[Pnp-wg] Trial Balloon Apportionment Formula

Sun, 27 Feb 2005 18:49:38 -0500

Wisconsin has always been first in my mind as a state where my model fails
to provide sufficient representation. I have stated that up front every time
I've proposed it. I do not want to see a single state underrepresented, and
would like to see my numbers modified to bring us closer to the truth. Of
course, in not wanting states to be underrepresented, we have to look at the
realities in enrollment states every bit as openly and honestly as the
non-enrollment states.

First of all, everyone in non-enrollment states have to understand that
enrollment is not automatic but has to be earned, at least everywhere I've
checked. You have to demonstrate some kind of success in ways that differ
from state to state. In some states it's done by getting 42,000 people to
sign a petition agreeing that they are the Green Party and appealing to
their state to establish them a line. In some states it's tied to any
statewide candidate achieving some minimum threshold of votes. In others
it's the Presidential total. In my state it's done by getting 50,000 people
to vote for a Green candidate for Governor, and to even get that opportunity
it takes 15,000 signatures just to get a candidate on the ballot
(realistically at least 20,000 because of the number of signatures the BOE
eliminates in challenges due to technicalities). The fact that we got
244,000 statewide votes for Nader in 2000 did nothing under NY law to
mitigate the 42,000 votes our gubernatorial candidate got in 2002 causing us
to lose the ballot. Nor did the fact that in the same 2002 election, another
Green Statewide candidate (Attorney General) surpassed the 50,000 mark by
over 1000 votes. It was only through a lengthy and difficult court case that
we were able to protect our enrollment from the database purge the state was
about to implement under election law. According to Ballot Access News, New
York has the most byzantine and difficult ballot access laws in the country,
and we busted our humps to get the job done, so it's emotionally difficult
for us that states with easier ballot access laws use the "benefits" we get
from having achieved enrollment as a wedge in these discussions.

I'm explaining all this because you have to understand that to the average
Green in an enrollment state, we think of the achievement of the right to
enroll as a result of back-breaking and near-miraculous hard work in
party-building, and a sign of our success, not as some kind of gift our
states give us that the rest of you are ineligible for, as it is so often
dismissed in Green discussions. We can only start using registration to
count our members after killing ourselves for years to build a party AND run
candidates (it's not one or the other in enrollment states, you have to
focus on both), and in general our state election laws require us to use
registration numbers to count our members. Once we have ballot status, we
still have to get 5% of all our party members to sign a petition before we
can get into any race. If we think we have 400 signed-up, dues-paying
members and the BOE thinks we have 40,000 "registered" members, the
signature requirement is going to be 2000, not 20, no matter what we want
for ourselves. So to have GPUS deny us the right to count our membership by
registration leaves us in the worst of both worlds: state law requires that
we struggle to get signatures based on THEIR count, and GPUS not only denies
us representation in accordance with our organizational successes and state
laws, but frequently derides us for benefiting from some kind of "state
assistance" that the rest of you can't get. Making matters worse is that
under the existing general-population method of GPUS representation, for
every new Green Party member I enroll in my state, my individual voice in
national affairs declines proportionally. Do you have any idea how
aggravating all this is? Maybe now you do. But back to your questions.

I do not support "best result" candidacies for comparing states. As the
Texas situation shows, a Green candidate running in a big state with no
Democratic opponent can get over 400,000 votes, while in races with
full-party competition they average only 50,000, and with consistency. The
anti-Republican vote is not the same thing as a pro-Green vote, and
frequently outnumbers it ten-fold. In California, on the other hand, numbers
around 400,000 show up with consistency. In New York we got 244,000 votes
for Nader in 2000, but in the same race our candidate for US Senate only got
41,000 votes and our average statewide totals when celebrity is not a factor
continues to hover around the mid-40's. The celebrity factor matters. If we
in NY were presented with new GPUS rules that assigns delegates based on
"best results," how long would it be before we decide to run Howard Stern
for Governor just for purposes of getting a half-million votes at the
expense of Green values? California could start running movie stars. So what
I would suggest is that we try to determine if there is somewhere in the
scattergram of each state's statewide voting history where a cloud or
concentration is discernible, and then let the state ask to have the average
of those, or maybe even the best result WITHIN THE CONCENTRATION as a more
reliable measure of their public support in the booths.

But the election results method, as noted, punishes states where ballot
access is too difficult for them to achieve, whether it be by the threshold
being to high or just that their party is still too small to have enough
volunteers to achieve it. That is why I propose that the appeals process be
by whatever criteria the state itself chooses to present. Only each state
can know what shows their best face.

Ultimately, in apportioning the convention, we're dealing in ratios between
the states. That's why I think the best move is to start with what is known,
which is a numerical function, and then factor both the known and unknown by
as much else as you can identify which is also known (like electoral
results). Then you can start to see reasonably estimated ratios fleshing
themselves out before your eyes, and try to factor in specific states' needs
as they define those needs themselves in pursuit of democratic justice. At
that point you say "this is not perfect, but it is much more reasonable than
what went before it, and we make continued study and improvement a permanent
subcommittee of GPUS."

