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Joyce McDonald issued a statement today declaring victory in her bid for the County Council seat being vacated by Calvin Goings. McDonald notes that she has 48.5 percent of the first-choice votes and has enjoyed a solid lead over Democrats Al Rose and Carolyn Merrival in both releases of ranked-choice voting results.
That said, she is decidedly not a fan of the new voting system. She says her council agenda will include a move to drop the RCV system.
Here's an excerpt from a note she sent today to Republican activists:
As you know, the executive’s race is still too close to call, but looking at the “first choice” votes, there’s no doubt that Shawn Bunney could have won if this had been a “top two” election rather than a ranked choice. I look forward to working with my fellow council members to change the fiasco of Pierce County’s “Ranked Choice Voting” to a top two system. That way all races will appear on a “single” ballot, removing the wasted time, energy and money used for two ballots and a flawed counting system.
That's not McDonald's only complaint. She didn't mention Auditor Pat McCarthy by name, but McDonald also blasted the county's operation of poll sites on Election Day.
Probably the greatest travesty was the many disenfranchised voters who did not get to cast their votes because they could not stand in line for two or three hours. Many had to work! This happened to my son in law, who after waiting in line for more than an hour, had to leave to pick up his daughter at school. He then came back, stood in line a second time and still had not voted by the time he had to leave for work. He took a bold step and went to the front of the line and demanded his ballot – much to the anger of many others who were still waiting in line. He was so rushed and frustrated at this point that he only took the time to vote in the presidential and congressional race on the one ballot and then voted in my race only on the ranked choice ballot. This frustration caused by the unnecessary closing of polling places and the overall lack of planning and foresight cannot be tolerated. Our votes are too important.
COMMENTS:
Anyway, the first thing you would want to do is add the two democrats first place votes together to get the approximate amount one of them would have received. You then have to look at the 2nd place votes of the Lonergan voters to determine where they would have gone. But, it doesn't matter because Goings and McCarthy combined for over 50% of the vote! At least so far. So actually, if Bunney does win this thing it will probably be only BECAUSE of RCV.
BTW, it looks like the two Dem combined for about 9 percent of the Lonergan 2nd place votes, while Bunney only got 4 or 5. So, in all likelihood, either Dem would have won easily in a top two election.
-Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)
I don't make jokes... I just watch the government and report the facts.
-Will Rogers
McDonald is far from the first of our newly elected county officials to pledge to get rid of this monstrosity. GO FOR IT JOYCE!
If she wanted to see long voting line waits, she can talk about other states where people waited 4+ hours. Bet her son didn't wait a 1/2 hour in reality.
Obviously, he must be deficient in character because GOD creates parents and obviously He has left him with out the adequate skills to manage his time with his daughter as well as vote.
If you think that statement is offensive, it's exactly what she said to me when I related a tale of my son being injured on the job (10/17/96). So it's status quo as far as oratory is concerned. It doesn't surprise me that he cut in line, apparently he has a sense of entitlement that allows this type of behavior and this statement encourages us to assume he a moral superiority for doing so. BTW, the rest of us have to vote, work and raise kids, too, whether you think God is helping us or not.
Pierce County is going to be in it bad with this election, with (Bunney, Bush, McDonald) in charge. Expect Summit-Waller to be chipped away with ugly subdivisions, more crowded roads and schools (and blame dispatched to the state) and a continuing long line of insipid statements such as this one.
...but the checks from BIAW will keep rolling in.
And to think that Shawn would have won this race just because of RCV is just plain ignorance on her part.
Finally, has your Son ever considered that if he doesn't want to wait in line on election night that he can use the absentee ballot option?
You are an angry Calvinite and I know this becuase what you wrote about PC was what Goings sent out in a recent Goings' email.
Mcdonald,
You need to learn to be more gracious as well as your son in law. Not even elected yet and you are picking fights with other PC elected officials on the other side of you aisle. That is a great show of what is to come IF you win.
Muri is a Rep, but he puts voters first especially Military and Vets who make up a large part of his district. I pray that Muri will take Joyce under his wing to teach her about politics, life and how you communicate with people. And maybe Muri can teach Joyce's son in law some manners too.
Joyce McDonald
You wrote in your blog - This frustration caused by the unnecessary closing of polling places and the overall lack of planning and foresight cannot be tolerated. Our votes are too important.
This was one of the biggest examples of innuendo: The intention is often to insult or accuse someone in such a way that one's words, taken literally, are innocent.
People would have respected your comments more if you just came right out and said that you think the PC Auditor messed up. But you chose to stir people's emotions up and make it political. Your comments were typical of a politician taking shots at an elected official of the opposite party. That type of display of BS is what PC residents hate and do not want.
