[Green-Rainbow] RE: [Procedures] Re: Calling the state about voter registration

[Gil Obler]

Thanks Jeff, for the update and the information.

I am not sure if you know, but Rose has advised me that the AdCom, at
their last meeting, approved some discretionary money for us to talk
to our lawyer. The plan we had was to take all of the proposals, as
well as our current bylaws, to the lawyer between Saturday and the
State Committee meeting to get legal opinions on all of this.

If the lawyer says that there is a problem with anything, we planned
on making friendly amendments to resolve the issue.

I would suggest that we add the convention rules to the packet for
the lawyer to review.

We had further planned that after the State Committee meeting, and
after the Convention, that the lawyer would handle all further
official communications with the State. This does not mean that
any of us are prevented from talking informally to the state and
getting our questions answered, just that official communications
should go through the lawyer. Do you think that this idea (of
protecting the party this way) should be a proposal for the state
committee, or is just an obvious thing?

As far as the substance of your email:

Voter registration - I am of two minds here. I would hate to see
anything challenge the convention results, in particular the
candidacies. Since we are planning on using signed ballots (aren't
we?) could we let anyone who says that they have registered (but
are not yet on the rolls we have) or who register that day vote,
but then disqualify their ballots if there is a challenge later?
Maybe we should talk to the lawyer about this, or seek an opinion
about this idea from the state?

Nonregistered voters on the statecom - Our assumption has been that
the 80 elected at the polls have to be registered, but that it was
unclear for the others. We figured that the bylaws could say "party
member" for now, talk to the lawyer (as planned above) and tighten
this if the lawyer advises us to (with a friendly amendment), or
leave it if he thinks that we can justify this legally. If the lawyer
says they all have to be registered, I hoped we could maybe let youth,
immigrants, felons, etc. be participants and just not vote. If the
lawyer says that this would be OK, we can at least let their voices
be heard.

Does this plan seem OK to you?

                             Gil Obler
                             Fundraising Director, Mystic River Greens
                             Massachusetts Delegate, US Green Party
                                              
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email                                               greengil at attbi.com
home                                                     (617)623-0582
cell                                                     (617)388-5445
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-----Original Message-----
From: procedures-admin at massgreens.org
[mailto:procedures-admin at massgreens.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey O'Neill
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 8:23 PM
To: procedures at massgreens.org; Green-Rainbow at massgreens.org
Subject: [Procedures] Re: Calling the state about voter registration


I called the Sec of State and talked to Michelle Tassinari and asked her
several questions.

1) When does voter registration take effect?

When it is processed by the city/town registrar.  

2) Can we let people register Green on the day of the convention and
participate?

We can, but this opens the possibility for someone to legally object to
the outcome of any decision made at the convention.  However, I think
this is extremely unlikely and that we should allow people to register
that day and participate.

3) Do you have to be registered Green to be on the StateCom?

She essentially read the state law on this and suggested we talk to our 
legal counsel.  The issue is the definition of "party member."  Must it
be a registered voter or can we define it how we want?  Until a lawyer
tells us otherwise, I think we should require StateCom members to be 
registered Green.

4) Are there any state laws regarding our quorum?

No.


Jeff
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