Humboldt Voters' Association
News and Upcoming Events
Voting as a Secondary Mission
Contact the HVA
Join the HVA_News Mailing List
Active Campaigns:
A Superior Voting Experience: Ranked Voting
Inactive Campaigns (follow link for how to take action on these):
Ensuring Votes are Counted: Voting Machines, Security Issues, and the Open Voting Consortium
Ensuring Voter Choice - Campaign Finance Reform and other issues regarding "leveling the playing field."
Other Important Election Issues:
Humboldt County Election Advisory Committee
Participating Outside the Voting Booth - Contacting Elected Officials
Other Voting and Democracy Organizations
Reading List and Other Resources
About the Humboldt Voters' Association
The Humboldt Voters' Association is a non-partisan, volunteer organization dedicated to ensuring that the voting system accurately reflects the will of the people. By examining how we vote, how votes are counted, and how the options from which voters must choose are determined, the HVA hopes to, through clear strategy and well-planned action, see the implementation a superior voting system in Humboldt County that all citizens will be proud of and enthusiastic to participate in.
To contact us send an an e-mail to info@humvote.org.
The Goals of the Humboldt Voters' Association
The HVA believes that there is an order in which election reform should be undertaken, and that clear strategic planning is imperative in order to realize our goals for a better election system. In a world where citizen and volunteer resources are already stretched, it is our philosophy that all actions should ensure that scarce volunteer and financial resources are being used to the best of their ability, and with the best chances for concrete benefits that will be felt by all. Such resources must be allocated strategically and proactively, not reactively.
With the above in mind, the Humboldt Voters' Association's believes that the first order of business is ensuring that the voter's experience in the voting booth leaves them with a deeply satisfying sense of participation in American Democracy. This would be realized through the implementation of Ranked Voting, our primary campaign. Once voters feel they are truly speaking their peace in the voting booth, they will be more likely to want to ensure that that vote is counted securely and accurately, our second campaign. Citizens are simply less likely to care what happens with their vote if they don't feel what they said in the voting booth reflected their values in the first place. Finally, being able to vote in such a way that accurately reflects your values requires that the ballots include candidates and measures that you support. Our third campaign, then, is ensuring that the "playing field" is fair and level, and those who wish to run for office or put a measure on the ballot are able to do so and have a reasonable chance of winning, without going bankrupt in the process.
As we have volunteers and resources, we will take on these campaigns in the above "loading order" of importance. Of course, the more people we have interested, the more campaigns we can run simultaneously. Until that happens, our resources will be focused on Ranked Voting, and activity in our other campaigns will be limited to endorsing organizations that take action in those areas.
We are proud to participate in the Humboldt County Election Advisory Committee, hosted by Humboldt County Clerk/Recorder Carolyn Crnich and Humboldt Elections Manager Lindsey McWilliams. For more information on the EAC, feel free to contact us.
August 16th, 2006: Presentation of Plans for November Demo Elections
Liquid Cafe, Burre Center, 6:00 p.m.
Join us for brief introductions to Instant Runoff Voting and Choice Voting as well as a presentation of our plans to hold Ranked Voting demonstration elections in November. Cafe-owner Sopai Chum will provide samples of his fabulous Asian sandwiches for our snacking pleasure. Anyone who is interested in Ranked-Voting activism should attend this meeting.
Demo Election Results: Neely beats out Marks with 63% of the vote!
Humboldt Voters' Association predicts Neely win in November
Eureka ? If nothing drastic happens between now and November, the Humboldt Voters' Association predicts that Fourth District Supervisorial candidate Bonnie Neely will win the race with 60% of the vote... more (.pdf file)
Results of the June 6, 2004 IRV demonstration election at the Municipal Auditorium in Eureka:
Raw data and interpretations (.pdf file)
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 Election Day: Instant Runoff Voting Demonstration Election
Join us on election day for an IRV demonstration election at the Eureka Municipal Auditorium. All those registered in the Fourth Supervisor District are welcome to vote in the IRV election. We'll post the results on this website after the election.
To volunteer to help at the demonstration election table and learn more about IRV activism, please contact us at info@humvote.org.
Saturday, February 4th, 2006 2:30-4:00 pm: Instant Runoff Voting workshop
Join us during the North Coast Education Summit for a workshop on Instant Runoff Voting, Saturday, February 4th, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Founder's Hall 163. For more information on registering for the North Coast Education Summit, please their website.