PARKER - PARTISAN - PROPORTIONAL - ELECTIONS Since I moved to Parker in 1999, Council elections have been anything but non-partisan per Town Charter. Because Republicans have been in the majority in Parker (until recently), candidates do whatever they can to advertise that they are Republicans to get the R vote. Democrats in Parker change party affiliation to get a chance at running for office; "Republican" is highlighted on council campaign signs and postcards; ads are placed in the newspapers saying "Elect Fiscal Conservatives;" the Douglas County Republican Party posts the names of R candidates running for Parker Council on their website; and Republican candidates run in slates to tell Rs which Republicans are of like-mind. David Casiano, former Town Mayor, who, under advise from Jack Hilbert, changed party affiliation in order to run for Town Council, said, "Be not afraid to ask [council candidates] 'what is [your] party affiliation?'" And in a Facebook post he wrote, "Do not accept 'this is a non-partisan election' [as an answer]". (Source: Parker Chronicle, August, 28, 2020.) So let's do what we all want! We want to know what party our council candidates belong to. So, let's move to partisan elections. But NOT partisan where the parties nominate candidates. This would eliminate unaffiliated voters. No one wants to eliminate unaffiliated candidates from the Parker election process. With proportional representation elections, all affiliations get a chance to win seats on Town Council. Candidates would collect the required 25 signatures to get onto the ballot, but this time they would list their party affiliation. Ballots would be published listing all candidates by party as shown in this example:  Voters vote for ONE candidate within ONE of the parties. Parker elects three council members every two years. To determine the proportional allocation for seat assignments, the total number of votes cast for council are divided by three. This results in the "threshold number." Any party receiving 1/3 the total number of votes cast, or more, gets at least one seat on council. If no party has at least 1/3 the votes or more, the three parties with the most votes get a seat. It is possible for one party to win all three seats. After the number of seats per party is determined, then the candidate(s) within that party with the most votes wins the office for the next four years. EXAMPLE - COUNCIL SEAT ALLOCATION CALCULATIONS Registered voter numbers as of October 2020, were used to create the following example.  For more details on Proportional Representation voting methods see: https://www.fairvote.org/how_proportional_representation_elections_work |
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