There will always be evil in this world. People in every country are making decisions each day which move them further in one direction or the other. Blocking flights will not stop this. At best it will do nothing, at worst it will create more hatred.

The uncomfortable truth, is that the terrorists believe they are righteous. History has shown that spiritual conviction is not quelled by force, which is why no matter how far ahead America’s military gets, it has no power in this fight. The more I think about it, this is a spiritual war. To win it, we need to prioritize a campaign of anti-propaganda and access to information. We should connect with the insular communities of the world and create global citizens.

Spreading truth allows us to treat the root of the disease instead of the symptoms. As people are more informed, they are less likely to believe “America is evil.” – instead they may even turn on the cult leaders themselves. Spreading the truth requires people to interact with outside cultures and necessitates freedom of travel across borders.

There are a few different paths being pursued to get Ranked Choice Voting passed in NYC. The absolute least we can do is voice our support (sign this petition), but I think we can do more.

Path 1: Amendment to the NYS Constitution

Link to the Bill: s4586

This is an ongoing story of the Senate trying repeatedly, but getting blocked by the NY Assembly. For more information on how the process works, check this article I wrote.

1. March 30, 2015 a cross-partisan bill sponsored by State Senators, Liz Krueger (Democrat) and Andrew Lanza (Republican), was submitted to the Senate. In less than three months it was passed by the Senate and delivered to the Assembly.
2. Bill sits in the Assembly for 6 months before being killed and sent back to Senate
3. Bill is amended by the Senators in 13 days
4. After 5 months in June 2016, it makes it through the Senate a 2nd time and is resubmitted to Assembly
5. From June 2016, until now, it is sitting in the Assembly without movement.

For this path to succeed, we need to know why the assembly is against it. In terms of $$$, we know that it will pay itself off the very first run-off election, and will save $10,000,000+ every subsequent election (source). Assuming this bill gets through the Assembly, it will be up to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has previously voted in favor of several voting reforms, including the national popular count.

Path 2: Amendment to the NYC Administrative Code

Link to the Proposal: Int 0150-2014, PDF: RCV Bill Legislation Details.

An alternative to passing RCV from the State level is to change the NYC Administrative code. Currently we have NYC Councilman Brad Lander attempting to pass RCV by going through the NYC Council. The Bill was proposed in March of 2014 and was immediately pushed to the Committee on Elections. From there it stalled and I haven’t seen any movement on it. I’ve contacted Brad Lander (lander@council.nyc.gov) in December to learn more and am awaiting a reply.

The Path Less Traveled

The previous two paths represent business as usual. It’s working within the system as our government and elected officials are most comfortable. There are other options, but they are considerably less common and are likely to make some people uncomfortable.

The first is a Ballot Measure.  Assuming our State level bill s4586 gets through both legislative houses, but for some reason the governor doesn’t choose to sign it. In this case, the Bill could be passed anyways by being put on a general election ballot.

The second is a Constitutional Convention. Once, every 20 years, we vote on if the NYS Constitution should be scrapped and rebuild. And guess what. That is THIS YEAR! This can be a scary choice because there are definitely parts of the NYS Constitution that we really like. However this may be a good option for either pressuring the passage of our bill, or getting it done the hard way. For more info visit: http://www.newyorkconcon.info/

What does this mean for us?

In a game of chess, it would mean that we have all the pieces required to checkmate, but that the game has stalled. Both paths to RCV have hit roadblocks, but if we can unblock them, we could be voting with ranked choices by our November 2017 elections.

Help me spread the movement by following me on Twitter: @donato

I recently wrote about the importance of Ranked Choice Voting and began doing my homework on what I can do to get it passed in my local community. While I was buoyed by the recent success in Maine, where they passed an amendment for RCV this last election cycle (source), I was disappointed to learn it took 15 years of preparation and lobbying (source).

It took a few hours of research, but I pieced together a good idea of who represents me, as a resident of Manhattan, from the National down to the Local level.

