American Freedom Party Proportional Representation Initiative in St. Helens, Oregon

The American Freedom Party’s Board of Directors commissioned activists in Oregon to campaign for Proportion Representation (“PR”), also known as “ranked choice voting”, by getting it on the ballot this November through the initiative process. AFP will then have candidates run for office under a more accountable, expanded St. Helens City Council using PR in 2016.

The purpose of AFP’s “Initiative” (a process allowing voters to enact laws independently of their legislators, permitted in half the States) is to facilitate a fairer electoral process generally, and to progressively have Party members elected to local office. PR is the electoral system used in almost all European countries, as well as for the EU, as opposed to the oppressive winner-take-all system for obtaining office maintained by the Republican-Democrat duopoly.

AFP’s Oregon chapter has spent an enormous amount of time and tireless energy campaigning for signatures door to door, in the downtown, and at local businesses using a registered voter list from the city. Fortunately, we are close to reaching the requisite 10% of registered voter signatures for submission and approval by the City of St. Helens and State of Oregon.

Petitioners are approaching each registered resident with our City Guide to Voting Using Proportion Representation which is adapted from the Cambridge, Massachusetts model; the only municipal council in the United States which currently is elected through PR voting. St. Helens is the county seat of Columbia County (pop. 13,000), 90% European descent, and located in a spectacularly scenic area of the Pacific Northwest.

Residents would therefore to be able to vote for any number of the eight city council seats up for election every other year by ranking their choice of candidates. Our initiative would also permit voters to simultaneously increase the city council from four to eight members, a particularly well-received proposal in this rapidly growing area, and have them each elected for two year terms (currently at four) at even year biannual elections.

AFP has posted a general explanation of Proportional Representation on our homepage as a primer on the subject, as well as a variety of articles on the topic. Other articles on the status of PR worldwide will be posted shortly. The American Freedom Party leadership encourages members and supporters to vigorously assist us with this revolutionary program of bringing PR to the United States so that our people will finally begin getting elected to public office throughout the country.

St. Helen’s Voting Guide Brochure

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