[Pnp-wg] Trial Balloon Apportionment Formula

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 17:05:09 -0600

My vote would go toward a population based formula.
It seems to be the most logical and fair way to determine representation.

Liz

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Gerritt" <gerritt@mindspring.com>
To: <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 5:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Pnp-wg] Trial Balloon Apportionment Formula

> There was an appeals process detailed.  It ws through the credentials
> committee.
>
> I am remembering more of why using membership roles is so unappealing to
me.
> After 20 years as a Green occassioanlly it takessome time to dredge up
> information out of the recesses of my brain.  Over the years there have
been
> two distinct trends in the green party around the allocation of
delegations.
> One was the individual membership model, the other was as a federation of
> state parties.
>
> The individual membership model ended up as the GPUSA while the GPUS
figured
> out that a federation of state parties made much more sense if we are to
> actually create a political party within the confines of the american
> political system.  Once we adopted the federation model (with the gpusa
> prettty much moving towards the dustbin of history) we set up something
> called the transition committee to work on how to apportion delegates as
we
> moved away from two per state and approached proportionality.
>
> With our history with the individual membership model determing
> representation, no one on the commmittee at that time, and it had members
> from all over the country, even considered that individual memberships
> should influence voting power.  We looked at population, elected
officials,
> votes in elections and came up with the fairest measure as being
population.
> Some would say conditions have changed since then, but nothing I have seen
> in the debate so far has been convincing that we made the wrong choice
then
> or that it is not still the best model for building the green party.
>
> So yes, I think population based models are the best way to grow the Green
> party, and I can be accused of being the voice of conservatism in the
party
> for continuing to advocate for them as the most appropriate way to build
the
> party. I have seen nothing to convince me that another approach will work
> better.
>
> Steve Greenfield cited a paper about how parties that use a population
based
> approach fail.  But he has not cited any papers to show that other models
> work any better becasue in the last 100 years there are no American
> progressive parties that continued to grow like the Greens have for more
> than 20 years.
>
> Being the voice of history here, I will remind us that big stae small
state
> arguements are more than 200 yuears old in this country.  Maybe the
solution
> is a bicameral legislature.
>
> greg gerritt  gpri
>
> > From: Jeff Peterson <peterson@lakeland.ws>
> > Reply-To: peterson@lakeland.ws
> > Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 16:50:35 -0600
> > To: Forrest Hill <forrest_hill@comcast.net>, Owen Broadhurst
> > <owen.broadhurst@gmail.com>, Pnp-wg@gp-us.org
> > 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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