Politics
Sekou Biddle should withdraw and support Peter Shapiro
Yesterday, DC candidates filed their latest campaign finance reports. In the race to unseat at-large councilmember Vincent Orange, Peter Shapiro raised more than double the amount as his rival Sekou Biddle. To maximize the chances of beating Orange, Biddle should withdraw from the race and throw his support behind Shapiro.
Peter Shapiro and his wife, Julia Wright.
Campaign finance reports demonstrate each campaign's organization and fundraising ability. According to the latest reports, as of yesterday Biddle had $31,615.78 on hand, Shapiro $73,652.94, and Orange $108.705.88. Shapiro more than doubled Biddle's take, in a race that will most certainly come down to money.
It is foolhardy for Biddle to continue his campaign, when staying in the race will most certainly assure that Orange cruises to re-election.
Over the course of the last two months, I have had the opportunity to sit down with both Biddle and Shapiro to discuss their respective campaigns. Biddle, who briefly held the at-large seat before losing in last April's special election, has simply not been able to put together a persuasive campaign.
During Biddle's last attempt, he proved unable to articulate a clear vision for DC and energize voters around his ideas. His campaign was also dragged down by endorsements from most of the DC political establishment at the same time the Sulaimon Brown and Navigator-gate scandals were breaking.
Biddle, to his credit, holds positions that are favorable to most progressives. He would be a solid vote in favor of many things we'd like to see, including stronger ethics and campaign finance rules. Unfortunately for Biddle, his campaign is mired with low fundraising numbers and internal problems. Recently, Biddle announced via email that his campaign manager He also still has not demonstrated a clear vision or solid positions, leaving potential supporters concerned he would repeat the mistakes of the last campaign. These factors, plus his tepid third place finish last April, show that he simply isn't positioned to defeat Orange.
Thankfully, Peter Shapiro provides an equally strong progressive candidacy, combined with fundraising and organizational prowess. Shapiro, who grew up in the District, served on the Prince George's County Council in Maryland before moving back to the District with his wife. Shapiro brings to this race years of experience both as a legislator, but also as an environmental activist and organizer.
Shapiro was tapped to join an ethics task force in Prince George's County, created in the wake of former county executive Jack Johnson's arrest on corruption charges. This experience gives Shapiro credentials for helping restore trust in the DC Council. Presently, Shapiro lives in Ward 4 and runs the Chesapeake Center for Public Leadership.
In a three-way race with 2 progressive candidates, Orange would very likely cruise to victory. While I don't doubt Biddle's commitment to improving the District, he has been unable to build a campaign that can win. It's time for Biddle to put the good of DC ahead of his own ambition, withdraw from the race, and support his fellow progressive.
Note: This is not an official endorsement in this race. Greater Greater Washington is an opinion site, and unless specifically designated as an endorsement, opinions posted here are the opinions of their individual authors and not necessarily of the site's editors or other contributors. We will likely post an official endorsement at a later point in the campaign.Dave Stroup is an online organizer and progressive activist. He enjoys public transit, Democratic politics, and rabble-rousing. 
Comments
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1. IRV, IRV, iRV
2. If not IRV, then one of the progressives should run as an independent and the other as a Democrat and that gives each candidate a chance to make his case to the voters and gives anti-Orangists two chances to beat Orange. Not clear how to decide who gets a first round bye here.
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 1, 2012 12:27 pm
by John on Feb 1, 2012 12:34 pm
by Keith Ivey on Feb 1, 2012 12:39 pm
by ap on Feb 1, 2012 12:41 pm
In a three-way race, Biddle and Shapiro will spend over $100K to lose. In a two-way race, one of them could win. Biddle's had his eyes on this since April 26 of last year, and this is the best he can put together?
by Dave Stroup on Feb 1, 2012 12:55 pm
by Rudi on Feb 1, 2012 1:11 pm
He's been in office long enough now for his critics to be able to mount some sort of concrete talking points against him. Saying that "he's not progressive" HAS to be accounted for in the talking points.
I don't know enough about what Orange hasn't done and this article does little to help this voter out. Beyond arguing that someone should get out for the sake of winning against Orange...
