Here in Oakland, CA we've got an important Mayoral race going on right now, with a good chance of ejecting an incumbent that deserves to be ejected. We're fortunate to use "ranked choice voting" here, so we don't have to stress out quite so much about strategic voting, so I respectfully suggest submitting the ballot:
- Dan Siegel
- Rebecca Kaplan
- Libby Schaaf (aka anyone besides Jean Quan)
An informal poll among my lefty friends has Dan Siegel as their pick where more moderate people seem to like Rebecca Kaplan. Rebecca Kaplan is fortunately way ahead of the incumbent Jean Quan in recent polling, and is likely to be the actual winner (though there's a big chunk of undecided voters that could throw the election in any direction if they all broke the same way).
Everyone seems to have something they dislike about Jean Quan: she lost me with a scheme to replace the 5th Avenue Marina artist's district with some gigantic slick condocitis funded by foreign investors.
Quan also presided over the Occupy crackdown, though unfortunately Kaplan doesn't have clean hands their either: Siegel used to work for her, but split from her camp over that issue.
If you're curious about Ranked Choice Voting, a much better name for it is "Instant Runoff Voting": if the leading candidate doesn't win by a majority, you start doing simulated runoffs with the lists of preferences-- the voters can vote their consciences for number 1 without fear of wasting a vote.
Wouldn't it be great to have "Instant Runoff Voting" for national elections?