I'm drowning in historical moments in our country right now, and will post this later at night than I prefer, but campaign events and work prevent me from doing it at a better time of day.
A historic Presidential nominee.
A historic rematch between our Governor and her opponent from 2004.
A historic energy in this county of 400,000 plus voters.
And, to top it all off, we are the first county to offer Instant Runoff Voting, or Ranked Choice Voting, for our county offices. We are the first county in the 200 plus years of our country to utilize this system.
In short, this eliminated our primary here in Pierce County, Washington.
In the coming days this will be the ONLY time people have the opportunity to vote on these candidates.
I want to give you some history of what's gone on in the past 18 months since this passed, but if you want to simply help educate our Democratic voters in getting Democrats elected to our county offices, you can click here and donate $5, $10, $50 or whatever you think would be good to help us have government of, by and for we the people all the way down the ticket.
The change to our county charter was adopted in 2006.
It laid the groundwork for this historic event unfolding in the next few days as people receive their absentee/vote by mail ballots.
A group of citizens were brought together to form a 'Blue Ribbon Review' Panel to review the change in the charter, and to make recommendations in how to proceed.
As chair of the County's Democratic Party, I was asked to serve.
We tweaked the amendment to permit a lower bar for minority party candidates to be on the ballot. We established guidelines for candidate's party label, and asked to put it off until after the 2008 election.
Most of our changes went before the voters, and a few were changed directly by the county council.
It was left up to the major parties to adopt rules for participation in the RCV environment.
Our party believes in a democratic process, and was faced with the ultimate decision: do we permit one, two or three candidates to run with the Democratic label?
During a rather long meeting, and with much contention, it was decided, with a majority agreement that we would permit upto three candidates to run in the RCV environment.
We took the route that is in line with our democratic values. And we need your help, please donate here.
The Republicans decided any candidate to take 40 percent of a vote during their central committee's meeting could get the label. Practically, this means there will be only one candidate.
So, now we have two candidates running in two different positions in our county government. The highest office being the county executive. The Republicans have one running for executive.
The Democratic County Executive candidates are both highly qualified for the position.
Each are running their own campaigns.
As a party, our task is to educate the Democratic voters to vote once for their favorite Democrat and second for the other Democrat.
The strategy is simple: we need, between the two Democratic candidates, take more than 70 percent of the vote during the first ballot. Frankly, we don't care exactly HOW it is split, just that they take a strong majority COMBINED. That way, the run off is between our candidates.
This will eliminate the Republican candidate, and we win.
I'm asking for money, that's what I said. The more we get the wider we can do our ad buy. So take a second and donate here.
All you can do to help is appreciated.
One last note, I know there is a movement to have Instant Runoff Voting, or Ranked Choice Voting, in more partisan races around this country.
I don't know where I stand on this, but if you endorse this type of voting environment, a big success for the Democratic party in my little county would be a win for your movement, too.
Thanks for listening.