Subject: Re: [EL] 70% of 2008 pres primary voters didn't vote for Obama
From: Larry Levine
Date: 11/12/2010, 12:59 PM
To: "richardwinger@yahoo.com" <richardwinger@yahoo.com>, Lloyd Mayer <lmayer@nd.edu>, Election Law <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>

We keep trying new things in quest of perfection, which in the Democratic process most likely doesn't exist. California's Primary Election for Attorney General produced a situation in which the leading Democrat came close to getting fewer votes than the second place Republican. Had that happened under the top two system we would have had only Republicans running for what may be the second most important office in the state. It happened because there were six viable Democratic candidates splitting the vote and only two viable Republicans. When I pointed this out, several "top two" supporters told me the Democrats would need to be more careful in the future so they didn't split the vote so widely. That sounds like a call for someone with enough clout in a back room to muscle people out of running in order to reduce the size of the field. Great solution, what?
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Winger
To: Lloyd Mayer ; Election Law ; Larry Levine
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 12:51 PM
Subject: 70% of 2008 pres primary voters didn't vote for Obama

In the 2008 presidential primaries, 70.0% of the voters voted for someone other than Barack Obama.  Does that scandize anyone?  That's just the way it is (in the first round in any system) when there are lots of candidates.

--- On Fri, 11/12/10, Larry Levine <larrylevine@earthlink.net> wrote:

From: Larry Levine <larrylevine@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [EL] FW: Oakland Mayoral Race
To: "Lloyd Mayer" <lmayer@nd.edu>, "Election Law" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Date: Friday, November 12, 2010, 12:17 PM

Wow. What a mandate for leadership. 76% of the voters select someone else as their first choice to be mayor and the candidate with 24% gets the office. New take on old quote: it may not be the best form of government, but we keep looking for ways to make it worse.
Larry
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 5:06 AM
Subject: [EL] FW: Oakland Mayoral Race

The story below, sent to me by one of Election Law students, may be of interest:


The Oakland mayoral race was finally resolved yesterday and it seems the star of the show is Oakland's ranked voting process:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/10/MNKV1GADKC.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea


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