 17% of voters marked only one name instead of two.
If you are passionate about just one candidate, then undervoting probably helps your cause (if you're willing to give up a vote you are entitled to). But you might want to look at it from the other direction: what if you like or at least can tolerate most of the candidates but have one guy you just can't stand? Then you'd better use every vote you get, one for your fave, the rest for the people you can tolerate to boost their chances of beating the one real bozo.
Or you could just say, forget the gamesmanship: I'm voting for the two best people, period. Choices, choices!
In a low turnout election, which may be the case at the county level, undervoting actually works if a candidate is really out promoting it privately to his/her friends and supporters and they pass it on. Email campaigns are effective for promoting undervoting or "spike" voting as I've heard it called. In the Lake County race, if 1000 people vote in the repub primary and 200 of them "spike" vote for just one candidate, leaving off the other two choices, it guarantees their person "spikes" up. Dirty, but it must work. That's why the ballot says "you may vote for UP TO three candidates".
ReplyDelete