Word: pr
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...going on again today, perhaps far into the night, at the Longfellow School auditorium-a 15-minute walk down Broadway from Harvard. Depending on the hour of day, anywhere from 150 to better than 300 people will be jammed into that auditorium, doing and watching the PR count...
...voters elected last Tuesday. With luck, more than a little of it, they'll finish the job tonight, and go home after a count which has lasted four days and cost the city some $6500-probably not much more than it would cost under other electoral systems, since PR climinates the need for primaries and special elections. But if they don't get through the last rounds of the count tonight, counters, candidates, and "watchers" will be at it again next week...
...understand what's going on at the count, it's helpful to look first at what a citizen does when he votes under PR in Cambridge. Two long paper ballots-this year, they're blue for City Council, pink for School Committee-are handed to him at the polls. On the ballots are listed the names of the candidates. Instead of marking an "X" beside his choices, the voter ranks his preferences (1, 2, 3, etc.). In theory, he could indicate his 26th choice for a council seat, but most voters confine themselves to a maximum of four or five...
With luck, by the middle of Friday, the Election Commission will have an "official" count of number one ballots for the City Council. Then, the real fun of PR begins...
...redistribution of the "surplus" of candidates who make the quota is one half of PR's reshuffling of votes; the other half is the elimination of the candidates ranking lowest at any one time, and the redistribution of their votes to "number two" candidates...