17 Comments
Nov 5, 2022Liked by Melissa Bowman

I'd recommend the great work being done in my former hometown of Cincinnati by ActionTank (https://www.actiontankusa.org/), specifically their City Council Bootcamp and their Civic Health First Aid Kit. I also appreciate the incremental approach advocated by MyCivicWorkout.com that shares how you can make a difference in 5-minute, 10-minute, and 30-minute activism intervals each week.

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Nov 5, 2022Liked by Melissa Bowman

Voted in ward 9 and I can understand other constituents not wanting to research 11 candidates to vote for out of a field of many more. Was glad to find the rogers TV debates for some roles to help make some choices.

Then to have incumbents trounce everyone else on election day is slightly disappointing and makes one question the whole exercise

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founding

Love the idea of a Municipal League to increase citizen engagement in local issues. Keeping up with local politics takes more effort but it's where im going to focus my energy this year. Thank you Melissa for doing your part with Citified!

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Nov 4, 2022Liked by Melissa Bowman

I voted in Waterloo (by proxy) and in Wellington NZ this year. Specifically, I voted in the Waterloo city mayor/ward and Regional chair/council races; couldn't find any information about the French school board candidates. And then in Wellington there was a mayor, city council, and regional council to vote for as well. Cities in NZ may choose STV but don't have to.

Here's something I'm writing about my experience with Single Transferrable Vote in Wellington:

"The Wellington ballot was a bit trickier. I really like the idea of the Single Transferable Vote in principle, but it seems like more work to have to assign ranks to more than just your top candidate. I think I ranked like 5 candidates for City and Regional councils. I'm pretty satisfied with who got elected in Wellington (including two Green Party regional councillors). Take that, Auckland and Christchurch."

You don't have to rank everyone, but with first-past-the-post, it feels like you can stop earlier with choosing candidates. On the other hand, you might well want to express a preference for more than the number of candidates that will get elected (which is an arbitrary limit anyway; there's no reason you shouldn't be able to express approval of any number of candidates, though if you vote for everyone, that's like voting for no one).

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Nov 4, 2022Liked by Melissa Bowman

I'm new to the waterloo region, and I'm fairly new to voting (just recently became a canadian citizen) and coming from a place where we had no voice, it puzzles me that people don't vote here.

I'd very much like to be one of the voices outside of the city hall re.housing and transportation, but I have no idea how/where to start. Any ideas?

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Seeing how the anti-racism directorate was destroyed with absolutely nothing to take its place to adequately even listen to the true suffering of many people here, I don't think it's too difficult to consider some of us as being viewed as little more than a vote and a body to be put to work. If our suffering doesn't matter, than how does our vote matter, and lead to any reduction in our true suffering? I have wanted to vote "no confidence whatsoever" for as long as I have been eligible to vote as I sensed a deliberate vacuum in the space where I expected to be able to have my voice heard.

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