Choice Voting Blog

Today Davis Citizens for Representation issued a choice voting questionnaire to the candidates for Davis City Council.

Here is the questionnaire:

Dear [Candidate Name]:

Thank you for running for Davis City Council. The citizens of Davis benefit from the vibrancy that results from giving voters many choices.

In our continuing effort to implement choice voting in the city of Davis, we would like to inform our 3,000-person membership where you and the other City Council candidates stand on the issue of choice voting. This issue could be the deciding issue in the election.

For this purpose, we are including a brief questionnaire. We ask that you respond via e-mail to this address by Monday, May 29 at 8PM.

First some background to the questions --

Last spring, after fourteen public meetings spread over 7 months, the 9-member Davis Governance Task Force issued its final report to the city of Davis.

Among its findings, the Task Force recommended 8-0-1 (unanimous except for one abstention) that Davis adopt choice voting for its elections, 9-0 that Davis not adopt district elections, and 9-0 that Davis adopt a city charter. (Note that a city charter is necessary to adopt choice voting.)

More information on choice voting can be found at our web site

With this information in mind, please rate your reaction to the following statements on a scale of 1-5: 5 (agree strongly), 4 (agree somewhat), 3 (agree and disagree in equal amounts), 2 (disagree somewhat), 1 (disagree strongly), or "have formed no opinion" (undecided). For each statement, please state the reasons for your response, limiting yourself to no more than 200 words:

1. Davis voters should have the opportunity to vote on a city charter and on whether the City shall adopt choice voting for its at-large elections.
2. The choice voting vote should be binding rather than advisory.
3. Both votes should take place during the November 2006 election.