BTW, what is IRV?
by HogWash on Feb 1, 2012 1:28 pm
IRV = Instant Runoff Voting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_Runoff_Voting
by Matt Johnson on Feb 1, 2012 1:32 pm
Thanks!
by HogWash on Feb 1, 2012 2:06 pm
Telling someone to drop out because their cash on hand is lagging months before the election is ineffective and insulting to the candidate.
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 1, 2012 3:08 pm
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 1, 2012 3:21 pm
Otherwise, it's just Einstein-style insanity, as has been the case since home rule was passed.
by Rudi on Feb 1, 2012 3:45 pm
If you don't want your second-choice candidate to win, don't list them as your second choice. Sadly, it is true the system sometimes doesn't fare terribly well with large numbers of candidates, and can lead to surprises in some edge-cases, thanks to the way in which candidates are eliminated.
If we're not ready to try IRV, perhaps we could give Approval Voting a try? Out of all of the alternative voting systems, it's the easiest to explain, and the least subject to surprises. The entire system can be described in a single sentence: Every voter gets to cast votes for as many candidates as they want, and the candidate with the most votes at the end wins.
The biggest downside is that it still encourages a degree of strategic voting, and might favor weak "establishment" candidates, as preferences are not ranked. However, based upon the negative feedback about IRV, this "downside" to approval voting might be a positive thing for DC, as most people want to see the will of the electorate be more accurately represented without rocking the boat too much. I don't think we should complain about a system that might favor moderates.
Simulating our last election, such a system would have probably have elected Biddle, given that most progressives would have cast votes for the candidate most likely to win (Biddle), in addition to Weaver and/or Mara.
Although this isn't an optimal outcome, given that Biddle was widely felt to be a weak candidate, it's a much better reflection of the electorate's intent than the current first-past-the-post system, wherein Vincent Orange won with 28% of the vote. I can guarantee that he number of people who would say "I'm okay having Sekou Biddle as a councilman" is going to be a lot higher than the number of people who would say the same thing about Orange.
Similarly, if we saw Mara or Weaver finish directly behind Biddle in such a system, those numbers would seriously bolster their credibility in the next election if they chose to run again.
It shouldn't even be in dispute that the election of Vincent Orange to the council was a complete and utter failure of DC's electoral system.
by andrew on Feb 1, 2012 3:48 pm
Point is, I wish we could take time to consider all the candidates instead of shooing them away. I start off as a Biddle leaner because what I know of him I basically like. He happens to have the "Native Washingtonian" cred without using it as an issue, because he has real substance and experience to campaign on.
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 1, 2012 4:09 pm
But I also wonder whether you similarly criticize Biddle (or anyone else) had he used his "time" wrt transit and other "progressive" issues as part of why he's running for office.
On another note, I would like to know is what's the difference in fundraising totals which accounts for the 50g personal loan Shapiro gave his own campaign and why you failed to mention that in an article touting his HUUUGER fundraising advantage over Biddle?
Although Biddle would never get my vote, it's not right for you to misrepresent facts about him just to support Shapiro.
Mr. Stroup?
by HogWash on Feb 1, 2012 5:10 pm
Biddle filed a revised OCF report this morning, he now has ~$38k on hand. Still comes up very short of Orange's $108k.
To contrast, at this time last year, Biddle had $53K on hand for the April 26 special. We're supposed to believe that a year later, facing the same foe, he raises LESS and he's supposedly going to do so much better?
by Dave Stroup on Feb 1, 2012 5:18 pm
Since you do have much more information than the rest of us, how much does Shapiro have "on hand" that doesn't consider his personal 50g loan?
by HogWash on Feb 1, 2012 5:27 pm
by HogWash on Feb 1, 2012 5:29 pm
If I recall correctly, Mr Stroup was an adamant supporter of Brian Weavers bid in the first go-round for this seat, even though he had zero chance of winning. I believe that consensus was that Weaver split off enough of the white and wealthy vote to allow Orange to beat Pat Mara.
Ill probably vote for Shapiro anyways because Biddle hasn't shown me anything to make me believe that he'd break the status quo on the council, even if I think he's a decent and moral guy, and well Vincent is Vincent. But to read this article made me audibly chuckle.
