[Mpls] And the winner is...

[David Brauer]

Jean Johnson was nice enough to write:

> No doubt , the heated mayoral contest
> drove people to participate, but the record turnout
> was primarily due to the new precinct caucuses held in
> the city's election year. In addition, the
> maintainence of this list, which has enabled people to
> discuss Minneapolis issues and become engaged in the
> electoral process certainly encouraged people to
> attend. Hats off and many thanks to David Brauer for
> his large contribution to both of these efforts.

Thanks, Jean - though I suspect some are cursing the problems of higher
attendance today....

Still, I can't responsibly take the credit/blame alone. In 2001, several
people worked very hard on the city-year caucus effort.

Some names are lost to the mistiness of my memory, but Judy Farmer, Phyllis
Kahn, Julie Mattson Ostrow, Mark Hinds, Joe Barisonzi, Brian Hanninen, Cara
Letofsky, a then-unknown candidate named Paul Zerby all deserve credit. My
apologies to anyone I forgot.

By the way, in 2001, the amendment passed by just 19 votes - 308 to 289,
after what I recall as a couple of recounts. It's satisfying that TRIPLE
that number voted on citywide endorsements yesterday.

I also want to personally thank all of yesterday's convention volunteers who
had to contend with the swollen numbers. It required a lot more
coordination, and many more people, and I think they deserve congrats. (The
day care was particularly awesome!!)

To be sure, the huge numbers led to problems yesterday. As painful as
yesterday was at times (I was a bleacher creature, so my backside knows), I
disagree with Doug Grow that yesterday means people won't be back. To me, it
was amazing how tough Peter's and R.T.'s supporters hung in, not to mention
those who turned out for the Parks/Library/Board of Estimate races. That's
dedication, and even if some people never come back, others will take their
place. It's that kind of city.

That said, I hope the new chair of the city DFL, David Weinlick and the city
Central Committee learn from yesterday. We need a bigger hall, obviously -
back to the Convention Center, home of the 1993 Sharon-versus-Rip brouhaha -
and we seriously need to explore faster voting methods. It's 2005 and we're
still using paper ballots!

I know there are budget limits, but I can't help wondering if there's some
optical ballot (such as the one used in primary and general elections) that
would work. Instead of listing candidate names, perhaps we can use numbered
circles that people would fill in, and ballots would be computer counted.

That's just an idea - but I think we can marry participation and efficiency,
now that we have the learning experience of '05 under our belt.

Finally, thanks to all the folks besides me who made Minneapolis-Issues the
place for information and participation to happen. That would be Steve
Clift, Sheldon Mains, Rick Birmingham, Tim Erickson and other E-Democracy
Board members who keep the back-house side functioning.

Look for usability changes in Minneapolis-Issues coming soon! Steve Clift
has a technological brainstorm on the horizon that should improve web/digest
viewing, though we'll never abandon good old e-mail in your in-box....

David Brauer
Kingfield