By Bob Richard

Friday, August 26, 2005

Our second meeting on ranked voting in Marin on Wednesday, August 24, was attended by five local activists. Here are my notes.

(1) Our next meeting is Wednesday, September 28, 7:00 pm, at College of Marin, Student Services Building (same place as before). Please publicize this meeting to everyone you know who is interested in ranked voting.

(2) Here is my (completely unofficial) understanding of what we accomplished.

(2a) We agreed by consensus that we need to name ourselves, and decided to have an IRV election to choose the name. The result will be announced on September 8. We will operate by majority rule (i.e. no super-majorities). We will not have officers unless and until money matters require that we have a treasurer.

(2b) We reviewed most of the action items from the July 26 meeting.

*** Schedule speaker training workshop provided by Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER). At least five--and maybe six or seven--people want to attend the workshop.

*** Begin promoting ranked voting for College of Marin (COM) student government elections. Two members are active on this. It's at least a semester-long project. Contact made with Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD) and Davis campus Greens. Contacts beginning to be made at COM. Also looking for contacts at Dominican.

*** Meet with with office holders who are already known to support IRV, to get their thoughts on strategy and tactics. No action so far.

*** Schedule educational presentation to Marin chapter of Democrats for America (DFA). We are still trying for their September 6 Meetup.

*** Work with county registrar Michael Smith to establish citizen's advisory committee on election administration (and then get ourselves represented on it). No action so far. This is not a short-range project. A written proposal is needed. We will work on a letter to the registrar re-introducing the idea.

(2c) We agreed to start working on the following right away.

*** We will start developing literature with local content immediately. This will include information on charter vs. general law status and implications for adopting ranked voting.

*** We will find out whether FairVote has updated its old leaflets, and also find out whether FairVote or CfER leaflets can be printed with blank space where the organization's name goes, so we can customize them with our own name or logo.

*** We will table at a Bob Fitrakis/Steven Rosenfeld presentation on Ohio 2004 on September 14. We will suggest, through CfER channels, that ranked voting activists in Davis and Oakland do the same. As of a press release dated August 26, the location of the September 14 event is not firm, but might be Santa Rosa.

*** We will contact office holders and candidates who are known IRV supporters, to start a process of getting their input on strategy and tactics.

*** Four members will call aides to four of the five supervisors, as their constituents, to ask about their positions on IRV.

*** We will make contact with SEIU's Political Action Committee about their participation, and/or about making a presentation to their membership.

(2d) We discussed a lot of other possible activities. Here is a partial list.

*** Contact potentially interested organizations about participation in our campaign. These include (especially) the Libertarians, Democrats For America, Progressive Democrats of America, League of Women Voters (LWV).

*** Table, or participate in workshops, at the Progressive Festival, September 25 in Petaluma. NOTE: the Sonoma County GP-ERWG is also thinking about this.

*** Make educational presentations to county-level Republican Party organizations.

*** Educational campaign around 6th Assembly District Democratic primary next year (discussion continued from previous meeting). This could included cohosting a candidate forum with the LWV, and/or getting questions about ranked voting on candidate questionnaires, tabling at other candidate forums, op-ed articles, etc.

*** Educational event (maybe a houseparty) specifically for elected officials. Try to get LWV to cosponsor this.

*** Educational events for the general public. Several small events in various parts of the county, including West Marin, instead of one big one.

(3) Food for thought:

(3a) What are your views on Prop. 77? It provides a great opportunity to talk about multi-member districts and ranked voting. CfER will have a position paper illustrating this soon, which I will send to everyone.

(3b) On voting machines:

www.fairvote.org/machines/FairVote_Machines.pdf

On getting involved in local communities:

www.fairvote.org/flexibility/?page=185

www.fairvote.org/flexibility/?page=889

(3c) Everyone interested in ranked voting should join this email discussion group:

California IRV Coalition

You will be asked to describe yourself to the moderator--please mention that I referred you so the moderator will not suspect you are a potential spammer. If you want news and announcements only (no discussion), then join this group instead:

California IRV Coalition - News List

Bob Richard is Marin County Coordinator for Californians for Electoral Reform