St. Paul City Elections…   Grand Avenue Parking Meter Flap and Ranked-choice voting

Guess what happened? The parking meter struggle involving City Hall vs. the elite liberal Grand Avenue area base, all of a sudden disappeared this past week as some sort of time ran out and the item fell off the council agenda.

Paranoia is difficult to enter in here but some city hall watchers are wondering if there wasn’t some political concern over what this issue might do to the Ward 2 election with a field of candidates.  Some of the favorites who didn’t categorically deny their support for the meters might just have gotten their tail feathers burned by an upset electorate.  At least one candidate is saying watch out as this issue will surface again after a quiet period.

The warnings should also extend to the less powerful constituency in the West 7th Street area. First, they try to run the light rail down the street; now, comes the parking meters.  My, my, aren’t local politics wonderful!

Back to the November 3rd election. Oh, boy, might we have fun in Ward 2, when the ranked-choice does in some of the candidates. No primary, just six slots on the ballot, to vote for your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th choice. What if one doesn’t like 2-6?  The ballot instructions say not to vote for the same person on 2-6.  But, but, the instructions didn’t say your ballot would be disqualified, if you voted for the same candidate more than one choice. The ballot is really conducting six elections so they are hinting and possibly misguiding voters on who to vote for.

Your writer voted absentee for the same candidate six times for the six elections. Will that ballot be disqualified?

The Ward 2 ranked-choice balloting had disastrous consequences in 2011, when it was first introduced.

Your Gopher State Politics Institute will go out on a limb and predict there are going to be some unhappy campers among the Ward 2 candidates come the election aftermath.

We are under the impression the turkey was supposed to arrive on the November 25th, not on November 3rd.