WAVELENGTHS

League of Women Voters of Lincoln County, Oregon November 2016

“The League of Women Voters of Oregon is a grassroots, non-partisan political organization which encourages the informed and active participation of citi-zens in government in order to build better communities statewide.

Visit our web page at www.lwvlincolncounty.org

LWVLC Board of Directors

President Jean Cowan

Vice President Open

Secretary Joan Haffner

Treasurer Jack Kistler

Committee Chairs

Voter Services Ruth Kistler

Membership Marilyn Podesta

November 10 Meeting Our next regular meeting will be on Thursday, No-vember 10, at the Newport Library. As usual, we will begin gathering at 11:30 am and the program will begin promptly at 11:45 am. The Board is excited to welcome our speaker, Ceasefire Ore-gon’s Executive Director, Penny Okamoto. Penny will offer an introduction to the organization’s mission and history, along with a summary of the group’s “Plan to Cut Gun Violence,” in keeping with the League’s positions regarding gun safety issues.

Penny will show a slide presentation about the need for an assault weapons ban, then review Governor Kate Brown’s call for gun violence pre-vention, including her Executive Order and the list of proposed bills that she supports, as well as a discussion of possible bills for the 2017 Oregon legislative session. Ceasefire Oregon is support-ing efforts to increase standards of gun ownership, enhance accountability of federally licensed fire-arms dealers, and improve safety standards for gun and gun ownership.

Per information in the LWVOR Action Plan, in 2016 the League supported two bills related to gun safety, although only one was successful. The “Charleston Loophole” bill (HB 4147) passed the House, but stalled in the Senate. The second bill, HB 4075, recommended a School Safety Task Force and established a statewide school safety hotline. One million dollars was also allo-cated this session to strengthen enforcement of the 2015 firearm background check law. Marge Ea-sley is the LWVOR Portfolio Chair for Gun Safe-ty (among other responsibilities) and it is antici-pated that she will follow any developing 2017 legislation closely.

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Fall Candidate Forums

Two candidate forums were offered by the League

of Women Voters of Lincoln County in October.

On October 13, at the request of the Yachats

Mayoral candidates, we hosted a forum in the 50l

building in Yachats. The City of Yachats gener-

ously provided the meeting room at no charge to

us. Despite a howling winter storm, the attend-

ance was excellent, with between 50 and 60 peo-

ple in the audience. They heard from Representa-

tive Caddy McKeown (House District 9), who an-

swered a wide range of questions. Unfortunately,

her opponent, Teri Grier, was unable to attend due

to the dire predictions of heavy winds along the

coastal highway.

Next, the candidates for Mayor of Yachats, John

Moore and Gerald Stanley, took center stage and

provided opening remarks. During the question

and answer period, we dispensed with written

questions, and were rewarded with a wide range

of thoughtful questions from the audience. Re-

sponses were timed by the moderator, Jean Cow-

an. The final presentations of the evening were

from the two individuals running for two seats on

the city council, Max Glenn and Jim Tooke.

The audience was appreciative of an opportunity

to get to know their local representatives and can-

didates better and all enjoyed Ruth’s excellent

brownies. Joan Haffner, who lives in Yachats, did

a fine job of organizing the event and helping with

refreshments. Jean’s healthy offering of a vegeta-

ble tray mostly ended up in soup the next day.

The following week, on October 19, LWVLC

hosted a second forum in Newport at the Hallmark

Resort. Unfortunately, the audience turnout for

this event was very sparse, perhaps because it con-

flicted with the Presidential Debate that same

evening. Those who did attend, however, were

interested and attentive, asking a variety of

thoughtful questions.

The opening session featured Senator Arnie Ro-

blan and his challenger, Dick Anderson, who are

running for State Senator in Senate District 5.

They were followed by the candidates for State

Representative House District 10, Rep. David

Gomberg and his challenger, Thomas Donohue.

Jean again moderated this forum.

The meeting then took some time for refresh-

ments, allowing time to visit one on one with the

candidates and for Jack to set up a Power Point

presentation. After the short break, Jean led a dis-

cussion of the statewide ballot measures, utilizing

information from the LWVOR Speaker’s Kit. A

lively conversation followed on virtually each of

the proposed measures.

Although the turnout was disappointing, especial-

ly after the well-attended Yachats gathering, the

evening was interesting and informative for all

who did participate and the League’s structure and

organization was appreciated by all who attended.

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December Luncheon — Dec 8

League Members will again be gathering at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport for our annual holiday luncheon. This year’s speaker for the event will be Lola Jones, Executive Director of Samaritan House, who will address issues of Af-fordable Housing and Homelessness in Lincoln County.

We will meet downstairs at the outside entrance of the dining room at 12:15 pm to check in with Jack Kistler, treasurer. Lunch will begin promptly at 12:30 pm and we expect Lola to begin her presen-tation shortly after 1 pm.