(written on the X2, so apologies for grammar and runons.)
by Jim Ef on Feb 1, 2012 6:15 pm
Someone asked me how did we get 3K signatures for Weaver in four weeks in winter, like there was a method or model. I responded saying "find a candidate that people will stand in the freezing cold for."
This is why, in my opinion, Weaver's loss was not a complete loss. When Biddle loses for a second time, that's just a loss. Again.
by Dave Stroup on Feb 1, 2012 6:27 pm
http://www.electology.org/approval-voting-vs-irv
In fact, Approval Voting is generally better with 100% tactical voters than IRV is with 100% sincere voters. Approval Voting also cannot punish you for voting for your sincere favorite candidate, the way IRV can.
Clay Shentrup
The Center for Election Science
San Francisco, CA
by Clay Shentrup on Feb 1, 2012 6:56 pm
IRV *DOES NOT* prevent the vote splitting (spoiler) problem.
http://www.electology.org/spoiler
by Clay Shentrup on Feb 1, 2012 6:58 pm
They create web and news alerts for other voting systems' names, and whenever anyone mentions such a system on a blog, they pounce and argue that it's a terrible system.
But the ultimately effect is not to advance their own preferred system, but simply to make it impossible to do anything about our standard system, which fails all of the standards all of the adherents of other systems set out.
by David Alpert on Feb 1, 2012 9:57 pm
It is true that the fragmentation of election reform proponents is detrimental to improving the present system. But that simply means that it's critical that they unite around the objectively best system(s). That requires that the objective pros and cons of the different systems are known, which is precisely why I cited data such as Bayesian Regret figures.
I don't see evidence that pointing out the benefits of e.g. Approval Voting over IRV is somehow preventing the replacement of Plurality Voting with something better. Case in point, every instance I know of in which IRV has been adopted in the USA has been to replace Top-Two Runoff, NOT Plurality Voting. TTR actually has some significant advantages over IRV, and is more resistant to tactical voting. So it could be that the adoption of IRV has made things WORSE. At best, IRV is a negligible improvement over TTR.
http://ScoreVoting.net/HonestRunoff.html
You could possibly argue that we're causing harm if our critiques of IRV prevent some city from upgrading from ordinary Plurality Voting to IRV (which actually WOULD be a clear, albeit modest, improvement). But even then, there are other things to consider:
A) Even that improvement could be a net loss if the same reform work could have gotten you Score Voting or Approval Voting. That would be a clear example of "opportunity cost".
B) If pointing out objective facts about IRV causes voters to reject it, how is that a bad thing? Don't voters deserve to make an informed decision? IRV proponents have claimed that IRV eliminates spoilers, increases diversity, encourages sincere voting, etc. All of these claims are either false or very misleading at best. Are you suggesting we not engage in fact-checking various pro-IRV claims because it would be bad for voters to reject it on the basis of those facts?
Please elaborate.
by Clay Shentrup on Feb 2, 2012 1:12 am
(Yes, I'm joking and no, I don't really care that much about voting system aracana. I almost failed game theory when I studied it in college. I just worry that DC's local elections seem to produce bad results)
by Ward 1 Guy on Feb 2, 2012 1:53 am
Don't voters deserve to make an informed decision?
Yes, they do, and David's saying that alternative voting advocates should try just putting their information out there and advocating for their system. Your M.O. of jumping in whenever alternative voting is mentioned and yelling about how IRV sucks and your system is better doesn't help make the case that alternative voting of ANY system is better.
Not to mention the fact that the general public doesn't and never will understand the ticky-tack game-theory differences between the different systems. All of the alternative systems have their flaws and compromises.
by MLD on Feb 2, 2012 9:22 am
Instead, you apparently have a news alert for "IRV," and every time the word "IRV" appears in a post, you pop up and don't post anything constructive about how important a voting alternative is, but instead just savage IRV. (I'm not sure how you filter out all the guys named Irv in the news, though.)
