As a followup to last night’s special election to fill Dan Liljenquist’s term as State Senator, I noticed some interesting things based on my interactions with other delegates and my review of the actual results (round-by-round, not just the final tally).

First let me provide some metrics that some people might be interested in – we had 264 delegates eligible to vote in this election. Of those, 258 showed up and received credentials but only 257 cast ballots.

At the meeting there was discussion about the practice in IRV voting of still only choosing one candidate – more generally that can be applied to choosing anything less than all the candidates. We can’t really know for sure how many people put less than all 8 candidates on their ballots but in the last round 7 ballots were discarded because they did not include either of the remaining candidates – Todd Weiler and Randy Shumway. This means that the election was finally counted with 250 out of 264 possible votes.

Now on to the issue of perceived electability.

I had the sense before the voting that this would come down to a two-way contest between Todd Weiler and Randy Shumway. That was based on what I had observed of the campaigns and what I had seen and heard from various delegates. The interesting side note to that was how many people I heard speaking favorably about Tim Hawkes but wondering whether he could win.

When the results were announced my instinct that it was a two-man race was confirmed as evidenced by who the last two candidates were. When I saw the full results from all seven rounds I discovered that my impression of Tim’s widespread appeal showed up strongly in the voting. From the very first round it was actually a three-man race. Todd had the lead in every round (in fact, until the final round Randy did not receive more votes than Todd received in the first round) but the top three were always Todd, Randy, and Tim in that order. Tim had 58 votes and the fourth place candidate had 16 votes. All the candidates below Tim combined for 43 votes in the first round. The fact that many of those who liked Tim questioned whether he could get elected bore out in the phenomenon that in the first 6 rounds – until he was eliminated – Tim  gained more votes than any other candidate. By the time he was eliminated, Tim was only 4 votes shy of Randy.

Tim and Todd seemed more similar than Tim and Randy as shown by the fact that most of Tim’s votes went to Todd. That leaves me to wonder whether there were 5 of those who supported Todd as their first choice who chose Tim second based on the perception that he could not win. If so and they took that perception out of their calculations Tim would have beaten Randy for second place.

My best guess is that this phenomenon is based on widespread misunderstanding of how IRV voting works. Based on how I have heard people talk about it, it seems that many people think that their vote is counted less if it is not their top vote – they think their vote is wasted if they do not guess correctly who is going to win. They seem to instinctively feel that having a second choice vote hurts their first choice candidate rather than recognizing that their second choice candidate can never receive their support unless their first choice candidate is already eliminated which only happens if their first choice candidate was viewed less favorably than their second choice candidate.

I suspect that the voting patterns would be different if people understood that IRV gives them the opportunity to rank all the candidates rather than being dependent on how all the other voters vote if the person they first voted for is not one of the top two vote-getters. They don’t need to see how others voted in the first round before deciding where to throw their support in the second round.

Tonight is the night that county delegates will vote on who should finish the term for Dan Liljenquist. I have noticed over the weeks of campaigning – especially in the last few days – that many of the good ideas that have been promised by one candidate or another are being adopted by other candidates. These adopted positions may be talking points or they may be candidates recognizing a good idea and deciding that they are willing to adopt it on its merits (I think it is usually the latter). Regardless of their reasons there is one idea that I have decided to hold the eventual winner of this special election accountable for. Those who have made this promise already are going to be higher on my ballot than those who have not made or adopted this position.

This one key promise is that  a recognition that representation is a two-way street. Whoever wins this special election must demonstrate their understanding of that fact by proactively maintaining open lines of communication with their constituents. I wrote about this a couple of years ago and have been very happy to see multiple candidates speaking to this aspect of holding office. This must include them communicating to constituents in asynchronous ways (websites being the most widespread method for this currently) and regularly being available for synchronous public communication (open houses or townhall meetings being the methods I have seen used for this by others).

Just as those who have made this promise already will be higher on my ballot than those who do not, the first and most crucial step that the winner can do to earn my support for future terms – whether I supported him or not and whether he made this promise or not – it to keep this promise that has been made by multiple candidates in this campaign.

