Minneapolis Mayoral Election 2017

[David Greene]

The thing with Hoch is that he will not have the backing of the people most involved in city politics, assuming Our Revolution holds together for some accountability work. I have seen nothing to indicate they won't. I could see the city council really just going its own way if Hoch wins. He will have trouble building support.

[kirby96]

The question really is how do NLP's seconds break? I'd think Hodges and Dehn both do well, but how well relative to each others makes the difference as to which is eliminated next, or whether Hoch is.

Yeah, and the other thing is its easy (for me anyway) to overweight generalizing. Pounds supports could significantly favor Dehn as I anticipate, but if it's not significant enough it ultimately helps Hodges.

[David Greene]

I can't imagine Levy-Pounds supporters ranking Hoch or Frey second. Some of them really do not like Dehn but I don't know how deeply that runs. I would not be surprised to see a signifiant number of exhausted Levy-Pounds ballots from people that did not rank a 2nd.

[RailBaronYarr]

The question really is how do NLP's seconds break? I'd think Hodges and Dehn both do well, but how well relative to each others makes the difference as to which is eliminated next, or whether Hoch is.

Yeah, and the other thing is its easy (for me anyway) to overweight generalizing. Pounds supports could significantly favor Dehn as I anticipate, but if it's not significant enough it ultimately helps Hodges.

This really is the key in determining if Hodges has a chance. If more NLP voters put Hodges #2 than Dehn (with a 771 vote cushion), Dehn is eliminated first. If more NLP voters put Dehn #2 than Hodges (and not just -1, but +772), then Hodges is eliminated first. I agree that most NLP or Dehn ballots probably have Hodges on there, and likely above any other candidate (unlikely to have Hoch, but Frey probably sneaks onto many as a #3 slot). But even if that situation plays out in the general sense, Frey will still be picking up votes along the way (>0 NLP and Dehn voters put Frey 2nd), and especially from Hoch ballots, which will align much more closely with Frey than Hodges.

[David Greene]

Who do we think Hodges #1 voters ranked 2nd and 3rd? My total guess is most put Frey but I could see some Dehn votes there too. I have no read on how many Hodges voters ranked Hoch.

[kirby96]

Mixed feelings right now. On the one hand, I strongly support RCV, and think it's entertaining/fascinating to work through the possibilities.

On the other hand, doing just that is probably why a big chunk of the population throws their hands in the air and thinks this RCV is ridiculous.

[Mooglemuffins]

Who do we think Hodges #1 voters ranked 2nd and 3rd? My total guess is most put Frey but I could see some Dehn votes there too. I have no read on how many Hodges voters ranked Hoch.

Early on in the race I was for Hodges but eventually changed over to Dehn. Personally I put Dehn 1st, Hodges 2nd, and then David John Wilson 3rd cause I didn't really care for Hoch or Frey and I liked David's platform even if it was a bit silly with the whole rainbows unicorns butterflies bit. I love RCV for that. Sometimes there's just one I'l gun for and put other smaller candidates I liked for 2 and 3, sometimes I have more 'close ties for first'. It lets me be able to pick a couple which I like which makes the process easier instead of having to go all in with 1 vote.

[David Greene]

I believe RCV encouraged many strong candidates to run who otherwise might not have. That alone is gold. I supported RCV before but I'm all-in after this cycle. Now we have to fix the counting so we can rank all candidates.

[MattW]

You'd think there would be voting machine software sophisticated enough to count the ranked votes automatically.

[MNdible]

Ranking three votes is enough. The very modest additional benefits that it would give to voters who have the time and necessity to rank beyond that just aren't worth the confusion and complication that it causes everybody else.

[amiller92]

Early on in the race I was for Hodges but eventually changed over to Dehn. Personally I put Dehn 1st, Hodges 2nd, and then David John Wilson 3rd cause I didn't really care for Hoch or Frey and I liked David's platform even if it was a bit silly with the whole rainbows unicorns butterflies bit.

It's water under the bridge, but that guy behaved deeply strangely around the 39th St bike lane, to the point of doxing people commenting in support on FB discussions and, allegedly, contacting sponsors of others supporters. In the future, please don't vote for him for anything.

As for who Hodges voters put second, I bet it's all over the map. I had NLP second, but she will obviously be eliminated first (which I actually expected) and Dehn third. On the one hand, smartest guess might be that second on Hodges ballots is distributed largely like the overall firsts. On the other, there could be a strong "not Hoch or Frey" movement too, making Dehn and NLP more represented.

