Tag Archives: primary election

Voting Standards for Latter-day Saints

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Today, Utah is hosting its regular primary elections, although for federal and state and county candidates rather than for municipal ones. These elections may affect public policy far more than those on Election Day, by which time most choices have already been eliminated.

On this occasion, at the slight risk of alienating any of my readers who are not fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I wanted to address the latter in this blog entry to attempt to remind them about what I’ve learned over time about official Church doctrine about voting standards. The following content is also available as a flier for anyone who might want to distribute it among their Latter-day Saint associates…

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has, since the mid-20th-century, remained neutral as an institution about specific parties and specific platforms and most policies; but it has still encouraged its members to involve themselves freely in politics while it has advocated consistent political principles to guide members in choosing well, including when voting in elections. This document attempts to compile a representative sample of Church pronouncements that pertain specifically to voting standards.

“Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil.” – God (D&C 98:10)

“We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign.” – The Church (D&C 134:3)

“We engage in the election the same as in any other principle: you are to vote for good men, and if you do not do this it is a sin: to vote for wicked men, it would be sin. Choose the good and refuse the evil.” – Hyrum Smith (History of the Church 6:323)

“I will tell you whom we will vote for: we will vote for the man who will sustain the principles of civil and religious liberty, the man who knows the most and who has the best heart and brain for a statesman; and we do not care a farthing whether he is a whig, a democrat, a barnburner, a republican, a new light or anything else. These are our politics.” – Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses 13:149)

“I do not lift my voice against the great and glorious Government guaranteed to every citizen by the Constitution, but against those corrupt administrators who trample the Constitution and just laws under their feet.” – Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses 5:232-233)

“The laws of Heaven command us not to uphold and sustain men, except they are good men, who will sustain the Constitution of our country; and we are fulfilling the revelations in this respect as in many others, and we are carrying out the requirements of the Constitution of the United States.” – Wilford Woodruff (Journal of Discourses 7:104)

“Now, I am not caring today, for myself, anything at all about a political party tag. So far as I am concerned, I want to know what the man stands for. I want to know if he believes in the Constitution; if he believes in its free institutions; if he believes in its liberties, its freedom. I want to know if he believes in the Bill of Rights. I want to know if he believes in the separation of sovereign power into the three great divisions: the Legislative, the Judicial, the Executive. I want to know if he believes in the mutual independence of these, the one from the other. When I find out these things, then I know who it is who should receive my support, and I care not what his party tag is …” – J. Reuben Clark Jr. (Conference Report, 1942 Oct)

“All through the last political campaign they were saying, ‘Why doesn’t the Church tell us how we should vote?’ If the Church had done that, we would have a lot of Democrats or Republicans who would have wanted to apostatize. … When they would ask me who to vote for in the coming election, I would tell them to read Mosiah 29 and Section 134 of the Doctrine and Covenants, pray about that, and any Latter-day Saint could know who to vote for in any given election. It is just as simple as that.” – Harold B. Lee (BYU speech, 1961 Apr 19)

“However, above all else, strive to support good and conscientious candidates, of either party, who are aware of the great dangers inherent in Communism, and who are truly dedicated to the Constitution in the tradition of our Founding Fathers. They should also pledge their sincere fealty to our way of liberty—a liberty which aims at the preservation of both personal and property rights. Study the issues, analyze the candidates on these grounds, and then exercise your franchise as free men and women. Never be found guilty of exchanging your birthright for a mess of pottage!” – David O. McKay (Conference Report, 1962 Oct)

“And our nation will continue to degenerate unless we read and heed the words of the God of this land, Jesus Christ, and quit building up and upholding the secret combinations which the Book of Mormon tells us proved the downfall of both previous American civilizations.” – Ezra Taft Benson (Conference Report, 1975 Apr)

“May I urge you to seek out good, wise, and honest men for public office, and then support them with your vote. You will note the conditions wherein the Lord counseled that we should support men in political office. They ought to be ‘good,’ ‘wise,’ and ‘honest.’ Some men are good and honest, but not wise. These qualities combined provide statesmanship. I’ve said it many times: what we need today are men with a mandate higher than the ballot box!” – Ezra Taft Benson (New Era, 1978 Jul)

“Men who are wise, good, and honest, who will uphold the Constitution of the United States in the tradition of the Founding Fathers, must be sought for diligently. This is our hope to restore government to its rightful role.” – Ezra Taft Benson (Conference Report, 1979 Oct)

“Note the qualities that the Lord demands in those who are to represent us. They must be good, wise, and honest. Some leaders may be honest and good but unwise in legislation they choose to support. Others may possess wisdom but be dishonest and unvirtuous. We must be concerted in our desires and efforts to see men and women represent us who possess all three of these qualities.” – Ezra Taft Benson (Conference Report, 1987 Oct)

“Mike, if you vote for the lesser of two evils you are still voting for evil and you will be judged for it. You should always vote for the best possible candidate, whether they have a chance of winning or not, and then, even if the worst possible candidate wins, the Lord will bless our country more because more people were willing to stand up for what is right.” – Ezra Taft Benson (said to my associate Mike Thompson)

For more relevant quotations, please search the website latterdayconservative.org and/or study the book Prophets, Principles and National Survival by Jerreld L. Newquist, which compiles a treasure-trove of Church doctrine about political principles, and which was recommended in 1972 in General Conference to all Latter-day Saints worldwide. And, after you have learned God’s will about politics, please do it!