Anyone who has read here for any length of time knows how willing I am to talk about political issues (just look through the history if you’re new here – or visit Pursuit of Liberty where my political writing is now concentrated). Starting in the latter part of 2008 I decided it was time to do more than talk about political issues I have been working with my state representative and communicating with various officers of the Davis County Republican Party and have now decided to run for Davis County Republican Party Treasurer. I invite all readers who are Davis County Republicans to vote for me at the party organizing convention in 8 weeks. If you know any Davis County Republicans who do not read this blog (there should be at least 10,000 of them) please invite them to support me as well.

Anyone who wants more information about my candidacy is invited to visit my campaign website.

Voting Record will allow recording of votes cast for display and reference purposes. Elected officials can record and display their votes and citizens can track and display the votes of an elected official they follow.

Latest Version: 2.0 (March 16, 2009)

Display templates are introduced here giving you total flexibility in deciding what to display. There is one set of template settings for recent votes and another for search results. Each template is made up of a header, a footer, and an item template. Template tags are used to display the variables specific to each recorded vote such as the vote cast or the vote description. There is also a setting for what to display when no votes are returned in the recent votes and another setting for when no votes are returned in a search.

Votes are entered on a dashboard widget:

A vote management page is available from the posts menu:

Recent votes are shown by adding <?php recent_votes(); ?> in your theme templates. You can show a search votes form by using the shortcode [ SEARCH-VOTES ] on a page or post. Options for Voting Record include:

• The option to specify a primary voter (if most or all of the votes being tracked are from one person).
• The option to specify header text/code for the recent vote list.
• How many recent votes to show – limited by number of votes or number of days.
• What to show before a list of recent votes and what to show before a list of search results.
• What to display at the end of a list of recent votes and what to display at the end of a list of search results.
• The format for displaying your recent votes or search results lists, including which pieces of information to show.
• What to display when no recent votes are returned or when a search comes up empty.

To install it simply unzip the file linked above and save it in your plugins directory under wp-content. In the plugin manager activate the plugin. Settings for the plugin may be altered under the Voting Record page of the Options menu (version 2.3) or Settings menu (version 2.5 or later).

I’ve been working on a blog for Becky Edwards, my state representative, that she wants to use to communicate with constituents. As part of that I have been looking at themes and plugins to help implement the features she is looking for. That led me to Subscribe2 which offers email subscription functionality through the blog. I have decided to try that out in place of feedblitz and see how it works. I figure it will be easier to tend on my own site.

I’m hoping that it is a positive experience for my few subscribers.

I obviously ruffled the feathers of one commenter when I wrote a post in support of a bridge over Utah Lake. He argues that those who want a lake bridge hate the lake and that we should instead be working to restore the lake to its natural beauty. I argue that building a bridge and restoring the lake are nearly independent issues and to that end I decided to share my position on what we should do to restore the lake.

First, I think that Utah Lake would be a great natural resource for the county and the state if it were restored. In its present condition it is little more than a big puddle interrupting our transportation and growth.

There are currently efforts to rid the lake of the carp that were introduced to the lake a century ago. I believe that is a crucial step to improving the beauty of the lake and I think the Department of Wildlife Resources should take every possible step to make that happen – some suggestions they could consider include offering a bounty to fishermen for every carp caught (and kept), making it illegal to release carp (like they have with burbot), or even trying to host a tournament for carp fishing as Texas has done. I’m not sure what the effects on other animals and plants of the ecosystem would be if they try poisoning the carp (as has been suggested).

When the carp have been contained we should be able to reintroduce cutthroat trout and nurse the June sucker populations back to sustainable levels. This would both improve the beauty of the lake, and increase the opportunities for tourism and recreational use of this natural resource.

None of this depends, or is hindered, by a lake bridge as far as I can see. Some have even argued that a lake bridge could be a toll road and that the tolls could be used to fund other lake improvements. The only conjunction I can see between the two issues is that the specific placement of a bridge might influence the recreational activities available on the lake.

