Media Roots – Occupy Oakland: Then and Now

Media Roots.org was at the scene of the police crackdown in Oakland, Ca. on November 14th, 2011 and documented the historic OCCUPY OAKLAND Strike, March, and Port of Oakland shutdown on 11-2-11

the following videos should be spread far and wide…

Occupy Oakland Historic Strike, March & Port Shutdown 11-2-11

http://www.mediaroots…

Media Roots captured some great energy from the day of the historic general strike in Oakland on 11-2-11.

Footage includes the strike, the shutdown of the banks around town, the epic march to the port and the shutdown of the Port of Oakland.

November 14th, 2011

“Welcome to the police state, look how many cops show up for a peaceful assembly.” – Abby Martin

“Abby Martin of Media Roots went to Occupy Oakland at 4:00 am to cover the second police raid on the encampment and crackdown against the peaceful protesters at Frank Ogawa Plaza.

The footage shows the intensity in the air leading up to the raid and the insane amount of police presence that showed up to crackdown and destroy the camp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WaOp95d0M&feature=player_embedded
Mayor Jean Quan’s legal adviser resigned at 2 am in protest to the heavy police response.”

for more information visit: http://www.mediaroots…

The Risks of Ranked-Choice Voting

The system has made campaigning more complex. If no candidate gets a majority, the person at the bottom of the poll is dropped and the second and third choices of his supporters are added to the tallies of the remaining candidates. This continues until someone reaches 50 percent. In some cases, candidates who were not the first choice of a large majority of voters have been elected.

And there is new evidence that many voters do not understand ranked-choice voting, which has led to some ballots being invalidated in numbers high enough possibly to affect the outcome.

That insight comes from research under way at the University of San Francisco that is scrutinizing the results of the 2010 mayoral race in Oakland, the most-high-profile ranked-choice election in the Bay Area to date.

On election night, only 24 percent of Oakland voters picked Jean Quan as their first choice, compared with 35 percent who chose former state Sen. Don Perata. But with ranked-choice voting in a crowded field of nine candidates, Quan was the dominant second or third choice of so many voters that she eventually won, with 50.96 percent.

In analyzing the votes, Corey Cook, a professor in the university’s political science department, said 21 percent of voters did not use all three of their choices, effectively limiting their participation in the instant runoff.

Read full article

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