City Government
Minority Vote Could Win Council Race
September 13, 2007 
Thanks to a self serving law passed by most of the incumbent city councilors, they will probably be re elected whether or not they get a majority of the vote.
After the Brent Coles administration debacle, Councilors voted to “clean up city hall,” and among other things passed ordinances mandating that candidates must have a majority of votes cast to win election. If the vote was split–as many city elections are with multiple candidates for the same office–a run off election would be held. The current council repealed that provision of the law.
Councilor David Eberle did not get a majority of votes four years ago, but triumphed when a runoff election was held. He beat Paula Forney.
Once in office, Eberle and the rest of the council voted to repeal the runoff provision. The majority requirement is still in force for the office of mayor, but the council protected itself, claiming runoffs were costly and seldom changed the result. For whatever reason they didn’t feel the same way when it comes to the office of mayor.
With Alan Shealy facing three opponents and Eberle facing two challengers, it is a pretty sure bet they will both keep their seats with little effort. In theory Shealy could be elected with 26% of the vote and Eberle could win with 34%.
Councilor Elaine Clegg has a single opponent.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Sep 13, 2007, 4:36 pm
Surely Shealy has heard off instant runoff voting?
I just don’t get why such simple solutions are ignored. Had instant runoff voting been in place for the presidential election of 2000, well……..whoa, imagination, get back here!
Read all about it on wikipedia.
Sep 13, 2007, 7:52 pm
And this is all a surprise to anyone, because………..?
Sep 14, 2007, 11:04 pm
Please, please focus on one challenger in each race – vote for them and please vote the current group out – please, please please!
Sep 17, 2007, 9:59 pm
We are so lucky to have a council of highly intelligent, committed and concerned people. I don’t understand why someone would want them out.
Sep 18, 2007, 5:19 pm
Heck, I think just voting would do the trick. But maybe not. Look what happened in Palestine. They voted the bad guys in because they were sick of the bad guys they already had!
What I don’t get is this, here we are, fighting for democracy in the Middle East, sacrificing lives and treasury so they can vote. Then they elect the wrong people. And we don’t even bother on election day to vote here in the good ole USA. That’s how the Talibans got us figured out. We must not care about democracy all that much cause we are tired of fighting for it. Jeesum crow, we don’t even fight for it here.
How about, we could make it a law that you don’t get your tax refund back if you don’t vote. The Governmint would be rich again and our taxes would go down. Think about it.
Sep 18, 2007, 9:07 pm
Dear “keep the in”… looks like you have not been in the MANY, MANY meetings where a certain member of the council has talked to voters as if they are 2 year olds and a couple others have had to dismiss themselves repeatedly because they are TOO CLOSE TO developers to even vote and therefor CANNOT EVEN REPRESENT the people that elected them.
No question they that they are committed….to bad it is NOT to the neighborhoods or the voters they talk down to. They have demonstrated where their loyality lies. Time for some new folks that can represent us stupid 2 years olds.
Sep 22, 2007, 12:24 am
I guess that I would just like to inquire as to which planet Please Keep Them lives on?
Shealy may not be the antichrist, but I would not choose to vote for him again. He represents his own interests, not those of the majority of Boise residents. His continually disinterested, condescending body language at meetings shows that he actually has better things to do anyway.