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Peterson" <peterson@lakeland.ws>
To: "Forrest Hill" <forrest_hill@comcast.net>; "Owen Broadhurst"
<owen.broadhurst@gmail.com>; <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Pnp-wg] Trial Balloon Apportionment Formula

> Forrest (and all),
>
> I appreciate your continued efforts to discuss our differences in a
> civil manner. Thanks! I think we're coming closer to some understanding
> on this delegate apportionment issue, though we're by no means there yet.
>
> The problem is that we have only a limited number of ways to assess any
> state's Green Party strength. And when we're trying to come up with a
> way that allows us to compare one state with another, our choices are
> more limited still.
>
> There are only two numbers that are available for all states: total
> population and Green Party membership, by which I mean not voter
> registration, but dues-paying (or not) folks who have filled out a
> membership form to join the party. (Perhaps I'm going out on a limb
> here, but I'm assuming every affiliated state has such a form.) I am
> aware of and appreciate the arguments that using either one of these
> alone might skew the allocation of delegates one way or another.
>
> Some of what I'm going to do now is paraphrasing, because, just like
> Steve G. had trouble making meaning of Greg's data, I've had a little
> trouble getting my mind around the proposal to use Green Party
> registration as the primary determinant of delegate allocation. That
> plan would have my whole-hearted support if the data were available for
> all affiliated states, but of course it is not.
>
> As I understand it, you and Steve are in basic agreement that the best
> approach is to use the registration numbers for those states for which
> they are available, and then simply assign all other states two
> delegates and let them lobby for more if they feel shortchanged. Do I
> have that about right? This is the plan which would award California 100
> delegates and Wisconsin 2* (the asterisk meaning we would probably want
> to appeal) or, under Steve's Plan B, 200 to California and 2* to
Wisconsin.
>
> Just as a historical referent, California sent 132 delegates to
> Milwaukee while Wisconsin (my state) sent  33. I'm not saying that that
> ratio was necessarily correct; only that Steve's plan to shift it from
> 4:1  in 2004 to 50:1 or even 100:1 in 2008 is not going to be embraced
> with enthusiasm by my fellow Wisconsin Greens unless it is accompanied
> by a pretty airtight explanation, which at this point I would not be
> able to provide.
>
> Apparently the remedy for Wisconsin and any other state that felt like
> they got short shrift under this plan would be to point to some other
> evidence of Green strength such as the number of votes cast for Green
> candidates. This strikes me as a fair way to gauge relative Green Party
> strength -- works in Wisconsin, anyway, where we have ballot status.
>
> But now here's my question: If total votes cast for a Green candidate is
> deemed to be a useful number in determining Green Party strength for
> purposes of appealing Wisconsin's delegate allocation, then wouldn't it
> also be useful to compare Wisconsin's best voting outcome with
> California's for purposes of establishing a proper delegate ratio
> between those states in the first place?
>
> I'll accept it as fact that Laura Wells' 410,000 votes in 2002
> represents the best showing in terms of total votes that Greens in
> California have yet obtained. I would hope that, for purposes of
> comparison, you would not hold Wisconsin to a race in that same year
> but, rather, let us pick our best showing to date. By coincidence, that
> race was also in 2002, when Wisconsin Green Paul Aschenbrenner received
> 114,955 votes in a four-way race for state treasurer.
>
> Now, when we compare those two numbers, rather than a ratio of 50:1 or
> 100:1 we get a ratio of roughly 4:1. Amazingly, that is exactly the
> ratio that obtained in 2004 when comparing California's 132 delegates to
> Wisconsin's 33. Maybe the delegate apportionment process in 2004 wasn't
> so undemocratic after all!
>
> I'll ask again: If those "best showing" vote totals are good enough in
> your estimation to be used to support an appeal by Wisconsin of its
> paltry two-delegate apportionment (in Steve's plan), then why are those
> same totals not good enough to be used in establishing initial
> proportions of delegates between ballot-access states from the get-go?
> By choosing to use registered Greens instead of best showing, I believe
> you and Steve have skewed your results dramatically towards your
> respective states, and I don't think that will be acceptable to many of
> us. (Not accusing you of anything here, just saying I don't like the
> outcome your proposal provides.)
>
> Of course, the problem with using a "best showing" method is that, like
> counting registered Greens, it's a measure that can't be applied across
> all the states, because it would disadvantage those with more
> restrictive ballot access laws. So I'm not proposing my own plan here -- 
> just pointing out some inadequacies in the one that seems to be getting
> the most attention on this list.
>
> I do like the idea of an appeals process regarding delegate totals -- 
> don't remember if we had that last year.
>
> Let's keep kicking this stuff around.
>
> Jeff Peterson
> Wisconsin
>
>
>
> Forrest Hill wrote:
>
> > Hi Jeff and Owen,
> >
> >  In the analysis you point to, I don't disparage voting strength as a
> > relative measure of membership size, I just disagree with the ah hoc
> > voting method used by the GPUS. The goal is to determine relative
> > membership size of each state as a proportion of the total membership.
> > If you are going to use voting  as a measure, then I suggest you
> > simple count the number of votes cast for Green candidates. For
> > example in California, Laura Wells received over 410,000 votes for
> > controller in 2002 (about 6% of the vote). More people voted for
> > Laura  than the sum total of all votes received by Green candidates in
> > the other 49 states combined. Under the voting strength rules
> > developed by the GPUS this result did not count toward our delegate
> > allocation.
> >
> > You could also use the number of elected Green Party members, or the
> > number of candidates run for office, etc. and then see how this
> > compares with other states. For example, about 1/3 of the Green Office
> > Holders live in CA (and if we are lucky we will elect the first
> > African American Green to City council in May).
> >
> > A second problem with their voting strength method was that is
> > multiplies the number of votes received by the presidential candidate
> > (ironically Nader) by the percent of the state vote.This makes on
> > sense because it penalizes the membership of a state where there are
> > high concentrations of Greens surrounded by a sea of
> > Democrats/Republicans/Lesser Evil Voters.  To put it another way,
> > would you give less representation to a large group of Greens who
> > happen to live in a region with a lot of non-Green voters, than to a
> > few Greens who live in a region where their are few voters?
> >
> > Forrest
> >
>
>
>
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