Ward 1 Guy commented "IRV," but really what he was trying to say is, "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a voting system where having 2 progressive candidates in the race didn't make it LESS likely that a progressive candidate will win than if we had one?" This would have been a great opportunity for you to come in and say, "Yes, we need voting reform! We like [whatever system], but what's most important is getting elected officials to realize that plurality voting is the worst system of all. Here's how you can help sell elected officials on that idea!"
Right now, most elected officials either don't think about the issue at all, or think that plurality is great because it keeps the 2-party system which got them into office. To have any reform, the first thing that has to happen is to convince most people that plurality has to go. When the only comments by your group and similar ones in blogs is saying that every other system is so awful that it might be doing harm, that cause gets set back.
If we got to a world where every, or even 25%, of US jurisdictions had runoff, approval, IRV, or any other non-plurality system, then your advocacy that one system is better than another might have some place. But now, you're fighting over scraps and missing the bigger issue.
As an analogue, right now there's a debate over the fact that a very small percentage of transportation money goes to bicycle and pedestrian programs, less than the percentage of people who bike or walk. It would be horribly counterproductive if the pedestrian advocates spent most of their time talking about how terrible and dangerous bicycling is and everyone should walk instead. That wouldn't do anything for the case that we should spend just a tiny bit less on car infrastructure and more on biking and walking facilities.
Sometimes there are projects where bike and ped advocates disagree, like certain types of bulb-outs/curb extensions. But they almost always politely disagree and focus mostly on the bigger issues where they do agree.
Right now, the alternative voting field is way outside the consciousness of most elected officials. You should be putting your time into making it mainstream first, and working together rather than in opposition is the only way to get there.
by David Alpert on Feb 2, 2012 9:42 am
My connection with Pete is a tad unusual. I am a 38-year transit\transportation planner who works in the Prince George's County part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
I, therefore, literally reported to Peter during his time as a member and chair of the Prince George's County Council, to which the county planning department reports 'out here.'
So I have two 'takes' on Peter:
1. Speaking as a transportation planning professional:
I have a great deal of professional respect for Peter. He was one of the few truly transit (as opposed to ‘merely’ transportation)-literate councilmembers to serve here in Prince George's County. (His District 2 predecessor Steve Del Giudice was another one. Must be something in the water in that district...)
We (transportation planning professionals here in Prince George's County Planning) did not have to explain anything to him twice, he was what actors call ‘a quick study’ [he ‘got it’ the first time he heard it, in other words] and he was able to connect the policy dots out here between, for example, policy-making at one end of the hut and planning at the other.
He even asked if he could ‘rip me off’ the first time he heard that old saw I always throw around that ‘Every once in awhile policy-makers have to get truly radical and MAKE bloody policy.’
Had he been able to remain on the council here, a number of the more problematic institutional obstacles this county still faces to getting its collective transportation-land use planning and policy-making act together would be a lot less daunting than they have been (and will continue to be, at least through the rest of Baker’s first term out here.)
For example, when the Prince George's County General (i.e. comp) Plan was approved here in 2002, he immediately understood, frankly unlike most of his council colleagues here, that implementing, as opposed to merely approving, that plan—to really achieve the kind of transit-oriented, transit-supportive quality development this county is still struggling to attract—meant a complete institutional sea-change in and for Prince George's County in the way it\we did capital programming and budgeting here.
And it is an acceptable submission here that that particular, albeit politically challenging, policy Rubicon still has not been crossed out here. With the result that County Executive Rushern Baker, for all of his commendable focus on getting TOD and TAD right here, and at least some councilmembers here who agree with him, are still working through how to ‘front’ the public\commons investments needed to attract true quality, high value-added TOD to Prince George's County.
In fact, I credit Peter with coining the phrase ‘transit-adjacent development.’ He was, in any case, the first person I ever heard use the term. (He was speaking of the development at and around Prince George's Plaza [which was in his district out here] at the time.)
Peter also agreed with me when I first passed on that rather sadly appropriate observation (professional planners' eulogy, really) that a New Zealand planner made in my hearing back in 2002 that ‘You lot [meaning planning professionals] here in the US don’t really do planning. You do publicly-subsidized marketing studies.’
