“Hybrid” Wins

The polls have closed in the first ​“TrueVote” online issues election — and a partially-elected Board of Education is the winner.

Of 702 votes cast in the online poll, 351 — or 50 percent — favored converting New Haven’s fully mayorally-appointed school board into one in which a couple of the members are elected by voters. Another 238, or 33.9 percent, favored a fully elected board.

So all together, 66 percent of the votes favored a change from the status quo; 113 votes, or 16.1 percent, favored having the mayor continue to appoint all the members of the board.

The Board of Aldermen is currently considering whether to put a question on November’s general elction ballot asking whether to amend city charter to change the ed board’s makeup. A Charter Revision Commission has recommended putting just the hybrid option on the ballot.

The online ​“TrueVote” ballots are part of a new project here at the New Haven Independent. It aims to involve voters in helping not just to decide who gets elected to make public decisions every year or two, but to create more discussion and register public opinion about what those decisions should be. The definition of democracy often comes down to choosing among candidates for public office, an important civic responsibility but only one feature of a healthy civic culture and political system. True Vote is aimed at involving voters in the issues themselves, and making voting a regular exercise all year long with our online polls.

This first issues election was posed just to New Haven Independent readers. A second one — on whether the state should grant driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants — has also been jointly posed to readers of CT News Junkie, the Valley Independent Sentinel, the Branford Eagle, Only In Bridgeport, and the New Haven Register. The polls are still open for the question: click here to cast a vote if you haven’t already.

One lesson we’ve already learned: these elections should have just one question, not two. A second question was included in the Board of Ed balloting (positioned lower down in the accompanying article): whether the mayor should sit on the Board of Ed. Only 125 votes were cast on that second question: 49, or 39.2 percent said yes; 52, or 41.6 percent said no; and another 24, or 19.2 percent, voted ​“yes, but as a non-voting member.”