STRAW VOTE ON CANDIDATE FORUM CRITERIA
At the Saturday Plenary Session, the LWVC Government Director opened what became a very lively and occasionally heated discussion on the LWVC Referendum on Candidate Forum Criteria. Delegates were being asked to cast a vote on polling criteria and so provide guidance to the board. At issue was the question of under what circumstances the League should use polling criteria when admitting candidates to a candidate forum.
A "pro/con" debate brought out the issues: inclusivity, fairness, the value of participation by non-major candidates, too many candidates, too little time for each, the fact that major candidates, sponsors, tend not to participate in many candidate forums, leading to no forum at all. What to do: everyone in and maybe no forum, or criteria that will make forums possible but surely annoy someone?
With little time left for questions and answers from the delegates, many people went to an impromptu lunch meeting for a passionate argument on the pros/cons themselves, but also on the issue of having an instant runoff voting process. That afternoon the LWVC Government Director explained that the vote results would not be considered new League policy but rather a straw vote on the issue; the board would discuss the question some more and bring the issue back at Council 2006 for a decision. Results of the straw vote, taken by instant runoff, were:
- 79 delegates (59%) favored polls if there were four or more candidates.
- 53 delegates (38%) favored polls for all elections to limit presentations to top contenders.
- 9 delegates (3%) favored never using polls to limit candidates in a presentation.
--Convention Delegate
