[Pnp-wg] represntation

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:12:16 -0800

Below is a proposal for deterring membership size based on the principle 
of one person, one vote. The proposal is simple in that it calls for 
each state to estimate the size of their membership using whatever 
methods they deem appropriate for their state. It also call for the 
creation of a neutral commission to certify these estimates.

The commission will review each state's claims and their premises and in 
cases where there is disagreement between the committee and a state 
every attempt will be made by both parties to resolve the dispute.

Once the size of each parties membership have been certified, we then 
use these numbers to determine delegation size using proportional 
representation.

This proposal alleviates the problem of coming up with an exact formula 
that is fair to all states instead puts the onerous on each state to 
provide what ever evidence they deemed appropriate to estimate their 
membership size (i.e. give us a number). My belief is that most states 
will provide a fair evaluation of their membership size and their will 
be little need for action by the commission

The proposal will be voted on at the next CA Plenary in May, however, I 
would appreciate hearing if others though this proposal was heading in 
the proper direction....

Best--
Forrest

p.s. This is in raw form and does not include the background which is 
somewhat specific to CA

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INSTITUTING INTERNAL DEMOCRACY

BACKGROUND

PROPOSAL 1:
In order to institute internal democracy in the Green Party, we propose 
the adoption of the following measures: the principle of one person, one 
vote, direct and indirect measurement of state membership size, and a 
non-partisan commission to certify state membership size.

ONE PERSON ONE VOTE
It is imperative that all members in the Green Party recognize that our 
national decisions reflect the true will of our members and that their 
opinions and votes are fully counted and respected.

The Green Party internal structures must correspond with the principle 
of one person, one vote.  No member of the Green Party may have more or 
less representation than any other Green Party member when selecting the 
party's presidential ticket and its national leadership bodies.

State representatives to national leadership bodies and selection of 
delegates for national conventions must correspond to the principle of 
one person, one vote. Any existing regulations that conflict with this 
principle are invalid and must be adjusted to correspond to it.

The principle of one person, one vote must be respected along with our 
principle of gender parity and diversity on the issues the party has 
declared relevant for our nation and our time.

NEUTRAL COMMISSION TO CERTIFY MEMBERSHIP SIZE
* *
To implement internal democracy based on the principle of "one person, 
one vote", each state party must develop methods for fairly determine 
the size of their membership. These methods will likely vary given that 
rules governing voter registration and requirements for third party 
participation in elections vary greatly from state to state.

Given these vulgarities, however, it is important that accredited states 
have a sound estimate of their membership size to ensure their leaders 
are fairly elected and to determine their level of represented at the 
national level.

To facilitate this process, we propose establishing a neutral commission 
that represents all Green Party members and its differing political 
currents, geographic spread and other factors such as gender and race. 
The commission will be selected by the National CC and will meet every 
four years in the year prior to a presidential election.

Each state will be asked to provide an estimate of their membership size 
based on any combination of direct and/or indirect methods they deem as 
appropriate (see below). The commission will review each state's claims 
and their premises. In cases where there is disagreement between the 
committee and a state every attempt will be made by both parties to 
resolve the dispute.

Once the membership size for each state has been certified by the 
committee these values will be used to determine the proportion of 
representation each state gets in our national governing bodies and at 
the national convention.

Representation for delegates and for election of the CCs will follow the 
certification of membership state by state in a formula that will be 
based on a one person, one vote criteria.

PROPOSED METHOD FOR DETERMINING RELATIVE MEMBERSHIP SIZE IN CALIFORNIA

In essence there are two ways to determine the size of a state's 
membership body, direct measurements of those who actively support the 
Green Party, and indirect measurements that provide an estimate of 
membership size "relative" to other state parties. We propose using both 
methods in California.
* *
*Direct Measurement *

The most direct method for determining membership size of state parties 
would be to use registration roles. The number of registered Greens in a 
state is an unbiased estimate of how many voters are actively willing to 
support the Green Party as a viable political entity.

One way to utilize this data so that California's numbers are fair to 
those states without registration rights is to assume all states have 
some minimum "threshold" number of Greens.

A fair threshold can be determined using the following logic. If all 
states allowed voters to register Green, and each state had an equal 
number of registered Green voters, then the proportion of the total 
membership living in each state would be 2% (i.e. 100% divided by 50 
states = 2%). Given that California currently has 53% of the actual 
number of registered Greens, we generously assume that each state has at 
least 1% of the membership. 

