Maintaining a sustained thread of movement-building
Efforts and issues come and go. And, especially in a small town, there simply aren't enough people to maintain the effort behind all but the most major issues. And even that is hard to do. Few issues make it out of the individual advocacy stage. Some may end up as rallies. Some may end up with informal grassroots organizations. Even fewer issues ever get formalized as organizations, with funding and staff necessary to maintain an ongoing presence, and these mostly end up being non-political charities, like those serving the homeless or victims of domestic violence.
It's not surprising, therefore, that most small town political efforts end up what Saul Alinsky would call "terminal tactics", those that "crest, break, and disappear like a wave." (Rules for Radicals, p 53) Issues hit the news. Folks get out on the streets. But at the end of the rally nothing exists to send that energy forward or into any political target.
Simply put: sustaining and growing a movement takes work - databasing, emails, outreach - and, understandably, few are willing to do that as volunteers ongoing. But formalizing a structure that allows one to get paid for one's time to act on issues like these is nearly impossible in a small town.
So it just doesn't happen, and efforts continue to come and go. Nothing is sustained or built upon. Efforts generally don't translate into local elected leadership (unless the timing is right and then elections become single-issue proxies, which is also not good). Terminal tactics and the repeated reinvention of the wheel. No sustained, organized progressive power, maintained and at the ready for when it's needed.
But there's an opportunity, there, too. Again, Saul Alinsky: "Not only does a single- or dual-issue organization doom you to a small organization, it is axiomatic that a single-issue organization won't last. An organization needs action as an individual needs oxygen." (pp 77-78, italics my emphasis)
And, subsequently: "There is a way to keep action going and prevent it from being a drag, but this means constantly cutting new issues as the action continues, so that by the time the enthusiasm and emotions for one issue have started to de-escalate, a new issue has come into the scene with a consequent revival. With a constant introduction of new issues, it will go on and on." (p 161, again, italics my emphasis)
Small towns are too small to sustain single-issue political organizations, but the presence of multi-issue efforts that come and go presents the opportunity to grow a multi-issue, platform-based organization at the local level, one that can build sustained progressive power that ultimately is able to feed the pipeline of elected officials starting at the most local level.
This is what I'm trying to address with MCPAN: developing a streamlined, basic infrastructure that allows me to help maintain the thread of progressive movement-building through efforts that, mostly, come and go. It started with the 2019 Climate Strike, where I assembled a simple petition to gather the signatures and contact info of those who attended. Those signatures, added to the database I had from my own run for Fort Bragg City Council in 2016, was the beginning of MCPAN, which I named specifically because I wanted to emphasize bringing together progressives, rather than convincing others to change their minds on issues.
That will come later, after we've consolidated progressive power.
So, if you're ready to start, go here:
Though I do recommend you read about local voting systems below. What you learn might (or might not) shock you (i.e., that they often don't accurately represent the will of the voters).
Working With Problematic Local Voting Systems
...or "Why building sustained, multi-issue
progressive power at the local level matters even more."
Different voting systems count votes in different ways, sometimes leading to different results. This is a fact.
So why address this here? Because what you don't know can definitely hurt your efforts, and everyone should understand how their votes are counted (especially those who are elected under these systems). It's the basis of electoral democracy, yet few of us actually understand these processes, instead simply taking for granted the results as they are presented to us after an election.
To be clear: This is not about voting fraud or conspiracy theories. This is about the different voting systems that exist and have existed, and why some of them (like ours) are a problem.
As it stands, our local Mendocino Coast voting system counts votes in a way that has the potential to completely turn the will of the people on its head.
If we can't reliably elect people who reflect our values, then how can those values be realized in government?
If this bothers you, and you'd like to know more, read on. If not, go straight to How it Works, to learn how you can help MCPAN build sustained progressive power at the local level.
A Basic Primer on our Problematic Mendocino Voting System
A good voting system should accurately reflect the will of the people. Unfortunately, choices about voting systems are most often made out of cost concerns. By far the most prevalent and problematic: Systems are chosen so that they do not require runoff elections (because runoff elections cost money).