The following menu has been planned by Chef Nanci Courtney: Starters: Harvest garden salad with homemade bread Entree: Chicken Pot Pie (Vegetarian version also available), with green vegetable Dessert: "Winter Sundae” (Homemade ice cream, topped with a ginger-cranberry sauce), accompa-nied by a cookie. The cost of the luncheon, (including coffee/tea and gratuity) is $20.40. Beer or wine is available as well, at your cost.

Please send your check in this amount to: LWVLC, P.O. Box 1648, Newport, OR 97365 by Saturday, Dec. 2, 2016. Reservation numbers will be called into the hotel on the following Mon-day. Potential members and other guests are wel-come. If you have questions, please contact Mari-lyn Podesta after November 27th. (541-765-4422) (The Sylvia Beach Hotel is located at the corner of Third/NW Cliff Streets in Newport. The outside entrance to the downstairs dining room is on Third Street. A tiny parking lot is across the street from the front entrance; most cars will find street park-ing nearby.)

Fruit Sale Finale

Our League’s annual fruit sale fundraiser ends November 15. As usual, we will be ordering some extra boxes of fruit and we may be able to fill a limited number of late orders from those ex-tras, but don’t count on them! You can mail your completed order forms to our LWVLC Post Office Box (LWVLC, P.O. Box 1648, Newport, OR 97365), or bring them to our November 10 meet-ing.

We expect the fruit to be delivered to Corvallis sometime during the first week of December; we won’t know the exact date until a day or two be-fore then. Jack and Ruth Kistler will haul the fruit in their trailer from Corvallis to their home in Newport. We would appreciate the assistance of one or two volunteers, capable of lifting and stacking twenty-pound fruit boxes. Volunteers should phone Jack (541-574-8145) or email him, jackkistler@charter.net, if they think they will be available, and Jack will contact them once we know the exact time and date of delivery.

Once the fruit has been unloaded at the Kistler home in Newport, we will call sellers who have indicated they can deliver the fruit themselves, and arrange a time and place for them to pick up the fruit they sold. We will arrange for delivery in cases where the sellers indicated they cannot de-liver the fruit themselves.

The fruit sale, our only fundraising event, has been successful for many years because of great member participation. Let’s use these final days of the sale to ensure another success.

Calendar of events

Nov 8 General Election

Nov 10 11:30 AM Newport Public Library General Meeting – CeaseFire Oregon presentation by Penny Okamoto

Dec 8 12:15 PM Sylvia Beach Hotel December Luncheon

Jan 10 Salem Legislative Process Day

Jan 12 11:30 AM Newport public Library General Meeting – Election Method Update Study

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Election Methods Update Study

Executive Summary

The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constitut-ing this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times, it should be an equal repre-sentation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal in-terest in it. Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections.

-John Adams Have we taken all the care we can to ensure fair, impartial and representative elections? In addition to fighting voter disenfranchisement and the corrupting influence of money, are there ways to design the way we vote to help ensure our elected officials speak for the people and our legislative bodies are more nearly a miniature portrait of the people at large?

In this report we build on the work of the 2008 Election Methods Committee to present and evaluate voting methods and election systems that are currently in use in the U.S. or around the world and that could be considered for adoption in Oregon. In Benton County, one such system will be on the ballot in November 2016.

Single-Winner Election Systems

There are multiple options for electing a single winner. A single-winner election could be for a single position, such as a Mayor or Governor, or for a single legislator from a certain geographic area, such as the one congressperson representing a particular district, or a councilor representing the whole city. Oregon currently uses first-past-the-post, plurality voting, but there are other possibilities.

Plurality is the Amer ican status quo. It’s easy to use and understand, but it discourages sincere vot-ing and, compared to other methods, is less effective at electing the candidate who is most repre-sentative of the people.

Delayed runoff is an improvement on plurality in electing representative candidates. It requires two elections, one to narrow the field to two candidates and one to select between the two, usually involving lower voter turnout in one of the elections.

Range voting requires voters to rate each candidate on a scale, say from 1 to 5. The candidate with the highest average rating wins. If all voters vote sincerely, range voting is extremely good at

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About the Election Methods Study Update I suspect elections are the last thing most of us want to think about just now, but the LWVOR Election Meth-ods Update Study is complete and it deserves our attention. The very readable Executive Summary is in-cluded in this newsletter; the full 70-page report and the consensus questions (as well as the Executive Sum-mary) are available on the LWVOR website. Members will be receiving printed copies of the full report and the consensus questions soon. Our January 12 member meeting will be devoted to a presentation of this study and discussion of the consensus questions.

WAVE LENGTHS 5 November 2016

selecting the most representative candidate. It is, unfortunately, very susceptible to strategic voting as opposed to sincere voting.

Approval voting enables voters to indicate whether or not they approve of each candidate for the position. The candidate with the most approvals wins. Approval voting is second best to range voting in electing the most representative candidate and second worst to range voting in encouraging strategic voting.

