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First-past-the-post vs. proportional representation
Chris Medlock used to make the point that in America, coalitions are formed before the election, while in countries with proportional representation, they happen after the voters have had their say. Giles Fraser considers the UK's decisive December election alongside Israel's third election in a year and explains why this...
UK Elections 2019
The United Kingdom will hold a general election tomorrow, Thursday, December 12, 2019. All 650 seats in the House of Commons, the popularly-elected house of the national legislature, will be on the ballot. Voters cast a ballot only for their local Member of Parliament (MP), but the leader of the...
San Francisco middle school rejects election results for insufficient diversity
From the Left Coast: Concerns raised over lack of diversity in SF school election results There's a bit of controversy surrounding student elections at a San Francisco middle school after the results were immediately withheld by the principal because they weren't diverse enough. The incident happened at Everett Middle School...
Israel 2015 elections
Polls in Israel closed about two hours ago, 3 p.m. Tulsa time. Actual vote counts are trickling in, but, as in the United States, the focus is on exit polling, which shows the current leading party, Likud, and their left-wing rivals, Zionist Union (which includes the Labor Party), each winning...
Iowa caucuses: In defense of "arcane rules"
BatesLine photo of a front porch with bunting in Clear Lake, Iowa, September, 2008 Smitty at The Other McCain links to a Buzzfeed story about Ron Paul's strategy to dominate caucus states: Paul is following the roadmap set by Barack Obama's 2008 strategy: Start early, learn the rules, and...
UK general election, May 6, 2010
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called a general election for Thursday, May 6, 2010, just a few weeks shy of the fifth anniversary of the previous election. This will be the first election in which Brown will carry the Labour Party's banner; Labour won the 1997, 2001, and 2005...
PLANiTULSA: Wither INCOG?
A commenter on another website noticed that I hadn't said anything about behind-the-scenes machinations by the INCOG -- the Indian Nations Council of Governments -- to modify the PLANiTULSA vision and policy plan, particularly the part that recommends that the City of Tulsa bring in-house the planning functions it currently...
Rules committee: A summary
Friday's Republican National Convention rules committee meeting heralded major changes in the way Republicans will select a presidential nominee in years to come, although exactly what those changes may be are yet to be determined. The primary process was one of several thorny issues debated in a six-hour meeting by...
Rules committee: A Republican commission on the primary/caucus process
UPDATING this post continually. A proposal has been brought to amend Rule 10. It would set up a commission that would report back to the RNC at some later date, and then the RNC would have to approve any changes proposed by a 2/3rds vote. Morton Blackwell is speaking in...
Instant runoff voting in Scotland's local elections
Thursday was election day across Britain, with voters picking local government councilors and members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. For the first time, Scotland will be choosing local authority councilors using the single transferable vote (STV) method, a form of instant runoff voting that is designed to...
Northern Ireland votes
Northern Ireland, the part of the island of Ireland which remained in the United Kingdom after the 1922 partition, held an election for its assembly earlier this week and the results are in. The Democratic Unionist Party won the most seats, followed by Sinn Fein. The last time we traveled...
The perils of proportional representation
I came across a very interesting piece setting out the U. S. military's eleven-point plan for victory in Iraq. Point 10 was surprising: Electoral Reform: The old system of national parties selecting candidates for positions was believed to have unfairly tipped the balance in favor of the Shiites and led...
Israeli government to expel Christian workers?
I received an urgent prayer request from Israel this morning. Herbby and Anne Geer, representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention in Israel, have been denied visa renewals, an unprecedented act by the Interior Ministry: This past week, we have been told by the Ministry of Interior, here in Israel, that...
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