I was interviewed and then wrote to support the 2016 Howard County Election Fund System Amendment and got around 5000 views last year, see https://chaowu.org/2016/10/06/2016-election-two-howard-county-charter-amendments-on-ballot/.  I believe I might help contribute several hundreds to several thousands supporting votes on this bill by my effort. The pass is not a huge margin (52.6%/47.4%, total 7500 out of 144524 total votes, around 5 percent).  That means 3750 votes can flip the election result.

I still believe the election fund system will help create competition for county executive and county council seats.

Furthermore, I believe if we can combine the tax money (70%) with voluntary contribution (30%) for the whole fund, we will get much more broader support.  It will reduce the tension among citizens. For those who actively support this measure, they can also help financially by contributing to the fund. That is one way for CB30 supporters to convince those CB30 opponents who claimed that CB30 supporters just want to spend others’ money.

I wish in the future, any amendment should have a 66% threshold. A simple majority is too easy to be manipulated. For this local county bill, four college girls from (West?) Virginia came to promote this amendment at the Clarksville Middle School during my half day campaign for several BOE board members. That’s a lot of effort thinking about more than 100 polling locations ( I did not know the situations in other polling locations).

We need a more stringent threshold to pass laws, just like 51 votes for supreme court judge is not right. That is not good for the whole country.  However, in this highly partisan period, everything can be justified by each side unfortunately.