Council moves to head off advisory vote
New ordinance proposed for Ketchum
election procedures
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
In a decision that may short-circuit a
potential May 27 ballot issue in Ketchum, one of the resort city’s longest
lasting debates is headed for another round of public hearings.
The Ketchum City Council voted Jan. 21 to
reconsider an earlier decision that would have established a May 27 election in
which the city’s citizens would vote for the method of voting to employ in
electing city council members.
"This really stinks to high heaven,"
declared Mickey Garcia, who has followed the complicated issue from its
unassuming beginnings two years ago. "Last time (Jan. 6) you were talking like
it’s going to election. Now, suddenly, it seems as though you’ve talked amongst
yourselves and figured it out."
Councilman Maurice Charlat, who on Jan. 6
declared, "Let the voters decide," made a motion Monday to reverse the Jan. 6
decision and prevent the need for a spring election. The motion passed 3 to 1,
with Councilman Randy Hall voting against it.
Charlat followed the first motion with
another that directed the city’s attorney to draft an ordinance that would
repeal a provision establishing designated seats in city council elections.
That motion also passed 3 to 1, with Hall
voting against it. A first reading of the new ordinance was scheduled as a part
of a special council session tonight at city hall.
But the path leading to last week’s
succinct votes meanders through a confusing political labyrinth. It began more
than two year ago.
In January 2001, the Ketchum City Council
unanimously voted, with Charlat absent, to waive three readings and adopt
election procedures that require city council candidates to declare which seats
they will run for. Prior to that, elections were conducted in at-large
formats—Idaho’s default format—whereby two candidates receiving the most votes
were elected to available seats.
Charlat was clearly against the change, as
were about a dozen outspoken and persistent residents who descended on city hall
to protest the council’s hasty vote.
On April 16, 2001, after the city council
backtracked and held three hearings on the subject, the issue appeared resolved
when Ketchum City Council members declined to second a motion by Charlat to
repeal the designated seats system.
Indications were that the debate had
ended, but the following autumn, several mayoral candidates, including Mayor Ed
Simon, vowed to return the city to an at-large voting format. What’s more,
Ketchum voters used the new system for the first time during that election to
select council members Baird Gourlay and Chris Potters.
Last fall, Simon’s efforts to take the
debate to the voters as an advisory issue in the November general election were
thwarted by opposition from within the city council. In October, Ketchum
resident Anne Corrock, one of the leading opponents of the per-seat system and
one of the city council losers in the November 2001 election, took matters into
her own hands.
On Dec. 23, Corrock returned an initiative
petition containing 250 Ketchum voter signatures to Ketchum City Clerk Sandy
Cady. In order to force city action on the issue, she needed signatures totaling
20 percent of the number of voters who participated in the last election. That
number was 210.
"The city council shall have 30 days to
pass an ordinance substantially as proposed by the petition (to determine
results of elections pursuant to open seating)," Cady wrote in a letter to
Corrock. "It the event the council passes such an ordinance, the initiative
petition shall be null and void.
"In the event the council does not enact
an ordinance pursuant to open seating, an election shall be ordered to be held
on May 27, 2003."
Upon receiving that information, the city
council voted 3 to 1 on Jan. 6 not to take action on Corrock’s petition. The
vote meant the city would hold an advisory election in May.
After reversing the Jan. 6 vote to
disregard the petition and establish an election, the city council has until
Feb. 4 to repeal the per-seat regulations. To confuse the matter further, that
requires the city to adopt an ordinance—the creation of an ordinance to repeal
an ordinance.
If the city council fails to repeal the
per-seat system by Feb. 4, state law calls for the issue to be turned over to
voters.
Despite a majority of public comments
advocating the at-large voting format, some citizens said the council might not
have heard from the silent majority "because it is a no-brainer."
"I have always been very alarmed at this
(at large) voting method," said Ketchum resident Sandy Strong. "I hate the
thought that both of my votes don’t count."
Arguments for and against the two voting
systems basically boil down to a discussion on so-called bullet votes, which
occur when a person intentionally casts only one vote when he or she is asked to
cast two.
Research by the Mountain Express indicates
the bullet vote is alive and well in Ketchum.
In 1999, when Charlat and Hall clearly won
city council seats over Sue Noel, 173 of 748 ballots contained only one vote. It
is unclear how many single votes were cast intentionally, but Charlat received
the lion’s share of single votes, with 98. Hall received 48, and Noel received
27.
Despite the numbers, Charlat said he is
not aware of any bullet vote campaigning on his behalf in the 1999 election.
Hall said the numbers say otherwise.
"The system was broken. It’s clear that
there’s organization and manipulation in my opinion," Hall said in a 2002
interview. "The fact of the matter is, he’s (Charlat) an asset to this city
council. And we know he would be there whether there was a bullet vote campaign
or not, but his supporters didn’t take any chances."
Designated seat voting is not without
flaws, either.
The designated seats system can discourage
candidates from challenging incumbents, and uncontested candidates become more
likely, said Jim Weatherby, Boise State University political science professor.
Council members have glazed over other
alternatives, like a system called instant runoff voting, which requires voters
to rank candidates in order of choice. Instant runoff voting allows voters to
vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping elect their least
favorite candidates, and it ensures that the winner enjoys true support from a
majority of the voters.
However, such a system is not possible
without amending Idaho law.