Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Hi everyone, I started this Loomio group to test it out and see how well it works for our needs. So far so good!

Hi Pat, thanks for setting this up! Curious to see how this works.

Yeah I'm learning it too. Feel free to make a proposal and/or a discussion thread, and test out the voting and commenting features. I'm liking it so far. It looks like you can attach documents and format comments for rich text too.

Finally had a chance to sign on! Gonna tinker a bit tonight :)

So. Thanks for setting up this group and for the invite. 2nd meeting seemed to go pretty well. I'm kind of new to political activism at this level. My normal groups are more science fiction discussion or hiking or software engineering.

I'm co-founder of a public-goods funding system in progress, Snowdrift.coop for which I researched voting systems to determine the best way to elect the board. After much research, we determined conclusively that score voting is superior to rank systems and plan to use score internally.

But that's just one way I got engaged with voting issues. I also care a lot about democracy and political concerns for other reasons, probably the same reasons as most of this group. In light of the 2016 election, I became especially worried that the positive energy people have in this moment to reform our corrupt system could be squandered with ineffective or short-term efforts. I'm a strong supporter of Score Runoff for reforms now, but I care first and foremost about good communication and solidarity among all the people working for reform.

With the focus on public goods, my co-op in progress is also dedicated to free/libre/open values, as proprietary technology and culture are one of the biggest issues of power and democracy in our world today.

I'm really happy we're going with Loomio. I will be a critic voicing concern about any suggestion for proprietary tools (especially Facebook) which may be pragmatic in some cases but are really antithetical to the long-term goals of public empowerment, freedom, and democracy. When we need tools other than Loomio, we should look for similar ethical, free/libre/open options whenever possible, and I'll be happy to offer any insights I have in that direction.

Greetings. Just checking out the goods. Thanks for making it an option.

Hi. My name is Nathan Hunter. I am a software engineer, and I have been interested in election systems since I read an article on voting paradoxes in Muse Magazine when I was about eight. I have been interested in politics since at least the 2000 election (I turned eleven over the course of that one).

My driving motivation in seeking electoral reform is to limit the number of ways politicians gain gain political power with the support of a minority of the population. Between gerrymandering, the electoral college, partisan primaries, and first past the post voting, there are myriad ways that elected officials can choose the voters, instead of the voters choosing the elected officials. This is horrible in principle, but also in practice because it incentivizes policies that take resources away from the disenfranchised majority in order to give rewards to the enfranchised minority. I should note that who the enfranchised minority is not intrinsically bound to any specific party, class, race or gender: it is merely the smallest winning coalition whose loyalty a politician can win.

This recent election showed me that I cannot hope to affect change simply by talking to my peers and sending in my ballot. That is why I got involved with this group, but why I am also getting involved with the Democratic Party in my county, and why I am trying to encourage the many peers whose ears I have talked off with political and election theory to join me at these meetings.

EDIT: Also, I should point out that while I find it difficult to resist highly technical debates in the heat of the moment, I do not think that these technical issues are more important than outreach or making pragamatic tactical decisions. My biggest fear here is that because I have a hard time resisting the urge to talk at length about the little details that really interest me, I will contribute to an atmosphere that seems unwelcoming to people who aren't interested in the same little details. That is the last thing I want to do.

Mark Frohnmayer, checking in :-). Once upon a time I worked as a software engineer and designer on computer games. I accidentally found out I was an entrepreneur when I co-founded a company with some other game developers. In 2007 I switched fields entirely to clean transportation by starting Arcimoto. After 9 years we're almost to the starting line with our first product, an ultra-efficient three-wheeled electric motorcycle designed for daily driving. I've also been into voting system reform since, oh... November 1990. I was the Chief Petitioner of 2014 Oregon Initiative Petition 54, the Unified Primary, a campaign that pivoted into the Equal Vote Coalition after IP54 failed to achieve the necessary signatures to put it on the ballot. I helped organize the Equal Vote Conference, the meeting of minds where Score Runoff Voting was first developed.

Dave Johnson checking in. I don't really care about voting methods, but I want to see proportional representation become the norm for legislative bodies in the USA.