Ranked choice voting is known as instant runoff voting when used to select a single candidate. Studies show it to be nearly as good as range voting in selecting the most representative candidate and best of all systems considered in encouraging sincere voting.

Multiple Winner Election Systems

Because each district is politically diverse, electing just one representative per district will not yield a legislative body that is “an exact portrait of the people at large.” Most western democracies elect multiple candidates from each district so that legislators can represent the different political views within each district. There are several election systems for electing multiple legislators per district.

Bloc types exist in Oregon. In this system, the entire electorate elects multiple candidates to a legislative body, electing each candidate in separate races. For example, all residents of the City of Portland elect four councilors, plus a Mayor. Each council candidate runs for a numbered council seat against other candidates who filed for that numbered seat. This system has been shown to be less rep-resentative than dividing the area into districts and electing a candidate from each district, because the majority opinion of the entire area determines the outcome of all the races.

Semi-proportional systems, including cumulative and limited voting allow voters multiple votes in the same race. The highest vote-getters win. These systems can lead to more representation for all groups if minority political groups carefully coordinate their voting strategy and focus all their votes on a single candidate to ensure a candidate representing them wins one of the positions.

Proportional representation systems are favored by most political scholars as the most repre-sentative systems. Most western democracies use a form of proportional representation voting to elect legislative bodies. A pool of candidates contends for the available seats in a district. There are several ways to elect representatives that reflect the major political opinions of the district:

Party list voting allows voters to choose a candidate from a par ty list (open list voting, the most common form of voting in developed democracies) or simply to choose a party (closed list voting). In open list voting, a vote counts for that candidate and for the candidate’s party. The party wins seats in proportion to the number of votes for candidates on its list, with candidates given the party’s seats in proportion to their number of votes they receive. In closed list voting the party’s pre-determined list of candidates win positions in proportion to the number of votes for that party.

Mixed-member proportional voting, a newer system, is the one most election exper ts favor. It retains a local representative while allowing for overall proportionality of the legislature. Voters get two votes: one for a local representative from a single-winner local district, and one for a party. Par-ties win seats in proportion to the number of votes each party receives.

Single-transferrable vote systems are the second choice of election exper ts. Candidates run in a pool for a number of seats. For example, all candidates for Portland City Council would run together for any of the four council seats, rather than splitting up into different races for individually num-bered seats, as they do now. Voters rank the candidates and any candidate who passes a certain

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threshold of support wins a seat. For American voters, this proportional system has the added attrac-tion of allowing voters to vote for individual candidates, not for parties.

The minimum level of the threshold, to avoid electing representatives with very small support groups, and the size of the district are important design considerations for proportional systems.

Political Parties and Oregon Reforms

In Oregon, a candidate can list up to three parties on the ballot, assuming all three have nominated the candidate. This aggregated fusion voting gives voters more information about the candidate. A full fusion voting system would list each candidate as many times on the ballot as there are parties nominating her. By choosing which place on the ballot to vote for the candidate, voters indicate sup-port for that party. Full fusion would give candidates more information about the sources of their sup-port.

The purpose of partisan races in primary elections is to select major party candidates to run for parti-san seats, like State Senator or Governor, in November general elections. Major parties in Oregon are the Democrat, Republican, and Independent parties. Voters not registered with one of these parties are excluded from partisan races in the primary. Proposed reforms include a limited open primary, in which unaffiliated voters can vote by choosing which party’s ballot to receive, an open primary in which all voters choose which party’s ballot to receive on election day (a consideration with Ore-gon’s vote-by-mail system), and top-two pr imar ies, in which all voters, regardless of par ty affilia-tion, vote on all candidates for each seat and the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. See delayed runoff above.

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League of Women Voters of Lincoln County P. O. Box 1648 Newport, OR 97365

Membership Form Name____________________________________ Phone___________________ E-Mail________________________ Address__________________________________________ City______________________________ Zip_________

League of Women Voters of Lincoln County

For information call Marilyn Podesta Membership Chair, 541-765-4422

Individual Household Low income: Individual Household Annual Membership Dues (Circle one.) $60 $90 $40 $60 ___I am a new member

___I am renewing my membership The membership year begins October 1.

___I am interested in working with the League.

___Please call me.

I wish to make a contribution to LWV Lincoln County in addition to my dues $______________

Total Member Dues and contribution Make check out to: LWV of Lincoln County $______________ I wish to contribute to the LWV of Oregon (Separate Check Required. Make $______________ check out to “LWVOR”. ) Only contributions to LWVOR are tax deductible. These contributions assist LWVLC’s Voter Service activities and education projects. (Tax deductible Contributions to LWVOR must be on a check separate from payment of dues and LWVLC contributions.) Total Enclosed: $______________ Please mail to: LWVLC P. O. Box 1648, Newport, OR 97365