Back on March 29, the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a front-page story “St. Paul weighs even-year elections” with a sub-heading “Solutions sought for city’s sharp decline in voter turnout.”

One group wants a charter amendment to move the city elections to coincide with other elections. That, they claim, together with ranked-choice voting would be the greatest. Sorry! One of the problems is ranked-choice voting. The other is that a vote in a city election is usually a complete waste of time. Why bother to vote?

There are only two votes that count in St. Paul. The first is a vote at a DFL caucus. The second is a vote at a DFL endorsing convention. An exception was the latest Ward 2 contest that we’ll elaborate on below.

If you want your vote to mean anything in St. Paul, you must become a Democrat, go to the DFL caucus (with some friends who can vote you in as a delegate to an endorsing convention) and vote at the endorsing convention. Beyond that a city vote in St. Paul is meaningless.

Ranked-choice voting is anti-democratic; it is a means to legalize monopolistic power for the party in control. Were this a business monopoly instead of a political monopoly, there’d be screams for the feds to come in and break it up.  The question is, Who has and why did they put up the real money for the lobbyists to push ranked-choice voting? This just furthers absolute dominance by one party. The opposition is shut out.

The Ward 2 contest is an example. It was not a contest between a DFLer and a non-DFL opponent. It was a contest between two DFLers. The party in power normally gets at least, two shots at the position, unlike a primary election where the DFL would select their candidate and an opponent say Republican, would select theirs. The two plus other parties would square off at the general election. The opposition would have at least a small chance of getting their message out to the voters.

Whatever happens in St. Paul, good or bad, lies at the feet of the DFL and even holding them accountable for it means little. You don’t like losing your parking space in front of your Cleveland Avenue home? Tough bounce! The liberal philosophy of the council is paramount, you lose. Don’t want parking meters on Grand Avenue? Too bad! The mighty neighborhood liberals may strike out. Light rail on W. 7th Street? No way, but don’t bet against it.

There is no reason to vote in a St. Paul city election. The liberals in this city have turned the reins of government over to the DFL party. The party runs the city, not the populace. More votes for a done deal is ridiculous.

The only satisfaction this writer gets voting in St. Paul is to vote “No!” six times.

Is there a solution? Not really. Not until the citizens of St. Paul find out that the DFL is the problem and vote them out of office. But, for starters, toss out ranked-choice and replace it with a true primary/general election system.

Bob Smith, 3rd