Back in May I asked a question about attitudes regarding compensation for elected officials at the city level. I promised to write my conclusions in a followup and now I find that I never did that. My conclusion was that the issue deserved study in Lehi as the city grows so fast, that it should be done with lots of public input, and that the original request seemed very generous, especially for the mayor. Today I read in the Daily Herald:

Lehi officials are looking for public input on a proposal to increase their own salaries as much as several hundred dollars a month.

In May, Mayor Howard Johnson asked the council to triple his salary to a total of $51,000 a year, and to give themselves a raise too. At that time Council members instructed staff to form a committee of former council members to give a recommendation on salaries.

On Tuesday, Lehi city attorney Ken Rushton said the committee had met and had recommended raising Council salaries from $750 to $1,000 a month, and the mayor’s salary from $1,000 a month to $1,500.

In addition, the committee felt Council members should receive another $200 a month as a travel expense stipend, and the mayor an additional $500 per month.

So far I think the council has done a good job of addressing this issue. They have avoided any attempt to push for the large increases that the mayor suggested and in fact there is at least one council member who even believes that they should be reimbursed for travel rather than having stipends. (I would go one step further and have reimbursements with a cap – per trip and/or per month or year.) They have also done a good job so far of making the process open and inviting public input.

I generally do not favor government action that places a mandate on citizens. I don’t believe that it is the place of government to decide whether citizens should recycle or not, but if the options are between mandatory recycling and no recycling option after the citizens have overwhelmingly favored optional recycling it makes sense for the city to choose mandatory recycling. This appears to be the case in Bountiful.

The motion to proceed from Council member Beth Holbrook rescinded the “opt-in” proposal passed May 27.

Reasons cited were a change by Allied Systems, the previously chosen provider. It wanted a guaranteed minimum participation level and a four-year contract, and would start charging the city to maintain the 200 West recycling bins, at an estimated cost of $30,000-$35,000 each year.

With a  price-tag of $3 per month I don’t think we’ll see too much protest over this. Of course my position might be affected by the fact that I have lived with mandatory recycling in Lehi for a few years and I liked it. We generally had more recyclable trash than we did regular garbage so I thought the service was very worthwhile.

One of the things that is good about Editorial boards is that when they are right about something they usually do a good job of defining and defending their position and they have the power of the press at their disposal. (One of the problems is that they have all those advantages when they are wrong too.) A great example of that is the Daily Herald Editors putting the issue of a bridge over Utah Lake in perspective.

Local pressure groups are lining up to fight even thinking about the possibility of a bridge across Utah Lake. They might as well protest the heat of a Utah Valley summer. It’s inevitable that some kind of passage will be forged over the lake in coming years, and the most productive course would be to find the best feasible alternative that will serve the widest number of people.

When my close interest in the transportation issues of Utah County began, the idea of a lake bridge seemed like a distant possibility – something that might happen in 20 or 30 years if at all. Years of living there and following the issues easily have me convinced that the question of if a bridge should be built is short-sighted, the only real questions to answer are where, when, and how to do the job right.

No comprehensive plan to meet the growing transportation needs of Utah County can fail to include some route across the lake. Anyone who wants to delay or minimize a lake bridge had better approach their goal through community planning and business development in Cedar Valley. Only by lowering the overwhelming incentives to travel between that growing area and the established communities on the east side of the lake will allow for a more leisurely approach to designing the bridge that will still become necessary at some point in the future for economic and quality of life reasons.

One nice change in their rhetoric is that they no longer appear to lay the blame for this issue at the feet of Lehi City – like they did only 2 months ago.

The news that our mayor asked city council to raise his pay and theirs got me thinking about this issue more closely than I’ve ever thought about it before. It makes sense that it would be a sensitive issue, but even in the private sector I’m a bit leery of giving someone the power to set their own level of compensation with money from other people. Congress is a good example of the abuse of this power as they have set a system of automatic pay increases (every year as I recall) unless they take action to prevent the pay increase.

I’m not accusing our city council of anything even remotely like that but I wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts or experience with this type of issue that might help shape my position. I’m trying to balance fair compensation with maintaining the integrity of the public service aspect of serving in city government as an elected officer. I’ll share my position after I firm it up a bit. I plan to be talking with Johnny Revill (a member of our city council) about the issue since he lives near me.