What is Ranked Choice Voting, or RCV? It’s pretty much what it sounds like! When you go to the ballot box, instead of having to select one candidate, you can RANK the candidates in order of preference. If a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, then that candidate wins full-stop. BUT, if no one candidate wins a majority of the vote, the last-place candidate is eliminated and the voting continues. Rinse & repeat until a clear winner emerges.
If you’ve ever struggled with choosing between the candidate that you really want and the candidate that you think is most likely to win, during a primary election, then RCV is the answer to that dilemma. With RCV, you can rank both candidates, which gives you and your fellow voters more say in the primary process.
The issue of primarying our electeds can be contentious but putting that aside, giving voters more choices to mitigate the effects of our two-party system will be a good thing, we believe.
RCV is already in effect in NYC, and now there is an effort to bring it to the City of Albany, and eventually to our county.
Thank you to Riley Hart of Unite NY for coming to speak to us about ranked choice voting and other election reforms.
Riley shared a 30 minute of clip of Majority Rules with us, which you can watch on YouTube.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, killed by an ICE agent during a traffic stop, is the latest causaulty of ICE’s killing spree. It happened in broad daylight in Houston, TX and thanks to social media (but unfortunately for his family), it became public knowledge almost immediately.
For every death that occurs on the street, there are more happening quietly in detention centers across the United States.
State of Surveillance reports that in 2025, 32 detainees died while in custody, with four more happening in the first ten days of 2026. Of the deaths that occurred between 2017 and 2021, 95% were found by the ACLU to be preventable. Rather than being hunted in cold blood on the street, detainees are dying of medical neglect — symptoms ignored, medication denied, unqualified staff, deliberate indifference, mental health neglected.
Here, in New York State, privately-run detention facilities have been illegal since 2007 though nothing prohibits state-chartered banking institutions from investing in and providing financing for private prisons, for the moment. (Here’s a bill that aims to close that loophole.)
While other major banks have dropped their financing, Citizens Bank has doubled down. (See a timeline of their complicity.) CoreCivic and GEO Group have been the target of mutiple DOJ investigations and lawsuits. Citizens Bank continues to enable this profiteering machine because the cost of financing these companies isn’t high enough but the pressure is on. Jersey City voted to divest from Citizens Bank. The working student union at Brown University has pledged to withdraw $500,000 from their Citizens Bank account while a group of Boston-area churches has threatened to take $1 million. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have sold their stake in GEO Group.
Guilderland Indivisible has joined with De-Ice Citizens Bank Coalition for a Coordinated Action on July 18th. As we call out Citizens Bank for their un-neighborly behavior, we’ll also be remembering the life of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and others murdered at the hands of ICE.
Support Lorenzo’s family by donating to their GoFundMe, and sign this petition calling for a transparent investigation into his murder.
If we stay focused on the weekly, sometimes daily, outrageous cruelty we face, battling through the years of this fascist regime, we may lose heart. We need to stay focused on the goodness, beauty, and justice around us.
We heard from Riley Hart Thursday night on Ranked Choice Voting. Riley, Capital Region Organizer for UniteNY, showed a fascinating film followed by discussion about ranked choice voting and other voting reforms. The film, Majoriy Rules, traces the development of the primary system in the early 1900s, a progressive reform that gave (male, white) citizens their first chance to vote on who the candidates would be. The political parties hated it but eventually primaries were held across the land, and for a time, this reform fought back the excesses of the Gilded Age. As time went by greedy politicians learned to game the system and created closed primaries, like those in NYS, which only allowed registered party members to vote on the candidates. This leaves out at least one third of the voters in NYS who don’t belong to the Democratic Party because the Dems are too conservative for them. These independents are often more progressive than the Democratic leadership.
As independents, they have no voice in the Democratic primaries. The film illustrates how a few powerful people can manipulate the primaries.
It’s time for new election reform. Take a close look at Ranked Choice Voting. It has worked well in Alaska and NYC. It’s only been partially adopted in California and is having a bumpy initiation, but is far better than a closed primary system. The City of Albany is poised to become a test case for ranked choice voting in our region. Want to see RCV become a reality? RCV Albany needs volunteers to canvas for signature to get RCV on the ballot, on Wednesday, at 6PM. While only Albany city residents can sign the petition, anyone can help with canvassing. For details and to sign up, visit the Mobilize page.
Visit Majority Rules to watch a 30 minute version of the film for free, or pay for access to the full-length feature.
