Ranking Ice Cream Flavors, A Very Large Turtle, and Top Speed Reduction
Cheers RVA!
Today will be cloudy with a high of 82. The weekend looks a bit cooler with potential showers on Saturday and sunshine on Sunday.
the juice:
Charlottesville will become the second locality in Virginia to use ranked-choice voting in local elections beginning in 2025, via VPM.
The Virginia Department of Elections has a neat tool to help practice and understand ranked-choice voting.
Imagine asking a group of people their favorite flavor of ice cream. Many elections, such as the Presidential election, would be like asking, “What is your favorite, and your choices are Vanilla or Chocolate?”
With ranked-choice voting, you would ask, “What is your favorite type of ice cream, here are eight choices:”
So in this example, no one flavor garners the majority (50%+) of votes.
Voters who had Rocky Road as their favorite, would now have their votes shifted to their second favorite.
This process would repeat until one flavor had more than half of the votes.
In this particular example, Butter Pecan would have barely defeated Mint Chocolate Chip in the final round, but notice how many voters preferred other flavors.
Ranked-choice voting encourages more candidates to run, neutralizes the “3rd party candidate effect”, and forces candidates to appeal broadly among constituents.
Around 45 cities across the United States used ranked-choice as a method of electing local officials, along with Maine which uses the system for state and congressional elections.
Contrarily, 10 states have banned the method statewide.
The General Assembly passed a bill in 2020 allowing localities to use ranked-choice voting, with Arlington being the first locality in Virginia to implement the system of democratic voice.
the pulp:
A 57-pound snapping turtle was found in the waters of Curles Neck Plantation in Henrico, via channel 8. Snapping turtles weighing 25-30 lbs are considered large, making “Godzilla” a monster.
RVA Brunch Weekend begins today at 30 participating restaurants, with 15% of the funds going to the SPCA, via RICtoday
A driver was charged with reckless driving after the raised trailer bed he was hauling crashed into and eventually collapsed an overhead sign yesterday. Westbound traffic on Interstate 64 was closed for seven hours with traffic backups as long as six miles.
the dive:
VCU is back in session, which means so is the University’s independent press, “The Commonwealth Times.”
I found a really interesting stat from a recent article on pedestrian safety around campus regarding the effects of speed tables:
These speed tables have proven effective on the VCU campus, according to Brian McNeill, VCU’s director of public relations. McNeill shared that on West Cary, the speed tables reduced the top recorded speeds from 91, 85, 78, 65 and 57 mph in January 2023 to 56, 48, 47, 46 and 43 mph in March 2024.
The decrease in top recorded speeds on West Cary is remarkable.
Read the full article here.
the vibe:
Have a safe and calm weekend RVA!
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