This means is that in most voting systems, including ours on the Coast, the person(s) who gets the most votes win(s), regardless of whether or not they actually get a majority of those votes (this is called "plurality"). On top of this, by giving voters one vote for each seat, but without separating those votes by seat (i.e., throwing them all together), we get vote counts that are not guaranteed to be accurate reflections of the will of the people.
So, for example, in a two-seat election with three viable candidates, where two are popular and one is relatively unknown, it's possible in our system for that relatively unknown candidate to beat both popular candidates. In other words, it's possible for a candidate nobody really cares about to collect more votes than the candidates voters DO really care about.
Hard to believe? Indeed.
Here's the Math
Let's say we have three candidates, creatively named A, B, and C. Candidates A and C are both popular, but on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Candidate B is a lukewarm, relatively unknown candidate, politically between the other two. Let's make this easy and say we have 100 voters.
Candidate Enthusiastic Support
A has 42 enthusiastic supporters.
B has 12 enthusiastic supporters.
C has 46 enthusiastic supporters.
Candidate C is the front-runner. Candidate A is a close second-runner. B is a distant third-runner.
Based on these numbers, who should win the two open seats?
In this case, for a two-seat election, you'd expect candidates C and A would win those two seats. This is what would actually happen under a system called Limited Voting, where voters only get one vote, even though there are two open seats.
But we don't use Limited Voting. Mendocino County gives as many votes as there are seats, so, in this case, two votes (for two seats). This, itself, is totally reasonable, of course: one voter, one vote, for each (one) seat.
But because the seats aren't separated out, you can't vote, say, Candidate A for Seat 1 and Candidate C for Seat 2. You just vote for the candidates, and all those votes are thrown together. The candidates with the most votes win (Plurality).
So what's the problem, then?
In our two-seat election example, with two votes, it's expected that every voter will put one vote toward their favorite candidate. So:
First Vote Tallies
Candidate A: 42 first votes
Candidate B: 12 first votes
Candidate C: 46 first votes
But what to do with that second vote?
Remember, A and C are political opposites. So, in this case, Candidate A's enthusiastic supporters won't vote for Candidate C, and Candidate C's enthusiastic supporters won't vote for Candidate A. They can't vote again for their favorite (if they could, that would be called "Cumulative Voting").
So, many believing they MUST use that second vote, they ALL vote for candidate B, the lukewarm unknown.
This brings Candidate B up to 100 votes (a combination of first and second votes).
And what about Candidate B's enthusiastic supporters? What do they do with their second votes?
They can't again vote for B (again, that would be "Cumulative Voting"), so they will vote for either candidate A or C. Let's say 9 of them vote for Candidate A and 3 of them vote for Candidate C.
First and Second Vote Tallies (all thrown together!)
Candidate A: 42 first votes + 9 second votes (from B's voters) = 51
Candidate B: 12 first votes + 42 second votes (from A's voters) + 46 second votes (from C's voters) = 100
Candidate C: 46 first votes + 3 second votes (from B's voters) = 49
Candidate B, the lukewarm unknown, gets top votes, beating Candidate A by 49. Candidate A comes in second, with 51, beating Candidate C by only 3 votes. Candidate C (who was the front-runner, remember?) gets 49 votes, and is knocked out of the race.
Candidates B and A win the two seats.
In this case, the will of the voters is turned on its head. The least known candidate wins with top votes, and the original front-runner is knocked out entirely. The only one who maintains their original position (at 2nd), is Candidate A.
If this were Limited Voting, Candidates C and A would win the two seats.
Different systems, different outcomes.
If this is okay with you, stop reading, here. If you think this is crazy, then continue.
How do we fix this?
The best solution, of course, is to choose a better voting system, as so many other municipalities and states have done across the country. Limited, Cumulative, and Ranked-Choice Voting would all address this problem (in different ways). However, by far the best (as no system is perfect), Ranked-Choice Voting solves the problem (by simulating a series of regular ol' runoff elections), has been (re)gaining popularity and implementation in recent years, and has a proven track record, both in modern times and historically.
