voteguy.com

How to have two votes in DC’s at-large elections

October 15, 2026

There is controversy about the new electoral system in DC. Michael Brice-Saddler reports for the Washington Sun:

For decades, the at-large ballot carried simple instructions: vote for no more than two candidates. Under the new system, voters face a grid prompting them to rank candidates across columns from first to fifth choice. Yet because each ballot contains only one active vote at a time, a voter’s second choice may never be counted.

The new math has forced candidates to reshape their messaging in the home stretch, with contenders aggressively pleading for first-choice votes. The change has also bred friction among voters accustomed to casting two distinct picks, leaving even politically plugged-in residents puzzling over their ballots.

One way for voters to have two “active votes” — or potentially as many as they want — would be to use free-list PR (FLPR). Also known as PR with panachage, FLPR lets voters cast an arbitrarily large number of candidate votes. These then determine how many seats each party gets as well as which candidates get them.

What is the right number of papers to assign in a college course?

October 5, 2026

My pedagogy is about to change again. I have been basing assessment mostly on three deliverables: a skill-building worksheet, a midterm paper, and a final paper. Now I think the optimal mix might be: skills worksheet, midterm, two papers. Here is my thinking.

What role for RCV in the election of Mamdani?

September 6, 2026

Back to school! The question has come up in my classrooms and conversations at the ongoing APSA conference. Here are some thoughts.

Data on historic use of STV in U.S. cities

July 20, 2026

All original data from More Parties or No Parties are stored here.

Do big cities need larger councils?

June 10, 2026

The DSA and Working Families Party are increasingly active in Democratic primaries and, for cities with nonpartisan ballots, first-round elections. City & State consequently reports that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new charter-review commission has been swamped with calls for “open primaries.” Out on the West Coast, however, “open primaries” are producing the same basic results.

I want to suggest that cities like New York and L.A. instead consider increasing the sizes of their councils. Doing so might take some pressure off of Democratic primaries — or what passes for primaries in cities with nonpartisan elections.