I for one have always considered the person not the party when casting my ballot, primary or general. This year with top 2 on the state races and RCV for the county, I was able to again practice what I feel our founding fathers wanted, True Choice. I was able to vote for whom I felt was the best choice!
With RCV I gave it a lot of thought of how could I vote and help the person I wanted to win the most. Bottom line, you need to vote for your 1st choice 1st. After that you can vote for a 2nd or 3rd choice or none at all. Now that is truly letting you express your feelings
As for her statement about her son, I saw that with a new system, the questions and confusion that could and probably would arise, I asked for the mail in Ballot. I've always been a poll voter (since 1972) and truly love that part of expressing my freedom, With My Neighbors. But I too needed to be at work so I opted for the vote by mail option this year.
After all if one feels strongly about casting their ballot and their American Freedoms and Rights, one should be able to sacrifice their own needs for their votes to be counted or a least look to the future and make a fairly easy choice of receiving their ballot at home as this old carpenter did.
It appears to me that we have just got another BLAME THROWER on the Pierce County Council instead of a problem solver. And if Pierce County follows suit with 37 other Washington counties, we’ll all be voting by mail anyway.
It seems to me Councilwoman-Elect McDonald's desire to fix our election system so voters are not disenfranchised is a good thing.
While the merits of RCV were presented to the voters in 2007, the public was never given an accurate projection of the cost, nor the unintended consequences of operating two different election systems, simultaneously, in a Presidential year. I would argue that if the public was given an accurate cost figure and asked if they minded standing in poll lines for two hours, the vote probably would have gone differently.
When these situations occur, our system allows for public officials to override the public election. The easiest thing for the Councilwoman to do would be to ignore the problems and wave the "will of the voters" flag. Real leadership is doing something that maybe unpopular, but is right (like making sure people get to vote).
If the problem is RCV hasn't gotten a fair shot or the voters just needs to get use to it for it work, I'm curious, how many disenfranchised voters and for how many elections is an acceptable cost of doing business?
I follow this stuff pretty closely and I know that Joyce McDonald wasn't afraid to do tough and unpopular things in Olympia and I am so glad she is bringing that same bold leadership to our County Council.
It takes a vote of the county council to close the polls. This year it was 7 to 0 unanimous to keep them open. I do not see a change in that majority county council opinion. We need to add polling stations for presidential general elections. And I will be advocating for two polling stations at Fort Lewis (one North Fort and one main post) for active duty military personal and their families. The new national law allows active duty military personal and their families to register as late as the day of the election. We had 348 provisional ballots cast at DuPont and would of had more but the long lines (3 hours and longer) deterred many from voting. We need to do better to serve all the voters of Pierce County. Polling places offer a unique level of customer service. I see no reason to close them and in fact we should open more polling stations, especially for general elections.
The decision to draw back on polling places was done long before the election and has been on going for years. When you got your pamphlet, there was a list of polling places. The words "historic turnout" were used so more people turned out. And there was time to get a absentee ballot so you could by pass the lines and sitting around.
How do you know the Auditor cut back on staff - do you have proof??
Btw I did catch the part about expense and time when we were voting on RCV in the first place, voted against it and didn't like it. Now that I am watching the process though, I do like it. With a top two the person that ultimately wins could win with only 26% voter support (with four in the race) but with RCV who ever does win necessarily was chosen by at least 50% +1 vote.
I think we should give it one more round, and I do think that we should run county elections in off years.
That is the 3rd sentence of the Declaration of Independence. That leads me to believe that free, fair and accurate election were important not only to our founding fathers, but also to the survival of us as a nation-state.
The idea of RCV, in that it provides a greater number of options to the voters, is a worth while cause to explore. Much as the idea of all mail-in voting is a noble effort to increase participation. However, is the potential gain (more potential choices in candidates & possible greater voter turnout) worth degrading that free, fair and accurate standard our democracy requires?
The quesition I ask myself is since the passing of Motor Voter (Pres. Clinton) and Help America Vote (Pres. Bush), are our elections more or less free, fair and accurate?
Since we now define a successful election simply by how many ballots get turned in and not how accurately was the will of the legal voters represented, the answer is an obvious NO.
I understand you to be asking if we should be soliciting votes from what is sometimes referred to as the "uninformed electorate". It is a good question.
However in years and years past we have seen the many disenfranchised from by the few that lead, again and again and again.
Thus I would conclude that yes we want to solicit the vote of the aforementioned and formerly known "uninformed electorate." We must do this as the few have become the kingdoms, the tyranny and the oppression that our same for-fathers sought to get away from for the sake of freedom, innovation, individualism, and creativity.
The body of our politic has changed significantly. If we do not change with it we will loose both.
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