74. create the city of new paltz

Merge the Town and Village into the City of New Paltz, thereby increasing New Paltz’ share of county sales tax revenue, federal aid and aid to police, fire and ambulance services. “City” doesn’t have to mean lower Manhattan; we can show people how to do it right.

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77. use instant runoff voting

Elect the Town Council, Village Board and School Board using Instant Runoff Voting

• Instant Runoff Voting
• the Muppets explain IRV (powerpoint)

78. use runoff elections

Elect the Mayor and Town Supervisor using runoffs, requiring the winner to be elected with a majority of votes, not just a plurality.

83. elect the Town Council by district

Elect members of the Town Council by district, with each district no more than ~1,200 people. Expand the Town Council to ten members to do so.

The smaller the district, the more democratic the election.  Pretty simple.

84. elect the Town Council by party

Expand the Town Council to ten members and elect members of the Town Council using a ‘party list’ vote, where the parties put up a list of ten candidates, and voters vote for a party. Each party would get one seat for every ten percent of the vote that party received – i.e, if the Republican Party got 20% of the vote, the top two names on their party list would serve on the Town Council.

It’s un-democratic to have 100% of our elected officials come from a party in which only about 30% of Town residents are members.  A party should have the percentage of seats in government as the percentage they get at the polls.  If this were the case, our local government would accurately reflect the full diversity of political opinion in the community, rather than a small group pretending to represent everyone.

• The Center for Voting and Democracy

• an explanation of proportional representation voting systems
• John Cleese explains proportional representation