Minneapolis DFLers plan gubernatorial straw poll

Posted at 10:07 AM on August 17, 2009 by Tim Pugmire (1 Comments)

The Minneapolis DFL party announced today that it plans to hold to straw poll on the 2010 governor's race. The event is scheduled for Sept. 15 at three locations and will use ranked choice voting. Here's the news release:

Minneapolis, MN (August 17, 2009)-The Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party will host a Ranked Choice Voting education event on Tuesday, September 15, the day that would have been the Primary Election had Ranked Choice Voting (aka Instant Runoff Voting) not been adopted by voters in 2006. During the event, dubbed "Majority Rules: Practice in September for Ranked Choice Voting in November," attendees will rank their choices for declared and presumptive DFL governor candidates.

Majority Rules will take place simultaneously at three different locations throughout Minneapolis, each hosted by one or two local senate district units. Results will be announced at each location that night, with ballots later tallied for a city-wide result. "We want this to be a realistic kind of voting experience, so attendees feel comfortable when they go into the voting carrel on November 3," says Roann Cramer, associate chair of the Minneapolis DFL. "And the large field of DFL governor candidates is an irresistible draw for this kind of event."

The three locations for Majority Rules are: North Commons Park, 1701 Golden Valley Rd.; Tiger Sushi, 2841 Lyndale Ave. S.; and Communication Workers of America Local 7200 headquarters, 3521 E. Lake St. The event starts at 7:00 p.m. with a presentation by FairVote Minnesota on how to fill out a ranked choice ballot, then attendees will fill out their ballots, and results will be announced around 8:30 p.m. Representatives from FairVote will be present at all events to conduct education and tally ballots.

Majority Rules is free and open to the public. Proof of DFL membership or Minneapolis residency are not required to participate.

Comments (1)

Typical media bias!

This is an educational event about Ranked Choice Voting. The governor candidates are used only to demonstrate the RCV voting method -- previous events have used "your favorite dessert" or "your favorite lake". Just what you vote on is a minor part of the training.

Yet this article, starting with the headline, emphasizes the governor voting, even using the term "straw poll", which we never used.

So yet again, the media concentrates on 'horse race' reporting -- who's ahead, what do polls say -- instead of serious reporting on issues and candidate's stands. But it's much easier for a lazy reporter to tell who's ahead than to do real reporting on the issues. And it makes much neater 30-second sound-bites to report.

Anybody remember back when there was something called "journalism"?

Posted by Tim Bonham | August 29, 2009 5:47 AM

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