Peter’s comment at the time was: ‘Well, he’s right. But, you know, that is what makes being an elected official a real challenge. But, then, it gives you something to brag about later on, if you can pull it off.’
Now, it is obvious that I have a rather particular, specialized 'dog under the table' here, since Peter is well-versed in a public policy area in which I have spent my entire professional life. That said, I would love to see him represent the City on either the WMATA or Transportation Planning Boards. (He chaired the latter when he was on the Prince George's County Council). In fact, were he to be elected, he ought to be placed on BOTH boards.
2. Now. Speaking as a District resident (in fact, as a third-generation Washingtonian [a candidate, in other words, for Obama's Endangered Species Listing...])
A choice, to me anyway, between Peter Shapiro and Sekou Biddle is a no-brainer: I would vote for Peter ‘early and often’ as James Curley used to say in Boston (before they put him in The Joint.)
I suspect he will get 'hit' with the almost obligatory tag of being a Johnny (well Peter)-come-lately and a carpetbagger, but, frankly, to me as a Third-Gen Washingtonian, I could apply that term to almost all of the current elected leadership in this Town, including our esteemed and internationally famous former four-time Mayor.
(In fact, only Vincent Gray and Muriel Bowser are native Washingtonians that I know of for a fact.)
So, between having someone parachute into Town who knows what he (or she) is doing and supporting someone who has been around long enough to know better than to keep doing, or not doing, what makes him or her less attractive by comparison to the newcomer, I will take the guy or lady who just dropped in.
Vote for Peter Shapiro: you will thank yourself in the morning.
And, of course, everything you just read is my own personal observation and endorsement and NOT that of the agency where I work.
Harold Foster; AAG, ProfGeog; AICP
Petworth
Ward 4
by Harold Foster on Feb 2, 2012 10:00 am
Peter Shapiro has had very close ties to Jack Johnson for many years, just follow the money and all these PG County Employess comments above. A Vote for Peter Shapiro is just another Vote for Vincent Orange! So Voter's beware by electing Peter Shapiro to the DC Council would just be engaging and inviting more public corruption into DC Government and Politics from PG County!!!
Warning...Don't Even Go There!!!
by Joan on Feb 2, 2012 10:43 am
by John @ RI Ave on Feb 2, 2012 10:51 am
Don't vote for Vincent argument because...well just because we said he's not the best candidate and a man who was able to loan himself 50g's is?
Guess I'll be voting for Orange again...*sigh*
by HogWash on Feb 2, 2012 11:00 am
"alternative voting advocates should try just putting their information out there and advocating for their system."
My group is called The Center for Election Science. There is no "our system". We conduct research on a myriad of voting systems and try to make people more informed about those systems. We see an extraordinary amount of misinformation disseminated by proponents of IRV, and we feel that it's important to counter that with facts. Likewise we see a number of benefits to Score Voting and Approval Voting, and so we talk about that as well. But that does NOT mean that we're going to only talk about the systems that we find to be best.
Consider an analog in FactCheck.org. While they are nominally non-partisan, I assume a number of their staff lean progressive. Now imagine there is a race in which the Democrat is ostensibly a much better option than the Republican, so much so that pretty much any reasonable voter (even one who was a Republican) would acknowledge the Democrat was a more qualified, experienced, and reasonable person. Now say FactCheck.org found a number of statements either by that Democrat or by his supporters which were just objectively false, and countered them. And then suppose a bunch of good government types lambasted FactCheck.org for hurting the chances of getting someone better than that lousy unqualified Republican.
That would be absurd! Even if FactCheck.org's staffers unanimously agree that the Democrat is better, that does not justify their being silent and refusing to do their jobs by informing the public. It essentially sounds like you're saying, "Don't tell people the truth about IRV, because then they might stick with Plurality Voting." For us, that would be dereliction of duty.
> All of the alternative systems have their flaws and compromises.
That is a particularly offensive argument that makes it sound as though all the alternative systems are roughly equal. You could say the same thing about race cars. Some have more powerful engines. Some have better tires. Some have better aerodynamics.