Under an assumption that all states have a minimum of 1% of the 
membership, California would be allotted 34% of the delegates at the 
national convention in leadership bodies.

*Indirect Methods*

The most appropriate indirect methods for assessing membership size are 
based on results from Green campaigns. These methods are indirect 
because there is no way of knowing if the votes received by our 
candidates are cast by a Green, Independent, Democrat, etc.

There is no reason to assume the proportion of Greens (or would-be 
Greens) voting for Green Party candidates varies from state to states. 
Thus as long as we compare campaign statistics between states, the value 
of these statistics provide a relative measure of state membership size 
in terms of percentage.

We suggest the following indirect measures should be used to determine 
the relative size of our membership:

Percent of total number of votes cast for local and statewide candidates 
                        37%
Percent of Greens 
officeholders                                                                         
31%
Percent of Green candidates that have run for local and statewide office 
                        16%    
Most votes received by a state or local 
candidate                                                          22%
*Mean*                                                                                                                          
*26.5%*
* *
The percentages shown are the values for California over the past three 
years and the mean is the arithmetic average of theses values.

*Conclusion*s

Representation for California should be based on both our registration 
numbers and indirect voting results from our campaigns.

Currently, there are approximately 300,000 Greens registered in the 
country. If we use a 1% threshold as a minimum measure of party size in 
each state, we would have to assume that the real size of our membership 
is roughly 476,000, and that each state has a minimum of 4,850 members.

Thus in relative terms we would estimate that CA has between 126,140 and 
161,848 members. The mean of these values is 143,990 or approximately 
30% of the national membership.

RESOURCES:

Greg Gerritt wrote:

>Mark, the way to move this forward would be to formalize it as a proposal
>and crate a chart tlisting delegation sizes for us to peruse.  Give us the
>concrete and the abstract.
>
>greg 
>
>  
>
>>From: "Mark Swaney" <mswaney@engr.uark.edu>
>>Reply-To: <mswaney@engr.uark.edu>
>>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:27:44 -0600
>>To: <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
>>Subject: RE: [Pnp-wg] represntation
>>
>>
>>
>>Greens,
>>
>>As a suggestion, and something to consider, would it not be reasonable to
>>apportion to each state Green Party a number of delegates proportional to
>>the *demonstrated Green voting strength* in each state?
>>
>>In addition, what about a minimum of one or two delegates for every
>>accredited state party - so that in using a proportional rule we do not
>>exclude from participation any state party.  This just seems reasonable to
>>me.
>>
>>I believe that all the states have accurate numbers of the Green voting
>>strength in any recent election.  We could consider using those numbers and
>>give the state parties the choice of which Green candidate they want to use
>>for calibration, (in a state-wide race) for example using the vote for Cobb
>>in the last election, or alternatively, using the vote for a governor's
>>candidate, which ever the state party believes demonstrates the most votes
>>for a Green candidate.
>>
>>This proposal it seems to me has some advantages,
>>
>>1.  The proposal envisions a national system that will not involve violating
>>state "autonomy" and uses a standard apples-to-apples rule for every state
>>that will allow for proportional representation.  With this system, no
>>complaints of king-making or mal-apportioned delegates can fairly be made.
>>
>>2.  The proposed rule is based on the measure that *counts* - Green voting
>>strength.  
>>
>>Trying to go by the "size of the party" - such as the criticism that Indiana
>>has only 24 members but got 10 delegates is not reasonable. The number of
>>steady committed hard workers (the "24") is not at all a reasonable measure
>>of the true result we are all aiming for - namely votes for Green
>>candidates.  
>>
>>Democrats and Republicans number in the millions, yet the number of Dem or
>>Rep voters that attend meetings, devote their lives to politics, etc. is
>>very much smaller, and this unavoidable fact will, and does, also apply to
>>the GPUS.
>>
>>As I understand it, or aim is to elect candidates to office, not merely to
>>inflate our "membership".  If we make the standard for representation based
>>on the outcome we seek, we will encourage the state parties to do that which
>>they should do - run candidates and increase the voting strength of the GP
>>in their states.
>>
>>It is not much use to have state parties that focus on membership numbers
>>while doing a poor job of running or supporting candidates for office.
>>
>>This is only an idea for consideration, just something to think about.
>>
>>Mark Swaney
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Pnp-wg mailing list
>>Pnp-wg@lists.gp-us.org
>>http://lists.gp-us.org/mailman/listinfo/pnp-wg
>>    
>>
>
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>Pnp-wg@lists.gp-us.org
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>
>  
>

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