[GNC] Looking for consensus on released proxy votes - please read

[Mike Heichman]

Hi Dan and others:

Responses to Dan's proposal:

1. Whoops on #2!  I didn't know that! Probably my fault. I thought that if
Kent asked me to vote for someone else that this was tantamount to releasing
his delegates and making a request that I would listen to--but was not bound
to follow. The way  see it is that I'm a Mesplay delegate and the reason why
I'm going to the convention is that I asked him if I could go as his
delegate and he agreed. I didn't think that meant that if he asked he to
"jump off a cliff" that I had to follow him. (Note: I know that I, or any
other MA delegate can call on our "conscience", but I thought that I had
more freedom of movement.)

If this is my misconception, please notify me and I will gladly step aside.

I want everyone to be on the same page and am willing to be "owned" if
everyone agrees that those are the rules of the game.

2. Dan-I am totally lost on #5. IF I'M THE ONLY ONE who is confused, I will
stand aside and ask for someone to slowly explain it to me WHEN WE ARE IN
MILWAUKEE. (I'll bring my magic markers and maybe some crayons.)

QUESTION FOR THE REST OF THE DELEGATION--IS THIS PROPOSAL CLEAR AND OK FOR
YOU?

If yes, I will gladly stand aside.

Mike Heichman




on 6/15/04 3:54 AM, Daniel Melnechuk at isis at isisdesign.com wrote:

Sorry Mike, but i am going to take a stab here on the list on getting us to
reach consensus. There have been a few offline discussions already and i
think we may be getting close. The first 4 items below i think we can all
agree to or have already. Number 5 is the issue that i think is keeping us
from finishing -- how to deal with proxy votes released by a candidate.

1) We assign proxy votes to fill out any candidate's set of delegates,
including the no preference uncommitted delegates, so that we have 36 votes.
This i believe we have agreed to and i don't think i have heard any
concerns. We want to make sure we have the fullest delegation.

2) Until a candidate releases her delegates, the proxy votes assigned to
fill out a committed set of delegates will vote for the candidate, or
whomever the candidate directs her delegates to vote for. By our rules
passed by statecom, committed delegates must also do the same. So it only
makes sense that the proxy votes for a candidate should do the same as our
rules. I believe this should raise no concerns.

3) Committed delegates who are released by a candidate essentially become
uncommitted since the candidate to whom they were committed to is no longer
directing the delegates. So released delegates are free to vote for
whomever. As Owen says it, he will vote for whomever once he is released. I
think this is something that we have to agree to since we have to trust in
the released delegates that they will do the best they can. Heck, the
candidate has released them so the candidate trusts them to make the best
decision so why can't we.

4) When the voters at the presidential primaries voted for no preference,
they voted for delegates that will figure out what to do when the convention
comes. So the proxy votes assigned to uncommitted no preference should be
decided by the uncommitted delegates. The proportion of how to allocate the
uncommitted proxy votes will be generated by the tally of the uncommitted
delegates votes for candidates in that round. This i believe has not raised
any concerns so we can agree to it.

That leaves us with...

5) Merelice makes the point that the main issue is what happens to proxies
that were assigned to a candidate to fill out a committed set of delegates
once the candidate releases her delegates to vote for whomever. There are
two main thoughts on this:

A) The released proxies should go to the uncommitted pool of proxies and get
decided upon by the uncommitted pool of delegates which is made up of no
preference delegates and the released delegates.

B) They released proxies should go to a released proxy pool that gets
decided by the whole delegation.

The argument against B and for A is that committed delegates, who are bound
to still vote for a candidate, should not get to decide on the released
proxies since their committedness to a candidate is essentially giving more
power to the candidate they are committed to. The only fair way for the
total delegation to avoid this issue is to decide by taking a separate vote
of how to allocate the released proxies, instead of using the votes of the
delegates for that round to set the proportions of how to allocate the
release proxies. The problem with that is the time it takes to do a second
voting process by the whole MA delegation on the convention floor may make
this impractical. And it can also be said that since released delegates are
now technically uncommitted, then the released proxy votes should be decided
by delegates who are uncommitted. I see this as a logical extension that the
released delegates get to vote for whomever and that released proxies are an
extension of the released delegates.

I believe the argument for B and against A is it that it is more democratic.
Not sure that is so since the argument can equally be made that only
uncommitted should be deciding on uncommitted. I have also read it argued
that the whole delegation represents the whole of GRP and so that means we
will get a more representative allocation of who the released proxy votes
should go to. But again the second vote issue as above is a large concern.
If you think about it, when a candidate releases her delegates, the
delegates are joining the uncommitted pool which makes it grow so that there
are more people deciding how to divvy up the released proxies. And it does
not take a second vote -- the uncommitted delegates will just vote for
whomever and then that tally will decide the allocation of the released
proxies as well as the uncommitted no preference proxies as in (4) above.

...

So i am asking if people can live with (A) -  released proxies will go to
the uncommitted pool of proxies and get decided upon by the uncommitted pool
of delegates which is made up of no preference delegates and the released
delegates. I am not saying it is perfect but trying to balance the
constraints we will be under that it is a sufficiently good enough solution.

So in concensus decision making terms, i am asking that if you have any
remaining concerns about using the (A) method, are you willing to "step
aside" and allow this method to be used?

Peace,
Dan

PS: I think that we should definitely make sure that the delegate rules
about being controlled after the first round be reviewed and changed for
2008!



At 11:53 AM -0400 6/14/2004, Merelice at aol.com wrote:

For a while, the Massachusetts delegation will consist of candidate
delegations and no preference. I agree that once a candidate's delegation is
released, it (including its proxies) would go into the pool. The question
is, what pool? The in-person delegates will go into the no-preference pool,
that is, not committed to any candidate. That is why I think the proxies
should also go into the no-preference pool. But some are proposing that the
proxies go into the whole Massachusetts delegation pool which would still
include some candidates' delegations (who are still committed to a
candidate). So my question is why should those remaining candidates'
delegations have a say over how the released proxies are voted? Shouldn't
the released proxies be determined by those who are not part of a
candidate's delegation? At some point, it should become moot, because
(presumably) we all will end up voting for a winniing candidate even though
we did not start out in that candidate's delegation.
Merelice



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