But if you put them on the track and do timed trials, you find that some are just massively better than others when all of those factors are combined. It is NOT the case that they are all going to be about equal. The timed trials for voting methods are Bayesian Regret calculations, and they show Score Voting and Approval Voting performing MASSIVELY better than IRV. In fact, Condorcet and Borda (and, in some cases, Top-Two Runoff) ALSO perform better than IRV. IRV is roughly tied for second worst, next to plain Plurality.
by Clay Shentrup on Feb 2, 2012 2:26 pm
From the VO files:
http://wapo.st/xz7Z1zI don't think Orange is some kind of monster; heck, this story is more comical than anything else. But you have to admit he comes across as a complete weasel. I just think he'll do or say anything to get elected, and once elected, is an incredibly ineffectual politician. It's nice that he walks and talks like everyone everywhere in DC, but we need leadership.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
PS: On the positive side of the ledger, he did give DC this campaign song: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/assets/citydesk/2006/0418orange.mp3
by oboe on Feb 2, 2012 3:15 pm
Not sure how that makes Orange less of a weasal than Fenty.
But again, not a reason to "not" vote for Orange. Any specific policies, legislation, illegal history, etc?
by HogWash on Feb 2, 2012 3:34 pm
> we recently had a post on here about how having multiple candidates in this race could split the vote. Neither you nor any of the other alternative voting system advocates showed up there to say, "Good point, and that's why we need a better voting system than plurality!
See, you're proving my point. Fixing the spoiler problem requires more than just "a better voting system than Plurality". Specifically, ONLY a voting system which satisfies Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives will solve this problem. That means no ranked voting method can possibly solve this problem. But Score Voting and Approval Voting DO solve it. As I pointed out in this link that I posted previously (that I guess you ignored):
http://www.electology.org/spoiler
And of course I didn't show up to comment. I don't read every single blog in existence. I follow certain key phrases and even that is difficult to keep up with sometimes.
> Ward 1 Guy commented "IRV," but really what he was trying to say is, "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a voting system where having 2 progressive candidates in the race didn't make it LESS likely that a progressive candidate will win than if we had one?"
As I said, IRV doesn't solve this problem. See this example where the Progressive spoils the race, causing the Republican to win instead of the Democrat.
http://www.electology.org/spoiler#TOC-When-the-spoiler-is-from-the-same-f
> Anything's better than plurality, but we prefer [whatever system]."
This line of reasoning is seriously misguided, and it's very disheartening to hear it again and again from lots of different people. Here are the biggest problems with it.
First, in almost any of these posts, IRV proponents almost invariably show up to post standard FALSE pro-IRV talking points. As a research and education organization focused on the science of voting theory, we obviously see it as beneficial to counter that misinformation with the truth. And informed public is good in its own right, and I think this perspective needs no justification.
Second, just because e.g. IRV is "better than Plurality", that does not mean that it is beneficial for election reform advocates to spend their time and energy promoting it. There is a very basic economic principle known as "opportunity cost" that you're ignoring. I.e. if you work to earn 10 dollars, but you could have earned 25 dollars doing the same work, then you effectively didn't "earn 10 dollars", but rather you "LOST 15 dollars". And especially when you consider IRV's incredibly high rate of repeal (e.g. Burlington, VT; Cary, NC; Aspen, CO; Pierce County, WA; and potentially San Francisco soon as well), it's quite reasonable to view the promotion of IRV as a way of making things WORSE, not better.
> Instead, you apparently have a news alert for "IRV," and every time the word "IRV" appears in a post, you pop up and don't post anything constructive about how important a voting alternative is, but instead just savage IRV.
We actually have several pages which discuss the problems with Plurality Voting. But in most of these forums to which we're replying, the majority of people already take it as a given that Plurality is a bad system, and that we need something better. Why would I waste my time preaching to the choir in that context?
And again, it's not correct to merely say that "a voting alternative" is important. If reformers spend time and energy promoting a very tiny reform that is likely to be repealed, instead of a very large reform that plausibly has a much lower chance of repeal (e.g. because repeal proponents couldn't effective argue that Approval Voting was "confusing to voters") then that is arguably a NEGATIVE. Condorcet or Borda are significantly better, but extremely politically problematic. Therefore, for practical purposes, "a voting alternative" is equivalent to "Score Voting or Approval Voting".
