Preliminary election Sept 11

Submitted by Mike Benedetti on September 9, 2007 - 10:37pm. :: |
There's a preliminary City Council election in Worcester September 11. Among other races, there are 18 people running At-Large, and this preliminary will narrow them down to 12 for the final election. IMG_0086 You get to vote for up to six candidates. I wish I knew more about game theory, because there might be some interesting angles here. I like more than six of the people listed, but I'm only really interested in about one or two, so I won't be voting for six. Not worth the risk to my faves. If you're one of those types who likes to vote against incumbents on principle, the City Clerk is making it a bit more difficult for you, by not listing incumbent status on this ballot. (It's listed on other, regular ballots.) I suppose you could learn the names of your City Councilors, but it's not easy; there aren't any outsized personalities at City Hall nowadays.
  • The At-Large incumbents are Irish, Lukes, Petty, Rushton, Perotto, Rosen, and Toomey.
  • Worcester Magazine has an interesting list of how much money the candidates have raised. Several challengers have raised 5 figures; the only 4-figure incumbent is Gary Rosen. The only incumbent I've heard described as notably vulnerable is Joe Petty.
  • The wiki list of candidates has been updated to reflect who is and is not on the actual ballot.
  • Real Solutions has released a Voter's Guide (pdf) to the candidates.
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Mike, The only game theory
Submitted by tracynovick on September 10, 2007 - 1:29pm.
Mike, The only game theory I've heard on the vote is, as you say, not to use all six votes. Any votes you don't cast won't get cast, so yours count more. It's called bullet voting. And you wouldn't call Mayor Lukes an "outsized personality"? I urge all you activists out there to really read between the lines on the campaign rhetoric. There's alot of stuff out there that is only going to result in more cuts in city services and driving Worcester deeper into a hole, budget-wise. Don't fall for pretty lines about tax rates! But do vote! And don't forget the district elections in 1 and 5!
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OK, you got me there, Ms.
Submitted by Mike Benedetti on September 10, 2007 - 11:17pm.
OK, you got me there, Ms. Lukes is pretty memorable. (And pretty likeable, in my experience.) Thanks for pointing out the voting system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_voting "If enough voters bullet vote then almost any voting system functions like plurality voting system. This is generally considered to be a poor result, as many voting systems are intended as reforms or improvements which avoid or minimize some of the disadvantages of plurality (aka First Past the Post). However, if voters bullet vote as a conscious strategy to express their meta-preference that candidates with strong support are preferable to "compromise" candidates with broad support, then it may not be a problem." When I was in college, we used to change the student govt voting system year to year, because lots of students understood game theory, and were willing to strive toward a less-gameable voting system. From this, I learned just enough game theory to know I didn't know much about game theory.
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Oooh, that's a much better
Submitted by tracynovick on September 11, 2007 - 1:37pm.
Oooh, that's a much better definition than I could have given. I just had it explained to me once by Craig Manseau, and I've voted that way ever since!
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