[amiller92]

Ranking three votes is enough.

Nah. It should be at least 5. Nobody is forcing you to rank and exhausted ballots kind of undermine the point. Here, I actually did have a fourth and fifth preference and I'd have liked to be able to express 4th (Frey) for the sake of avoiding 5th (Hoch).

[xandrex]

One thing that has interested me this cycle is that a number of (mostly white) progressives (/urbanists) have created sort of two camps: the “equity” candidates (Hodges, Levy-Pounds, Dehn) and “establishment” candidates (Hoch, Frey), with many opting for a straight-line, equity-camp vote of Hodges followed by the other two. (Meanwhile, I saw an awful lot of progressive POC who clearly did not consider Hodges an equity candidate but ranked her as a last-resort against the establishment candidates)

But I think this dichotomy, while somewhat accurate for the South Minneapolis Twittersphere, does not necessarily align with where the average voter is grouping people. Several people I know mixed between the two, especially combos that included Hodges and Frey (typically with Dehn thrown in there, but sometimes Levy-Pounds). I even know someone who did Frey/Hodges/Hoch!

I think this actually bodes worse for Betsy, because I think Jacob might be sitting on a larger share of her 2nds than people think.

[tmart]

To the point of how many choices we should allow: I wouldn't expect to see 15 candidates, and 5 serious candidates, in most elections. We had an unusual amount of interest given the national political climate, and an unusual amount of anti-incumbent sentiment for a variety of reasons, including a high-profile police incident during the cycle.

Also, note that the method of hand-counting used by Minneapolis gets exponentially more difficult as you add choices.

[RailBaronYarr]

^^This is true, and I somewhat alluded to it in my earlier post - not all NLP/Dehn voters left Frey off their top 3, and some of them may have even had him at #2. I have 2 friends who live down in Kenny that voted Frey-NLP-Hodges, which speaks to the fact that many people don't align Frey with Hoch as establishment, but rather "everyone but Hoch" are shades of progressive with varying focus on equity, vote your personality preference accordingly (most people don't know policy specifics; I'd even argue Dehn and NLP barely read their own housing platforms!!).

In any case, Frey sitting on any share of Hodges' 2nd votes doesn't really matter for Hodges' chances. Either she stays in and her ballots' 2nd/3rd place choices remain unallocated, or she's out anyway and her ballots go to someone else (likely Frey or exhausted depending on who is 2/3).

[QuietBlue]

But I think this dichotomy, while somewhat accurate for the South Minneapolis Twittersphere, does not necessarily align with where the average voter is grouping people. Several people I know mixed between the two, especially combos that included Hodges and Frey (typically with Dehn thrown in there, but sometimes Levy-Pounds). I even know someone who did Frey/Hodges/Hoch!

I think this actually bodes worse for Betsy, because I think Jacob might be sitting on a larger share of her 2nds than people think.

I agree that this narrative is probably not as accurate as people think and people are making assumptions about how people vote that are not necessarily true. For example, Frey won Ward 6 on the first votes, while Hoch came in last, yet people act like they're practically the same. And Dehn, whose base of support was supposedly North, didn't do all that well there.

People also vary in what their dealbreakers are. I know a few people who were happy to rank Dehn and Hodges at the top, but refused to rank NLP due to her educational policy positions, to give one example.

[David Greene]

Also, note that the method of hand-counting used by Minneapolis gets exponentially more difficult as you add choices.

No it does not. "Exponential" has a very specific meaning and the counting doesn't come close to that. Mathematically-speaking it is at worst polynomial. In other words, not bad at all and easily done by software or even hand-count if necessary, which it should not be.

In short, the counting software in Minneapolis is atrocious. There is no reason we should not be able to rank 15 or 20 or 50 candidates if we wanted to. Realistically, six is probably sufficient.

[RailBaronYarr]

Still clinging to that definitely-colloquially-understood-and-used-term 'polynomial' to describe a rapidly increasing curve, eh?

[David Greene]

It's not that rapid. Hence, polynomial and not exponential. It's not even close.

These things actually mean something.

[xandrex]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the "software" used was an Excel spreadsheet, because there is no software legally allowed to count RCV (that's what MPR said anyway)? I suck at math, so I don't know if added more choices makes moving numbers around in a spreadsheet more difficult or not.

Also: As I said above, polynomial means nothing to anyone colloquially. So calling it that just makes RCV sound MORE difficult than exponentially.