{"id":443,"date":"2009-07-02T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/?p=443"},"modified":"2009-07-02T21:04:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-02T21:04:00","slug":"city-council-election-time-is-near","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/?p=443","title":{"rendered":"CITY COUNCIL ELECTION TIME IS NEAR&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span><span><strong>FAIR VOTE LOWELL<\/strong><\/span> <\/span><br \/><span>Fair Vote Lowell is an initiative to increase voter participation, open up opportunities for new candidates, and create local elective bodies that are representative of all residents in Lowell, Massachusetts.Our mission is simple: We\u2019re here to transform Lowell&#8217;s voting system for local elections of city councilors and school committee from the current &#8220;Winner take All&#8221; system to &#8220;Choice Voting&#8221;, a system that is fair and promotes greater representation for all.We invite you to explore our site and join us in transforming our voting system in Lowell. <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fairvotelowell.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span>http:\/\/www.fairvotelowell.org\/<\/span><\/a><span> <\/span><br \/><span><\/span><br \/><span>What is Choice Voting? Choice voting is a type of proportional representation that works on the principle that all voters have a right to someone they support. With Choice voting, the majority still receives a majority of the representation, but some seats are available to other voters, so that all voters can be fairly represented. To vote, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. If your top choice loses, your vote goes to your next preferred candidate. After a choice voting election, each elected candidate represents a distinct and equal-sized group of like-minded voters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I have the petition&#8230;please let me know if you have not had an opportunity to sign one.<\/strong><br \/><strong>KMM<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span>Dick Howe takes a historical look at Lowell&#8217;s previous use of &#8220;Choice Voting&#8221; <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/richardhowe.com\/2009\/06\/17\/is-choice-voting-right-for-lowell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span>http:\/\/richardhowe.com\/2009\/06\/17\/is-choice-voting-right-for-lowell\/<\/span><\/a><span> <\/span><br \/><span><br \/><strong>Candidate web sites to date:<br \/><\/strong>Ryan Berard <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ryanberard.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span>http:\/\/www.ryanberard.com\/<\/span><\/a><span><br \/>Franky Descoteaux <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.frankyforlowell.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span>http:\/\/www.frankyforlowell.com\/<\/span><\/a><span><br \/>Joe Mendonca <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mendonca.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span>http:\/\/www.mendonca.org\/<\/span><\/a><span><br \/>James Milinazzo <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/jimmilinazzo.homestead.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span>http:\/\/jimmilinazzo.homestead.com\/<\/span><\/a><span><br \/>Patrick Murphy <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkmurphy.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span>http:\/\/thinkmurphy.com\/<\/span><\/a><span> <\/span><br \/><span><\/span><br \/><span>Update: I received an email from Ryan Berard;<\/span><br \/><span>The First Campaign Fundraiser is scheduled for July 16th at the East End Club from 6-10PM<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FAIR VOTE LOWELL Fair Vote Lowell is an initiative to increase voter participation, open up opportunities for new candidates, and create local elective bodies that are representative of all residents in Lowell, Massachusetts.Our mission is simple: We\u2019re here to transform &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/?p=443\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,96,82,17,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-city-council","category-election","category-elections","category-lowell","category-massachusetts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ldna01852.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}