Day: November 6, 2019

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Ranked-choice voting adopted in New York City, along with other ballot measures

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Ranked-choice voting adopted in New York City, along with other ballot measures

New York City will move to a system of ranked-choice voting, shaking up the way its elections are run after voters approved a ballot question to make the change.

The city will be by far the biggest place in the U.S. to put the new way of voting to the test, tripling the number of people around the country who use it.

A ballot question proposing the shift for New York primaries and special elections was approved Tuesday by a margin of nearly 3-1.

Losing Power for Multiple Days.

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After last week’s heavy rain and wind, my sister was left 2 or 3 days without power.

That’s one of many reasons why when I own land and an off-grid cabin, I want to generate my own electricity, live a life that isn’t so tied into material realities of modern suburban living. If something breaks, I want to be able to fix it myself or substitute it with something that provides nearly the same capacity. Heat with wood, so as long as I have seasoned wood split and ready to go, I can be warm. Not be so dependent on electricity, so that if a fuse blows or other part fails, I can live with a lantern until I can replace the broken part. Have a tractor with a bucket loader, so I can fix washouts and a saw so I can cut downed trees.

As it stands, as a renter in the city, if the power goes out I’m cold and in the dark. I have flashlights, can charge things off the truck, but that won’t keep my groceries cold, nor will it keep the stores open or the traffic lights running. Right now, I am too dependent on things not in the my control.

Darkness Approaches

Percent Of Population That Are Non-Citizens

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Currently the American Community Survey put out by the US Census Bureau estimates the number of citizens and non-citizens in each blockgroup (a group of similar demographic blocks). This map shows citizenship rates for New York State, from the 2016 ACS 5-year Averages for each Census Tract in New York State.

These estimates are used for many purposes, the most notable is for compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires no dilution of voting power of Citizen Voting Age Participants based on race. The Decennial Census, a full population count has not asked about Citizenship since 1950, preferring to focus on core questions to keep the form as short and easy to fill out as possible. Instead, for VRA purposes, American Community Survey estimates is used to calculating the number of citizens in each political district.

The Trump administration, in an effort to get a supposedly more accurate count of citizens and non-citizens, down to the block level, is adding the question back to the 2020 Decennial Census. Some people, worry that fewer people will fill out a longer census form or that the citizenship questions will lead minorities to not-fill out the forum. Others argue that statistically it is more accurate to estimate a large population, then it is to do a total count -- as estimates can make up for non-participation of certain groups of the population.

Data Source: 2016 ACS 5-year Average, Percentage of Non-Citizens per Census Tract. http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t