In other election news, early voting has begun in Albany County! For early voting locations, dates, and to see what’s on your ballot, visit the Board of Elections website. We are closely watching the races for Comptroller, and for County Court Judge. See a sample ballot for Guilderland, and see sample ballots for other localities. In Guilderland, the library is an early voting location.
Why does the County Court Judge race matter? County court judges make decisions that directly affect local communities. County court judges rule on property disputes, family cases, and more. Every ruling sets a precedent for future cases. We want our judges to be fair and impartial, as much as they can be, given how partisan these races are. (Judges ought to be non-partisan, don’t you think?)
As for Comptroller, this office controls the State pension fund and oversees audits of state agencies. If you care how your tax dollars are being spent, pay attention to who is managing those tax dollars. “Fun fact”: DiNapoli has been the Comptroller for nearly twenty years, which is a little bananas, if you ask us. This year, he is being primaried by two candidates. If you think it’s time to tax the rich, it’s time to change who’s holding the checkbook.
Tired of the Old Albany Democratic Machine? Vote in the primary this month, if you’re a registered Democrat!
Did you see us at the Pride Parade today? Guilderland Indivisible marched with the Greater Capital Region Coalition. Our theme was Pride is Resistance. (Pride started as a protest, after all!) A great time was had by all, and we handed out 500 flyers for our next Citizens Bank protest.
Guilderland Weekly Protest
Join your Guilderland neighbors for a weekly protest for Democracy! RSVP on Mobilize to let us know you’re coming and to get timely updates of changes. Signing up on Mobilize also makes it easy to share and invite friends!
The Trump Administration has turned every Home Depot into a giant trap for human beings. Because immigrant workers gather outside Home Depot to find jobs to feed their families, ICE goes there to easily kidnap them. And Home Depot is doing nothing to stop them.
The raids are happening over and over, all over the country. They are terrifying, chaotic and sometimes deadly. Carlos Roberto Montoya, a day laborer from Guatemala, was killed in August in Monrovia, near Los Angeles, as he fled a Home Depot raid. He ran onto the freeway and was hit by a car.
The Home Depot company has not resisted or condemned these raids. It has not publicly demanded that the Administration stop assaulting and abducting people on and outside its properties. As far as we know, it hasn’t even been asked.
Home Depot’s silence and inaction make it a passive partner in ICE atrocities. With every new raid, it is helping ICE to meet its arrest quotas, to fill its private prisons, to spread fear and anguish in our communities.
This must stop. In the name of Carlos Roberto Montoya and all other victims of the Home Depot raids, we will do all in our power to make it stop.
Today we make these demands of Home Depot.
Publicly condemn the raids. Tell the truth about what is happening on and near your properties: Immigration agents are violently, recklessly and seemingly randomly targeting brown people. Their evidently unlawful actions are terrorizing and put customers, workers and the community in danger.
Demand that they stop. Tell the Trump Administration that it cannot send ICE or partner agencies onto Home Depot premises to conduct surveillance, commit violence or carry out unlawful kidnappings.
Keep people safe. When ICE is conducting a Home Depot raid, store managers should close and lock the doors and gates to keep agents out and to keep customers and workers safe inside.
Set clear rules. Issue a consistent policy and protocols that are binding on every store manager and associate across the country. As a private business, Home Depot has the right to lock down stores and deny access to potential federal agents and bounty hunters who do not present a valid judicial warrant to justify an arrest.
Help the victims. Provide resources to families that have been harmed by raids on Home Depot property, for needs like financial support and legal defense.
Release the videos. Share with the public all security video and other footage of enforcement actions at Home Depot stores, to help in documenting unlawful assaults, harassment and arrests of customers and workers.
Home Depot did not start out as the store where contractors and homeowners pick up both workers and supplies. But for the last 30 years, the company has profited from day laborers who gather at their stores. Informal hiring has become a key part of Home Depot’s do-it-yourself business model.
The arrangement has benefited everyone involved. Since the 1990’s, the company has profited and grown. Shareholders, contractors, homeowners have all reaped the benefits. So have immigrant laborers. Many who started with nothing have survived and thrived, learned skills — and made their communities stronger, sturdier, cleaner and more beautiful.
Home Depot’s slogan is, “Home Depot: How doers get more done.” A more accurate slogan would be: “Home Depot: How ICE meets its quotas.”
Home Depot did not ask to be ground zero for Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, but now it is. It has become a hub for injustice, cruelty and violence.
The only question that needs answering now is — what will Home Depot do to stop this?
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