BGA Minutes of 1/21 IRV working group mtg

[Tom McIntyre <irvnow@bwn.net>]

Big thanks to J Bollinger for putting these together.  Our next meeting is this
Thursday, 2/15, 6:30 pm on CU Boulder campus in Hellems room 229.  -- Tom


01/21/01 Meeting MINUTES
for the
Instant Runoff Voting Working Group
of the
Green Party of Colorado

ATTENDEES: include Tom McIntyre (convening), Cyrus Hall,  Trevor Stone,  Coco
(938-8550), Lynn Segal, & J.Bollinger.

Minutes shall be initiated by J.Bollinger and e-mailed to Tom  ( at
IRVnow@bwn.net ) for final form for him to e-mail 

GOALS & TIMETABLE:	
Initiate effort to gather CO Legislative support soon, which potentially could
result in a State Bill to enable IRV for all Colorado single office elections. 
Theoretically, the State Legislature could pass such a bill this autumn 2001. 
(afternote:  since meeting we have learned there is no second session in 2001.)
The Proposal for the future CO bill could be similar to the recent Washington
State petition for an IRV bill.
Even if passing an IRV bill in the CO Houses becomes infeasible, we should be
able to build up at least a number of allies and sponsors in the Houses, which
would then be invaluable for supporting a Ballot Initiative.
One result could be for the legislature to commission to study best electoral
reforms, like IRV.

Start Ballot Initiative.  
Submit IRV Ballot Initiative final text to State, preferably by December 2001.
Start campaign to gather approx. 100,000 signatures in early Spring 2002.
Finalize Ballot Initiative with all signatures by Sept. 2002, to be on Nov. 2002
ballot.
Raise funds.  Build coalitions. Publicize IRV.  Publicize initiative effort. 
Hire petition circulating company probably, to help coordinate the massive
petition effort.

Alternatives to IRV:  Discussion.
Approval Voting:  (Give an approval vote for as many of the candidates as you
like.)  - Easier & technically quicker to implement, than IRV.   - Would prevent
the spoiler phenomenon.  Cannot give your 1st choice more weight than your 2nd
choice.   - Not well known.  Our discussion seemed to not support Approval
Voting as feasible, but we did not entirely discount it.
Cumulative Voting.   Weighed average variation.
Proportional Representation voting could come later after IRV is finally
approved.  IRV would enable 3rd parties to survive and be more influential, so
that later 3rd parties would have more success with future PR .  IRV should not
conflict with PR, because IRV applies to single office elections, and PR applies
to multi-seat elections.
Our website Forum could engender discussion on all alternatives.

WEB SITE:
Name of Site, & Name of our Group = ??
Refer to handout of suggested names.  "FairVoteColorado.org" was chosen as the
name for our website-to-be.  "FairVoteCO.org" also had good support among us.  
"RunoffVoteCO.org", "JustVote.org" and "ABetterWayToVote.org" had less support.
Group names considered include:  Coloradans for Fair Voting,   Fair Vote
Colorado,   Coloradans for Instant Runoff Voting,   Instant Runoff Vote
Colorado, …  It was decided that choosing a name should be a matter discussed
via the website, and decided by the coalition when it is formed.
We supported starting the web site soon.

MISC.:
Mention of the Summit of 3rd Parties in Denver on Jan. 14th.   Supported IRV
broadly, even though the NY Times 1/15 article on this summit meeting did not
mention IRV.  Included Green, Libertarian, Reform & Natural Law parties.  They
plan to meet again in 2 or 3 months.  This could be an excellent resource for
broadening our support for IRV.  Can we obtain more useful info. on the results
of their summit meeting?
Rocky Dialogs Public Forum at Boulder Theatre Sun. 1/28 5:15 set up at IRV
table, 6 pm reception, 7:30 forum event,  & at table until about ½ hour after
event.  See Coco (738-8550) for info. on helping at the IRV table.
Refer to Tom's 1 page write-up on overall strategy, & to his 2 pp. introduction,
"No More Spoiled Elections.".

ASSIGNMENTS:
Each member help with contacting 3rd Parties & other related organizations.  Tom
to create a standard letter to send to each.  (afternote:  at the BCGP meeting
later the same day, reservations were expressed about proceeding with coalition
building before the next third parties summit, and so outreach will not include
any proposal or suggestion of coalition at this time)
Trevor: Libertarian Party
Cyrus:  Reform Party
Coco:  League of Women Voters
J.:  Reclaiming Democracy (Jeff)
Lynn:  
Other Groups:  Common Cause, Constitution Party,  Socialist Party,  Prohibition
Party,  & other minor parties, such as the Democrat & Republican Party
(Other responsibilities to be described later.)

-- 
Tom McIntyre
____________________________________________________________________
irvnow@bwn.net                303-245-0627    (anytime - if I check)
gemini2@bwn.net
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thomas_mcintyre@non.hp.com    970-898-1425    (at work, weekdays)
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