Vote. Vote Smart. Single-shot vote. Steve Glover wins!

When voters go to the polls to vote in the September 12th runoff election, they will be electing four Council members at-large out of a field of eight candidates.  One may, but does not have to vote for four people to fill the four seats.

I will be voting for Steve Glover for at-large and only Glover.  Why? I want to see Glover elected. While I have some preferences for who I would like to win the other three seats, I will not be voting for them.  To vote for four candidates would weaken the strength of the vote I am casting for Glover.
Glover is by far the most conservative of the eight candidates running. I want at least one of the at-large seats to be held by a conservative. Glover is knowledgeable, smart, works hard, sensible, pragmatic, fiscally responsible and a conservative.

If people who are going to vote for Glover, would vote only for Glover, he will be assured of winning an at-large seat.  Voting for only one when you may vote for more than one is sometime referred to as "single-shot" voting.

Let me illustrate how this works.  For sake of simplicity, let us assume there are only 25 voters. If all twenty-five voters cast four votes that would be a total of 100 voters cast. [25x4= 100]. The four candidates winning the most votes, are elected. Assume this is the result of all 25 voters casting four votes:


Candidate one -   17
Candidate two -   16
Candidate three - 15
Candidate four -   14
Candidate five  (Steve Glover) - 13
Candidate six  -    10
Candidate seven -  8
Candidate eight  -  7  
Total votes Cast    100

Under this scenario, Glover loses. He comes in fifth.  Now let us assume that the thirteen people who voted for Steve Glover, only vote for Steve Glover. If that is the case then 13 people will cast only one vote and twelve will cast four votes, so a total of 61 votes would be cast. [(13x1= 13) + (12x4= 48) = 61 votes cast.] That is 39 fewer total votes cast. We could take them from whom ever we like. Let us assume the votes are cast like this:

Candidate one-   11
Candidate two-  10
Candidate three-  9
Candidate four-   8
Candidate five (Steve Glover)- 13
Candidate six-     5
Candidate seven- 3
Candidate eight-  2
Total Votes Cast  61

Steve Glover wins big! He is the top vote getter.

There are several ways we can play with this.  Let us assume that of the 13 votes Steve Glover gets, that only about five of his voters are informed conservative voters and the others are casual, low-information voters. They are voting based on names they recognize or who they think is a nice guy or they just do not understand the power of single-shot voting.  So let us assume that only five of Steve's 13 voters are going to single-shot vote and that twenty people will vote for four candidates. That would give a vote total of 85 votes cast, [(5x1= 5 + (20x4= 80) = 85]. The vote totals may look like this:


Candidate one-  15
Candidate two-  14
Candidate three-13
Candidate four-  12
Candidate five (Steve Glover)- 13
Candidate six-     8
Candidate seven- 6
Candidate eight-  4
Total Votes Cast- 85

Steve Gover wins Council at-large seat! Just barely, but he wins.

Be aware that when you go to vote, if you only vote for one candidate for at-large, the voting machine will tell you, you failed to make a selection in all races. You do not have to vote for any. You do not have to vote for four. You may vote for only one. Don't be intimidated by a voting machine.

If enough people who are going to vote for Steve Glover, would vote only for Steve Glover, he can be assured a victory.

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