Sunday, February 9, 2020

Stopping The Steining Of America

Light out of the Iowa debacle is that Tom Perez is saying the repeated screw-ups of state Democratic Parties running elections - uh, caucuses - is calling into question the wisdom of leaving those to the states.  Which, in 2020, I'd say that's proven to be the opposite of wisdom.  Too many states put the nomination in the hands of screw-ups, idiots and people who are more likely to generate conspiracy theories than transparent processes. 

Democratic elections are important enough so people and state parties that screw up this badly should not get a second chance.  Let them bring their, um, talents, to something far less important. 

The Democatic National Committee, the Democratic Party, should have uniform standards requiring:

A. paper ballots on which first, second and third choices are listed, using rank-choice voting to determine a clear winnner.  Ballots would be collected and counted, all of them, by an independent party with no ties to any one with an interest in the election, tthe process observed by designated people from the different campaigns, the ballots retained for as long as necessary to quell rumor mongering. 

THE FORM OF THE BALLOT SHOULD NOT CHANGE SO PEOPLE WILL GET USED TO IT.  I still like the idea of using a computer to make sure that different candidates appear at the top of the ballot the same number of times so as to lessen the effect of order on the results. 

B. that the process be open only to registered Democrats who were registered voters and declared Democrats of sufficently long standing to be issued a ballot. 

C. I would prefer that whatever method is used that it be the method proven to get the largest vote turnout, as of now that would be voting by U.S. mail.  Ballots should be sent to only registered Democrats to be filled out and sent back by mail post marked by a set date.  

D.  Keeping the election separate from the internet is essential, The State Party should call the conveners to get the results of their local caucuses, that way the Republican-fascist ratfuckers won't be able to jam a phone line as they did in Iowa.  The internet should have no part of any election, anywhere, it is not reliable or safe and apparently can't be made so.  

I'm kind of a nerd of long standing on this issue, I've been railing about it for decades.  This is the short form of my arguments. 

My friend who is convening the idiotic caucus in my town told me that the meeting the state party set up to train people on how to run the stupid thing went better than he had thought.  He said that Democrats in the legislature were working on rewriting the state law that requires a caucus for a party to retain official party status in my state.  I'm hoping to see the end of it within my lifetime. I should live so long.   I'm hoping to see them die out completely after the Iowa disaster and the one I'm expecting in Nevada.   If there's something Democrats didn't need this week it's what happened in Iowa.   And the last thing we need is to give the Bernie Bots a reason to try to sink Democrats' chances with their rumor mongering.   The play-lefty online media is dead to me.  They are all Jill Steins.  They are the enemies of democracy.  


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