[candidate-development] Delegate allocation draft memo

[Mike Heichman]

Hi,

Gary sent this to me and I'm forwarding it to CDLC.

Mike

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Memorandum

Draft – for circulation within CDLC only

To: Administrative Committee

From: Campaign Development and Legal Committee

Re: Presidential Primary Delegate allocation

Date: _________________

On February 5, 2008, Massachusetts held its presidential primaries. At 
stake for Green Party candidates were 32 delegates who will attend the 
national convention in Chicago July 10-13 to nominate the party’s 
candidate for president. In all, 1,941 voters cast ballots for six 
listed candidates, a no-preference category, and write-ins. (This is an 
increase of 81% over 2004.) Because of the relatively small number of 
votes cast, we had to wait until each city and town reported results to 
the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Those results became available in 
early March and were:

Jared Ball 42
Ralph Nader 744
Elaine Brown 38
Kat Swift 60
Cynthia McKinney 474
Kent Mesplay 39
No Preference 194
All others (write-ins) 273
Blanks 77

Total 1,941

GRP must allocate its 32 delegates among the respective candidates 
according to a plan drafted by the party and filed with the Secretary on 
October 1, 2007. That plan requires CDLC to calculate the number of 
delegates each candidate earned using a formula described in the plan 
and to present those calculations to AdCom within one week of receipt. 
AdCom then has one week to approve or reject the results and send them 
back to CDLC.

CDLC has endeavored to follow the plan – and state law – as closely as 
possible. However, as is described below, several unforeseen 
circumstances were not covered by the plan. Once this election cycle is 
over, the plan should be examined for needed improvements and amended 
accordingly.


CDLC received the primary results in early March [precise date]. 
However, the results did not identify who the write-in votes were cast 
for and CDLC attempted to get a tally of those results. We have since 
learned that the Commonwealth Secretary apparently no longer requires 
write-in votes to be submitted to them for recording. We also had to 
wait for the results to be tabulated by Congressional district before 
proceeding with the calculation. It was decided to proceed with the 
calculation without learning who the write-in votes were cast for.

The calculation was done by Jamie O’Keefe, who also did it in 2004. In 
addition, John Andrews of CDLC made the same calculation to confirm 
O’Keefe’s findings.

In applying the formula described in the plan, we first had to determine 
how to treat several categories. Those voters who cast blank ballots in 
the presidential race were presumed to have voted only for a 
state-committee candidate, or who decided, once in the voting booth, not 
to vote for anyone. Thus, the blank votes were eliminated from the 
calculation.

Then the calculation was performed as if all six candidates listed on 
the ballot were still running.

Write-in votes presented another problem. We don’t know who they were 
cast for but we do know they were cast for someone. Therefore, we 
couldn’t throw them out. So we made what we believe are reasonable 
assumptions: (1) that a number of votes were cast for members of another 
party, which would not make them invalid votes in our primary, thus 
reducing by some unknown amount the total of legitimate write-in votes 
cast; (2) that of the remainder, an insufficient votes were cast for any 
one person to qualify that person for a delegate. These are admittedly 
guesses, but we have little else to go on. Therefore, in the calculation 
we added all write-in votes to the no preference category.

As a result of applying the assumptions described above, the calculation 
resulted in the following allocation:

Jared Ball 1 delegate
Ralph Nader 12 delegates, of which one must be from each of the 1st – 
7th and
9th – 10th Congressional Districts
Elaine Brown 1 delegate
Kat Swift 1 delegate
Cynthia McKinney 8 delegates, of which one must be from the 8th 
Congressional District
Kent Mesplay 1 delegate
No Preference 8 delegates


In a fast-track move, the Legislature, on November 22, moved the primary 
date up one month to February 4, and moved the deadline for submitting 
names of candidates up from December 31 to December 3. By the time the 
primary arrived February 4, three listed candidates had dropped out. 
Nevertheless, they received 824 votes, over 40% of the total votes cast.

• Jared Ball announced his withdrawal January 17. See his website at 
www.jaredball.com:

• Elaine Brown announced her withdrawal December 28 and she confirmed 
that to CDLC March 27 via email.

• Ralph Nader announced February 24 that he is running for president as 
an independent and in some states as a member of another party. At a 
press conference March 8, Nader’s running mate, Matt Gonzales, said the 
two would not be seeking the Green Party nomination. (See quote, attached)

These announcements presented CDLC with additional issues. The 
delegate-selection plan calls for a delegate to vote for the candidate 
they are assigned until released by that candidate or directed by that 
candidate to vote for someone else. Strictly interpreted, state law 
requires that the vote of the delegation as a whole reflect the results 
of the primary on the first ballot cast at the convention. This means 
that, on the first ballot round, roughly 44% of our delegates are 
required to vote for candidates who are no longer seeking the 
nomination. CDLC is seeking further interpretation of the law from the 
Elections Division.

On March 17, all six candidates were unofficially advised – via email 
and snail mail – that we were in the process of determining how many 
delegates each had earned, and asked, among other questions, whether 
they wanted their delegates or would release them. As of March 26, we 
had received no response from any candidate. Follow-up emails and phone 
calls on March 27 have elicited responses from Elaine Brown, Cynthia 
McKinney, and Kat Swift.