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Provo Municipal Elections and Voting System Reform

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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 Primary Election 2019

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Provo, like other Utahn cities, is hosting its biennial primary elections this August 13th (Tuesday).

Most of us arguably don’t pay enough attention to these local elections—but, if political power were as maximally decentralized as it should be (with most of it remaining in individual households), then our local elections would become more important than our national elections.  Even despite our political system’s massive centralization since 1789, our local elections still play an important role in giving various candidates experience that they may use to campaign for other offices—for example, John Curtis leveraged his experience as Provo mayor to campaign for U. S. Congress.  Sadly, few Utahn voters seemed to pay much attention to Curtis’ “liberal” mayoral record of attempted tax hikes and grandiose central planning, as this former Democrat seemingly changed political parties without changing principles.

Tragically, John Curtis’ principles have not been the exception in Provo’s government, but the rule for many years.  Why would conservative Provoans consistently elect such “liberal” politicians?  Presumably because most Provoans don’t bother to participate in municipal elections, and the small fraction of Provoans who bother to participate are more-than-half statists who elect fellow statists.  Thankfully, it doesn’t need to be this way—Provoans who value their rightful liberty can help both educate and inform their neighbors to embrace better principles, and can organize like-minded ones for political victory.  Sometimes, free-marketeer candidates have lost city races by narrow margins, in which cases even a dozen votes could have made a big difference.

So, how can we make a difference this year?  Ideally, by finding worthy candidates early and then rallying around them—but, since it’s a bit too late for this now, we’ll instead need to examine our existing options, eliminate unworthy choices, and select the best candidates among any that remain.  This year, Provoans will elect three new city councilors (one city-wide and two from city districts), but we’re having some trouble finding any clearly-worthy options among them.

  • For this year’s city-wide seat, both David Shipley and Janae Moss seem to favor central planning.
  • In district 3, Shannon Ellsworth appears to be a skilled central planner who wants “Smart Growth,” Robin Roberts aspires to centrally-plan away poverty from our midst, and Jeff Handy seems a bit enigmatic.
  • In district 4, it appears that all four candidates (namely: Beth Alligood, Eric Ludwig, Travis Hoban, and Valerie Paxman) favor some degree of city control of our municipal economy in various ways, which may include public transportation or regulated construction or public energy.

So, this is why we wholeheartedly endorse no candidates this year.  If you believe that we should reconsider this conclusion, then please tell us why.

If you don’t want to see the same scarcity of worthy candidates in 2021 when Provoans will elect four more city councilors, plus another mayor, then please involve yourself over these next two years to slowly-but-steadily build support for better candidates among your neighbors.  If you find our website helpful for this purpose, then please feel free to use it.  Thanks!

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Provo Mayor 2017: Miscounts and Write-Ins

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For those who haven’t already learned about it, Utah County’s clerk has discovered that at least 150 Provoan’s votes for mayor this year were never counted; also, Odell Miner (who placed third in this year’s primary election for Provo mayor) has now officially filed as a write-in candidate in this year’s general election to provide an alternative to statists Kaufusi and Everett.  We still favor Miner best of these three, but not enough to endorse him at present.

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Provo Mayor 2017: Kaufusi versus Everett

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Provo’s primary election (whose results were mostly certified this week) has determined that Provo voters will choose between Michelle Kaufusi and Sherrie Hall Everett for their next mayor in this year’s general election on November 7th.

Michelle Kaufusi was asked by Provo’s political/economic elites to run for office, and advocates a “strong” Provo—so strong, some might say, that it can wrangle our municipal economy into submission such that, when she says “dance,” it will dance, when she says “jump,” it will ask how high, and when she says “let there be a grocery store in west Provo,” it will produce a grocery store according to her will.

Sherrie Hall Everett wants to keep Provo “moving forward,” which presumably means moving in the statist direction that she helped to expound in Vision 2030—a vision that includes “sustainable development,” “Smart Growth,” homeowner subsidies, restrictions on rental housing, mandatory neighborhood diversity, city-run business monopolies, business subsidies, Internet censorship, socialized medicine, health regulation, and an expanding array of city-run recreation facilities.

Between empowering the state and subjugating the economy, there aren’t any good mayoral options this year for Provoans who cherish America’s wonderful political heritage of rightful liberty under Constitutional law.  Which means that we’ll need to work hard over these next four years to produce such options in 2021.  If you’re both willing and able to help with this task, then please visit our website for a proposed gameplan of what to do between now and then.

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