Tag Archives: Elections

Provo Municipal Elections and Voting System Reform

American elections, since their inception, have used plurality (or “first-past-the-post”) voting as their standard, but we should reconsider this default.

Plurality voting naturally encourages all political parties to consolidate into two major ones of roughly equal strength, which means that it renders a bipartisan duopoly nearly inevitable. America’s founders rightly worried about the rise of two major political parties that would alternately dominate our political system, and they warned us about this eventuality, although they apparently didn’t realize then that plurality voting would render this development almost inevitable.

Plurality voting also facilitates an array of other election problems like strategic voting (including voting against unworthy candidates rather than for worthy candidates), along with the “spoiler effect,” the possibility of minority rule, and increased susceptibility to gerrymandering. The “spoiler effect” is especially egregious, as it can incentivize citizens to vote against their true preferences, while punishing conscientious voters who ignore such pressure with worse results. This should ideally never happen.

The only way to alleviate these many problems is through reforming elections to use better voting methods.

Ranked-choice voting (which is also called instant-runoff voting) is a popular alternative to plurality voting in which voters rank their respective choices from first to last, after which the least-favored candidates are eliminated through multiple rounds of vote-tallying until one candidate prevails with majority support. This voting system is already a longstanding standard in political conventions. Ranked-choice voting replaces the “spoiler effect” with a milder “center-squeeze effect” that hurts centrist candidates, but it still promotes a bipartisan duopoly and it still allows gerrymandering.

Score voting alleviates these electoral problems even better (except for a negligible “chicken dilemma”) than ranked-choice voting. Score voting involves voters ranking each candidate on a scale (like 0-9 or 1-100), rather like schools grade students, such that the candidate who earns the highest average score wins. Score voting allows third parties (like the Libertarian Party, the Constitution Party, and the Independent American Party) to thrive, which is perhaps its greatest benefit. One study indicates that score voting minimizes Bayesian regret, meaning that its results are (statistically) more satisfying than either plurality voting or ranked-choice voting.

Approval voting is the simplest form of score voting, as voter rank each candidate as either acceptable or not, such that the most-widely-accepted candidate wins. Approval voting can use existing plurality ballots, which is an advantage. Approval voting may also operate in tandem with proportional representation, which allows multiple winners in proportion to their degree of approval, which divides political power among a greater diversity of factions. And mitigating the effects of factions is a worthy goal, as America’s founders noted.

Provo’s city council is considering transitioning its municipal elections from plurality voting to ranked-choice voting. Provo’s Open City Hall is currently surveying Provoans about this matter, and Provo’s city council will vote on it in May. I’m surprised that this proposed reform is enjoying support from some corrupt Establishment politicians, so I’m feeling a bit suspicious about it—so, if you have any theories about why they may favor it, then please share them. In the absence of clear reasons otherwise, though, please consider supporting such election reform, perhaps as an initial step toward something even better like score voting.

Even more importantly than improving voting systems, though, is ensuring that our elections remain both honest and accurate. Please consider lobbying your state and federal legislators regularly for election reforms (like these) that will restore election integrity—and please do so until they finally relent!

UPDATE 07/28: This election reform is enjoying great support from corrupt Establishment politicians because, as Defending Utah has revealed, it is part of an ongoing effort to replace Utah’s longstanding caucus-convention-primary system with ranked-choice “jungle” primary elections, which have already proven very effective in California at facilitating victory for corrupt Establishment politicians. Please watch the Defending Utah video before for details, and please support reinstatement of Utah’s caucus-convention-primary system.



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Provo’s General Election Results for 2017

America’s general election was held yesterday and, in Provo, that included elections for both mayor and three councilors.  Election results are not yet finalized, since our county clerk has not yet counted all ballots cast; but, if present trends continue, then here are this year’s election results…

For mayor, Establishment candidate Michelle Kaufusi, who seemingly wants a municipal government “strong” enough to decree grocery stores into existence, has defeated both fellow Establishment candidate Sherrie Hall Everett, who apparently wants to keep Provo “moving forward” toward the statist Vision 2030 future that she helped plan for it, and write-in candidate Odell Miner, who didn’t seem especially likely to either continue or reverse such trends.

For city council, Provoans re-elected incumbents David Sewell and David Harding, plus seemingly-like-minded newcomer George Handley.

These candidates were elected by only about 8,000 participating voters, who together constitute about 19% of Provo’s 42,000-ish registered voters, as well as less than 7% of all 117,000-ish current Provo residents.  This is an unusually large turnout for an odd-year election in Provo, but such high turnout likely resulted entirely from this year’s special election for U. S. Representative.  Altogether, these 8,000 participants, by majority vote, upheld Provo’s increasingly-statist status quo of higher taxes, deeper debts, increased spending, multiplied ordinances, disrespected rights, et cetera, which is tragic for one of America’s most “conservative” cities.

We Provoans who value our rightful liberty can do no more for it in this election, but can only start preparing for our next one.  We need to engage our neighbors in conversation, identify and/or proselytize like-minded ones, educate them, inform them, activate them, and organize them for perpetual victory.  And also actively seek out worthy candidates whom we can encourage to seek public office, and then uphold in doing so.  Which will hopefully avert a bleak future like Detroit’s and perhaps render Provo’s best days yet-to-be again.  Will you commit to engage in such political activism over these next two years—and beyond?


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Primary Election Day 2017 in Two Weeks!

August has barely started, which means only two short weeks until this year’s primary elections.  If you haven’t already started to scrutinize this year’s candidates, to identify the one who will best uphold all that’s best in America’s exemplary political heritage of rightful liberty under Constitutional law, to actively support that candidate among your friends and neighbors, and to plan to turn them out to vote, then there’s no time like the present to start.  Hopefully, our website will help, but not unless YOU take action.  Please don’t wait.  Also, donations remain welcome.


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It’s Time to Wake Up and Go to Work…

Hey, fellow Provoan!

Now that we’ve celebrated our freedom from oppression, it’s time for us to go to work to help preserve and/or restore that freedom, including within our own city.  Political systems, rather like houses, tend to degenerate without regular maintenance—and, as Edmund Burke once wisely noted, evil triumphs when good men do nothing.  So, let’s please choose to do something for our rightful liberty, instead—and, better yet, not just anything but something that will actually prove effective.

As our recent municipal officers seek to outdo King George III in some respects, we need to help expose them for what they are, and rally enough like-minded neighbors to send these would-be rulers into retirement from public life.  We don’t need kings, even if we don’t call them such—instead, we need virtuous wise statespeople who will help us to defend our rights not run our lives.  And our fellow liberty-lovin’ Provoans will prevail regularly in our elections only if/when we grow more numerous and/or effective than our statist adversaries.

We hope that our Free Provo website will help in this endeavor.  Its administrator(s) may not include a Patrick Henry, a Thomas Jefferson, or a Thomas Paine, but they can still try to help awaken a (figuratively) slumbering city.  If you notice any errors or oversights or other opportunities for improvement in our website, then your suggestions are always welcome.  We ask you to share this website’s content with any of your neighbors that it may help.  Thank you.

David Edward Garber
Organizer, Free Provo


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