Our plan does not provide for the treatment of those delegate slots 
earned by candidates who have dropped out of the race since their names 
were submitted. We have endeavored to talk with the Elections Division 
of the Secretary’s office, since our plan is on file with them and we 
must adhere to both the plan and state law. We have, as yet, been unable 
to make contact with the Division but will continue to do so.

One suggestion for resolving this has been that delegates be assigned to 
those candidates who have dropped out and asked to vote on the first 
ballot for someone still running who most closely represents the issues 
emphasized by the candidate who withdrew. This would at least attempt to 
reflect the vote of the primary ballot, but it is obviously dependent on 
a highly subjective criteria.

Another suggestion is to add those delegates assigned to drop-outs to 
the no-preference category. This would mean sending a mostly uncommitted 
delegation to the convention. There are some who argue that those are 
committed delegates and that it would be a violation of state law to 
designate them as anything other than pledged to the candidates they are 
allocated to, regardless of the fact that the candidate has withdrawn. 
CDLC is attempting to clarify this issue with the Elections Division. 
Until it does, it is the recommendation of the [sub-committee] is that 
the revise delegate allocation listed below be accepted by Ad Com based 
on the following determinations:

• Blank votes be eliminated from the calculation
• Write-in votes be treated as no-preference
• Votes for candidates who have dropped out be treated as no-preference

Using that criteria, the result would be:

Kat Swift 1 delegate
Cynthia McKinney 8 delegates
Kent Mesplay 1 delegate
No Preference 22 delegates, of which one must be from each of the 10 
Congressional
Districts


CDLC presents this allocation immediately to AdCom and requests its 
approval.

Once approved, CDLC will officially notify each candidate of the number 
of delegates they have earned and ask them to send us a list of names to 
be used to fill their allocated part of the delegation. The 
no-preference portion of the delegation will be administered by CDLC. 
Once the list has been compiled, it will be submitted to StateCom for 
its approval. Following that approval, official letters will be sent 
each delegate confirming their appointment and designating their slot in 
the delegation.

The GRP is committed to diversity and our plan calls for the delegation 
to reflect the diversity of the population of the Commonwealth. 
According to the plan, the delegation should include a minimum of 4 
African-Americans, 4 Latinos, 3 Asian, Pacific, or Native Americans, and 
4 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender individuals. These are goals 
that may not be met in some categories, but delegation organizers should 
make every reasonable effort to reach those goals.

One final issue: in 2004, our state party had 36 delegates of which only 
24 were actually able to attend. The national party did accept proxies, 
but we had to scramble the morning of the first ballot to maintain our 
full delegation and its total voting strength. CDLC recommends that we 
be better prepared in 2008 and develop a process for allowing proxies. 
Currently, we have only 7-8 applicants to be delegates so we may find 
ourselves deliberately sending proxies this year. In ’04, national party 
rules allowed only one proxy per delegate – a sensible provision – and 
we should develop a process of allocating proxy votes within the party 
should we be unable to field a full delegation in Chicago.








David England, Co-Chair Jill Stein, Co-Chair





Statement of Matt Gonzales, Ralph Nader’s running mate:
"We are not going to seek the Green Party nomination. The Green Party
has four announced candidates, very articulate progressives -- Kent
Mesplay, Kat Swift, Jesse Johnson, and Cynthia McKinney, who is an
experienced legislator, elected 6 times to the House of
Representatives from the district in Georgia. We wish them all good
luck. We think that there's plenty of room in this country for
parallel progressive candidates, and it's important for all of us to
try to generate some tolerance for small parties, for small
independent candidates, which historically have led the way from the
19th century to most of the 20th century, with the most important
social justice agendas. Whether it's anti-slavery, women's right to
vote, the great movements for labor, environmental and farmer
advances, as well as in the 20th century many advances which we now
take for granted and which the two parties adopted - social security,
unemployment compensation, progressive income tax, and others were all
started by small parties which led the way. No oak tree ever starts
without an acorn."



Jamie’s Report

Here are the results. The details and computations are attached.

All Options on Ballot

With all options on ballot, except that write-ins are counted as No 
Preference, the results are:

Jared Ball: 1 delegate

Ralph Nader: 12 delegates, of which 9 delegates must be from the 
1st-7th, 9th and 10th Congressional Districts.

Elaine Brown: 1 delegate

Kat Swift: 1 delegate

Cynthia McKinney: 8 delegates, of which 1 delegate must be from the 8th 
Congressional District.

Kent Mesplay: 1 delegate

No Preference: 8 delegates

Only Options for Candidates who have not Withdrawn

If we only consider those options for Candidates who have not Withdrawn, 
then we are left with four options: Kat Swift, Cynthia McKinney, Kent 
Mesplay and No Preference. As above write-ins are counted as No 
Preference. In this case,,the results are:

Kat Swift: 1 delegate

Cynthia McKinney: 8 delegates

Kent Mesplay: 1 delegate

No Preference: 22 delegates, of which 10 delegates
must each be from one of the ten different Congressional Districts.