And if by "savage IRV" you mean "point out objective facts about the properties of IRV", then I'm guilty as charged. I don't know why you view education as such a bad thing. I think that's a very unfortunate way of looking at things.
> To have any reform, the first thing that has to happen is to convince most people that plurality has to go.
I would argue that's not sufficient. You need to specifically argue that Score Voting or Approval Voting is the only viable solution, and that promoting other systems is actually detrimental, because it wastes limited voting reform resources.
> When the only comments by your group and similar ones in blogs is saying that every other system is so awful that it might be doing harm, that cause gets set back.
No. It helps the cause by helping to prevent the opportunity cost I mentioned. Voting reformers are limited, and their energy shouldn't be squandered.
Your biking/walking analogy doesn't seem appropriate because I doubt that the benefit-per-dollar toward biking lanes is dramatically different than for walking lanes. Further, I doubt that one type of lane is dramatically more likely to be dismantled within a few years of its construction. There are extremely nuanced aspects of voting theory which make it unique, and cause most analogies like these to fail. In fact, my general view about the trouble with voting reform is that it is inherently one of the most counter-intuitive subjects ever stumbled across by human beings, and that is one major factor preventing the adoption of better systems.
> Right now, the alternative voting field is way outside the consciousness of most elected officials.
Not true in San Francisco, because we've personally given the supervisors a copy of Gaming the Vote, and we've talked with most of them one-on-one for about half an hour. It's not that hard to raise this issue to local elected officials.
> You should be putting your time into making it mainstream first, and working together rather than in opposition is the only way to get there.
We are certainly doing that. Although I won't go into detail.
by Clay Shentrup on Feb 2, 2012 3:57 pm
I can also attest to Shapiro's leadership, smarts, ethics, and collaborative skills. I have worked on many projects and
issues with him for more than a decade and he is really solid.
To say he was a Johnson ally is ridiculous BTW. I would think having a Washingtonian with a regional vision would be a big plus. Just saying...let's be smart this time and consolidate our wisdom and power folks.
by The best strategy on Feb 4, 2012 10:30 pm
It is a total urban legend to suggest the Fenty Administration neglected the East of the River neighborhoods. Take a look at the libraries, schools and transportation infrastructure that residents are enjoying today. Much of the plans for this investment was either started, or continued in the 2007-2010 period.
I am not a Fenty apologist, but this was one of the tactics used by the Gray campaign to garner support on the East side of the District.
by William on Feb 5, 2012 5:42 am
Ick.
On the other hand, Biddle is best in the three-way race for DC. He gets the public school issues and is an effective leader on education. He is a man worthy of trust and a gentleman.
Biddle - STAY STRONG!
by LEM on Feb 10, 2012 11:23 pm
1. Shouldn't a candidate for the DC Council, who has loaned his campaign $50,000, disclose the fact that his wife, Julia Wright, is the Principal at Pillar Development LLC, a real estate development firm in Dupont Cirle.
2. Why did he resign as Chair of the PG County Counil in the middle of his term?
3. If he is so interested in changing politics in DC, why didn't he bother to vote in the special election for the seat he is currently seeking? Shapiro has a very, very thin record of civic service in DC, and I'm just talking about voting.
by DConfidential on Feb 28, 2012 11:14 pm
Capable, intelligent, knowledgeable, caring about the city,
so Vote BIDDLB.
by Sara James on Mar 14, 2012 11:15 pm
by Geoffrey Hatchard on Mar 15, 2012 9:00 am
IRV doesn't actually do very much. Bayesian Regret figures show that it has comparable performance with Plurality+runoff.
And IRV's complexity gives it a high probability of repeal (e.g. in Pierce County, WA; Aspen, CO; Burlington, VT; Cary, NC).
Score Voting and Approval Voting are massively simpler, never hurt you for supporting your favorite candidate (as IRV can), and produce vastly more satisfying outcomes.
www.electology.org/approval-voting-vs-irv
Clay Shentrup
The Center for Election Science
by Clay Shentrup on Mar 15, 2012 3:26 pm
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