Sad facts(1): Ranked-Choice Voting was used in nearly 100 municipalities across the U.S. in the 1920-40s (including Sacramento). By working effectively, and as it should, women and black folk were actually running and getting elected. The establishment did not like this, so started fighting to repeal it, leaving us with the terrible systems we have today.
The only city that kept it was Cambridge, MA, which has been using it for 80+ years now (starting well before computers, by the way).
But, changing a voting system is not easy, as it often runs up against cost arguments from elections officials and resistance from incumbents, who fear a "new" system that they've not taken the time to understand.
"Gaming" the Current, Flawed System
The way voters deal with problematic voting systems is through strategic voting - i.e., trying to game the system. This is, of course, sad, because this means voters are not necessarily speaking their honest mind with the single most valuable piece of political capital they have: their Vote.
But, until we can officially change the system, this is what we're stuck with, and is why we have sayings like "lesser of two evils" to describe how we are forced to vote.
Bullet-Voting and Slate Voting
In our at-large, multi-seat, plurality system of local elections, there are two ways we can try to strategically counter the design flaws: bullet-voting and slates.
Bullet-Voting simply means only vote for the candidate(s) you know and actually support(2).
Bullet-Voting (i.e. choosing to not use your second vote) would, if all voters did so, be the same as the Limited Voting results above (i.e., Limited Voting is bullet-voting set in policy). This ensures that a lukewarm candidate does not compete with your preferred candidate. It (as in Limited Voting) reflects voters' enthusiastic support.
Slate voting means running multiple candidates as a team (or "slate").
The goal in this case is to leverage the voting system flaw by ensuring that voters give their second (and third, if applicable) votes to the other candidates on the slate, such that they mutually support each other and all win.
A combination of these tactics may be necessary.
Say, for example, there is a three-seat election but only two candidates can be found to run a progressive slate. Supporters could use only two of their three votes on the two slate candidates (discarding the third), to ensure neither of their preferred slate candidates gets knocked out by a lukewarm other candidate.
Outside of voting: Leaning on whoever is in power
Of course, we always have the opportunity to push progressive values onto those who get elected, whoever they are. This is, after all, what direct action organizing is about ("altering the relations of power", as defined by the Midwest Academy). It would, of course, be preferable to elect progressive candidates, but, if that's not possible or our election system foils our efforts, we need to lean on who does get elected. That's good ol' grassroots organizing, which is core to MCPAN's work.
At the end of the day...
There's an old computer adage: "Computers don't do what you want them to do. They do what you tell them to do."
Our voting system (even if counted by hand, which is still totally legal) is like a computer. If we can't tell it what we actually want, then it cannot ever give it to us. Meaning, if we're always forced to compromise our values through strategic voting, we will never see those values realized in government.
Flawed voting systems like ours are, therefore, resoundingly anti-democracy.
So the moral of the story (at least locally) is "Only vote for those candidates you enthusiastically support" - i.e. don't vote for anyone you don't enthusiastically support. There is nothing illegal or unethical about choosing not to use a second or third vote. Don't tell the voting system some lukewarm candidate holds equal value to your favorite by voting for both (with votes that are, by definition, of equal value).
While a longer-term goal of MCPAN's is to see Ranked-Choice Voting implemented locally (thus part of why this gets its own main page heading, in addition to its being a fundamental core component of our very democracy), the shorter-term goal is to develop enough local progressive voter engagement to ensure progressive candidate election despite our problematic voting system.
Cultivating a slate means finding a lot of candidates, so it's critical to cultivate ongoing, early, progressive engagement and build progressive power that will be at the ready when it's needed. This is the basis of the mini-campaign process that is at the core of MCPAN's ongoing progressive movement-building work.
So please be sure to support each mini-campaign not just for the issue at hand, but for the future of progressive leadership locally.
(1) https://www.fairvote.org/a-brief-history-of-ranked-choice-voting