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Fast potato

This is where the baked potato meets the potato skin.

What you need:

  • Nice russet potato
  • Oil to rub potato
  • Butter
  • Dry chives
  • Bacon bits (phony preferred)
  • Cheese of choice

Wash the potato. Cut it in half the long way. Coat both halves in oil, put them flat-side down on parchment paper, salt the backs, and bake at 450 F (230-235 C). Basically, do what Sonja says.

Test to see if the potato is done by poking it with a fork.

Step 1 is over.

Score both halves a few times.

Open up the slits a bit by squeezing from both ends. Add butter and chives (and bacon bits if you have them). Add cheese; I used cheddar jack but would have preferred sharp cheddar. Add more chives (and bacon bits, which I sadly didn’t have).

Put the dressed potato halves back into the oven until they look like the ones below (but with a nicer cheese). I suppose you could broil for a more dramatic effect.

Step 3 is over.

Block-preferential (or sequential) RCV is out in Heber City, UT

The local Park Record has a story here.

Here is a 2023 blog post on a “downward cascade” process in that year’s election results.

I wrote about this system in a 2021 article, which also covered its historical use in Australia and similar rules at other times in the U.S.

McCune et al. (2024) have an interesting article using the block-preferential (or “sequential”) procedure to show how it would change observed results under Scottish STV.

One alternative to outright repeal would be to replace the system with a “bottom-up” RCV allocation. The issue in Utah has been multiseat districts, which formerly were combined with runoffs.

Numbered-post versus at-large elections

I have run into confusion about this several times over the past few years. Both are forms of “at-large” election in the sense that they can award the largest organized group every seat in a district (usually but not necessarily the city). Here is how that works.

Take a district of three seats. There are two ways to fill the seats. One is to declare elected the people with the three highest vote totals. This is an “an-large” election in the form of multiple non-transferable vote (MNTV).

Another is to give each seat a number (one, two, or three) and make each candidate choose a number. Then let each voter vote individually for each seat. Then declare elected the highest vote getter under each number.

The MNTV ballot might look as follows:

CandidateVote for three with X marks below.
Bob
Sue
Phil
Amy
Juan
Dani

The numbered-post ballot might look as follows:

CandidateVote for one per seat with X marks below.
Seat 1
Bob
Sue
Seat 2
Phil
Amy
Seat 3
Juan
Dani

If Bob, Phil, and Juan get more votes with the first ballot than the other candidates, they win (MNTV or normal at-large).

If Bob gets the most votes for seat 1, Phil gets the most votes for seat 2, and Juan gets the most votes for seat 3, they all win (numbered post).

Both systems therefore can produce the same result in the presence of a cohesive plurality. However, they do so differently, and that difference can be combined (or not) with other institutional designs.