Each elected post here, is chosen by a process called First-Past-The-Post which is your basic “pick one candidate, and the person with the most wins.” From here I dug into the elections for each and found that there were two major groupings of these. The State and National elections are ruled by laws provided in the NYS Constitution, whereas the City and Borough elections are ruled by laws provided in the NYC Administrative Code.

How it works at the City Level

Starting local, my question becomes how does change occur in the NYC Administrative Code (they have a terrible website which cannot be deep-linked, but find it here). The process goes like this.

1. Find your Senator and propose your change
2. Hope

The second step is “hope” because it is now out of your hands. You can try to rally more people to bug that Senator and if enough do, it will hopefully rise in priority until he/she decides to take action. The following steps are out of your control as a citizen, but are the steps required for change to come into effect.

How a bill becomes a law (source)

1. Senator writes a Bill
2. Senator submits Bill to a Committee
3. Committee is a step intended to filter out bills that will never pass. If committee thinks it has a chance, they submit it to the Senate.
4. The Senate votes on the bill, if passed, it goes to the Assembly Committee
5. If the Assembly Committee likes it, they pass it to the Assembly
6. The Assembly votes on it, if passed, it goes to the NYS Governor
7. The Governor signs or vetoes the Bill

What more can I do?

I’m still working this part out. The more I understand, the more daunting it seems. Any individual can make a difference, but things move faster the more people who are involved. If you’d like to join forces with other NY’ers who are fighting for Ranked Choice Voting, please contact me. We have a weekly 30 minute conference call to collaborate and share news/updates, and we’d love to have you join!

After the 2016 presidential election, I felt a certain melancholy pervade my thoughts. How can the people I know and love, be so divided against each other? I suddenly lost confidence that everything is going to work out.  Climate change, nuclear proliferation, job displacement and drug abuse are not issues we have the luxury to fix later. They need to be addressed immediately and with an unprecedented level of urgency.

So I went to work, untangling the knot of problems I see in our democracy. From corruption to inefficiencies, incentive systems to incarceration laws. Like undoing a sailors knot, I realized there was a single thread that needs to be worked out first. This thread is Fair Voting.

Undoing this one prerequisite knot will do more than improve our democracy, it will increase the rate of improvement in our democracy.

Fair Voting will Increase the Rate of Improvement in Our Democracy.

Like a good puzzle, fair voting isn’t one challenge, but a conglomeration of  little ones. I’m appreciative of the people at fairvote.org, who did the hard work of enumerating these challenges and even creating toolkits to empower us to fight for them.

1. Ranked Choice Voting – When voting, instead of choosing one candidate, rank the options
2. Fair Representation  – When allocating representatives, instead of winner-takes-all, give a proportion based on votes
3. Redistricting – address gerrymandering by having a non-partisan group redistrict based on a criteria
4. National Holiday for Voting – Allow workers to vote without consequence

Ranked Choice Voting

The most powerful way for us to effect change in our government is through voting. When I vote, I want it to count. I want it to matter. When I look at a three party ballot, I know that a vote for the third party is pointless. It may “make a statement” but in practice I may as well abstain.

This has huge ripple effects through our democracy. Since voters are incentivized to ignore third parties, fewer people will even apply for positions. This greatly limits our pool of candidates who run, and makes it nearly impossible to vote for a person who will champion your specific set of issues and values. It also gives great power to incumbent officers, and encourages them to pick more and more radical/polarized platforms to stand on, since voters have no viable moderate voice to choose from. Establishment politics are encouraged because only those who work their way through one of the in-power political parties have a chance to win.

Ranked Choice Voting addresses all of these issues by giving us a more nuanced vote. Voters are asked to rank the candidates they are interested in. This means I could vote for my candidate of choice, without throwing my vote away. By letting us rank the candidates, it gives us a tiny bit more control and a tiny bit more free speech.

For more information on Ranked Choice Voting, I highly suggest reading here: http://www.fairvote.org/rcv#rcvbenefits