******** Total responses sorted by Code Number ******** Comments without Code Number precede the others. Each comment begins with name of commenter (initials of notetaker) NOTE: Jonathon Lundell's comments based on code at SF plenary draft, other's based on Sac plenary draft. 1. Michael Borenstein, El Dorado County: (VDF) When will we be submitting the final version of this? [Warner answered that the original goal was end of January 2005, but that may be overly optimistic.] Michael Borenstein, El Dorado County (SB) When do you plan to put this in front of the legislature? 2. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) Whole document: Use "her" before "him". Clarify whether we are using Choice Voting or IRV. 3. David Marin, Contra Costa County: (VDF) Can "Decline to State" voters vote in our elections? This is not clear to me. 4. Ken Kohler, Stanislaus County: (VDF) Make sure we comply with state law with respect to NOTA, voters with criminal records, etc. We also need to be concerned about our image if we allow those with criminal records to register Green. Ken Kohler, Stanislaus County: (SB) I'm concerned that in our enthusiasm to have the most "Green" elections possible, it's possible that we may run into trouble with the state election code. County councilpeople are elected; we have to stand for election. Having ex-cons, etc., as county council people is a violation of state law; you have to be a voter in good standing, you have to meet the same requirements as any other person running for election. We need to make sure we're not violating a state law. 5. Kevin McKeown, Los Angeles County: (VDF) Whole document: Replace "central committee" with "county council". Kevin McKeown, Los Angeles County: (SB) The minutes of our most recent county council draft form have just come out, but here's what they've mentioned. The term "central committee" is bothersome to us in LA county, and I think that there is an effort to redefine them as county councils. However, this term continues to be used in this document, we'd like to see that removed. 6. Tian Harter, Santa Clara County: (VDF) The Secretary of State should write to our Liaison whenever there is information to be shared, and this information should be put into the next Plenary packet. Tian Harter, Santa Clara County: (TH) "If the Secretary of State has some information s/he wants to share with the Green Party, s/he should put it in a letter and send it to our liaison, with a cover letter asking us to put it in the next plenary packet." Tian Harter, Santa Clara County: (SB) I would like to see some language stating that if the SoS has some information s/he wants to share with the GP, they should put it in a letter and send it to our Liaison for inclusion in the next GPCA plenary. 7. Larry Mullen, Fresno County: (VDF) "Does the Election Code provision include Green Party use of state buildings for meeting once a month? Currently, we are included under the Peace and Freedom parts of the Election Code." 8. Chris Collins, Alameda County (reading someone else's comment): (SB) Someone asked me to mention a question about Ranked-Ballot voting, pg. 8, where it says the GP should use Ranked- Ballot voting Using RBV doesn't really apply to IRV situations, how would we apply this language in such situations? ****** Presidential Primary: comments ****** These are comments on the Presidential Primary code section. 9. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) Title & 6960. There's a sort of side-mention in 6965.6 saying that all this applies to other offices as well. That's presumably what we want, so how about making it general from the get-go, including the title? 10. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6960.5 & Jim's concerns. In an IRV election, is "NOTA" a reasonable term? I'd have thought NOC might be more to the point. A voter can vote for one or more "of the above" and then NOC, after all. 11. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) 6960.5: We do not have the bylaws referred to in this section. We must implement those first. Also, we should specify that this is a nominating convention, since we also have off-year conventions. 12. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6960.7. may -> shall 13. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) 6961: Could we expand on this? It sounds like the Secretary of State has too much leeway. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) 6962: Same concern as 6961. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (SB) 69-62, we have the same difficulty with the Sec. of State: "The SoS may add to their selection of candidates." 14. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6963.5. Is the timing for nomination papers specified elsewhere? 15. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (VDF) 6964: Concern that this gives absolute power to our Liaison to the Secretary of State. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (SB) 69-64. If the SoS receives a comm from the GPCA Liaison to the SoS. As written, this gives the Liaison complete power to send whatever letter he wants to the SoS without any further criteria. 16. Kevin McKeown, Los Angeles County: (VDF) 6964.5: Regarding NOTA, we can and should do this. Basically, "tabulated" = "counted" and we must nail down the terminology. Allow no loopholes. Kevin McKeown, Los Angeles County: (SB) 63-12 [6964.5?] the NOTA votes must be processed, tabulated, and counted; I'm not sure that will be enough for our 17. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (VDF) 6964.5: Regarding the legality of NOTA, the issue with this in the past arose in the scenario in which NOTA would have a plurality but not a majority (i.e., add up all of the votes for actual candidates, and they constitute a majority). We need to get advice on this, and also on nailing down the "tabulated" terminology. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (SB) 69-65: NOTA could not win in a plurality; our court case had a ruling that said if 55% of voters vote for a candidate, then the majority would want a candidate and thus NOTA would fail. 18. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6955. [6965??] Choice voting is appropriate for elections that fill multiple seats. For our primaries, that'd only be the case for the State Board of Equalization. All the other offices want IRV, not Choice. 19. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (SB) 69-65: National delegates shall be provided for as in the bylaws of the national green party. We have no such bylaws; we probably should change it to say the convention policies. I would also ask that the Bylaws committee review this before it is brought to the GA for final approval. Also, it gives the Secy. of State the authority to place a presidential nominee on the ballot, I would like to see a few more criteria before they can do that. 20. Chris Collins, Alameda County (reading someone else's comment): (VDF) 6965: Choice Voting and IRV give us a single winner. How do we translate these votes to nominating convention delegate numbers? 21. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6965.6. This isn't a sentence. 22. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6968. Delete first comma. county registrar offices to actually county them. 23. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6973. This sentence reads sort of funny. "Upon filing ... shall be printed...". But nothing gets printed "upon filing"; the phrase implies timing. 24. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6975.5. I'd strongly recommend a reference to our bylaws & procedures. It's likely to change over time, and we don't want to have to go through this again to adapt. 25. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 6975.7. No, for a lot of reasons. This raises the question, though, of whether we want to specify IRV for the presidential primary. IRV does not really rank its results; order of IRV elimination is not a particularly good measure of overall preference rank, and it certainly doesn't give proportional results for allocating delegates. ****** Green Party Organization: comments ****** These are comments on the Green Party Organization code section. 26. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) 7878: We should specify a threshold or formula here. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (SB) 78=78, an IRV issue, there's no formula or threshold provided; it needs to be stated or referred to elsewhere. 27. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (SB) 7879. "The county council will have the total elected members to which it is entitled." This seems like an empty statement. What's the point? WRT the last sentence, we should specify the Method of Equal Proportions as the means by which seats are allocated to districts. 28. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (JMC) 7879 - the last part of this section (starting with "However, county Greeen Parties...") deals with letting counties set their own CC size. This should probably be split out from the rest of 7879, and moved before 7878, which describes the default CC size (and uses a really bizzare formula, IMO). In SF, the default formula only gives us 9 members, vs the DCCC which has 25! We lose a lot of bar fights with them as a result. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (VDF) 7879: This section should come before section 7878, which specifies the number of members of a county council. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (SB) In Sec. 78-79, bottom of pg. 12: A section says that County Green Parties may modify the size of their county council, and how to do so; I would think that section belongs before 78-78. 29. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7884. "one of the Above"? Regardless, I think the proper term for a multi-seat choice election is NOC, not NOTA. 30. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7887. We say "up to seven", and later "number of members of a county council". But a county council can be as few as three, and as many as, what, 15? Presumably we mean the latter. 31. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7889. NOC again. 32. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7890. "__th___": what's the second blank for? 33. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7892. July 20: I'm guessing that this was copied from old language dating from when we had June primaries. We should probably be saying something like "the 20th day of the month following the primary election". Also, NOC. And we should be consistent in capitalizing "liaison" here and in the other code section. 34. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) 7892(c): What is special about the date of July 20? Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (SB) 78=92C, pg. 14, it says that the SoS, no later than July 20, can..." what's special about that date? 35. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7901. "shall the responsibilities"?? 36. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7920. "three or more", perhaps? WRT Jim's comments, if necessary, we should be prepared to propose bylaws changes contingent on the passage of these code sections, if necessary. The whole thing is obviously going to require bylaws-level GA approval anyway. 37. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (VDF) 7920: Don't mention the appointment of county council members until we have bylaws in place for this. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (SB) 79-20, removing county councilmembers: I would say nothing about removing CC members until there's a process for that, but JS is talking about electing rather than appointing CCs for newly-formed counties, if we move in that direction, I'd like to see that applied here. 38. Kevin McKeown, Los Angeles County: (VDF) 7930: Instead of specifying 50% female / 50% male electors, specify "at least 50% women". Kevin McKeown, Los Angeles County: (SB) [7930?] Also, per the county council is defined as requiring 50% men and 50% women, we suggest changing it to be at least 50% women. 39. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (JMC) 7941 - some people should be able to be appointed to CCs who aren't eligible to register Green: non-citizens, youth, etc. Suggest adding the wording ", or lives in that county but is legally unable to register to vote". Another delegate objected to this language, suggesting it's illegal, but I think the question of appointed local officials is separate to who can run for election (or vote). Therefore, it may be illegal to run for CC as a noncitizen, but it shouldn't be illegal to appoint a noncitizen to a vacancy on the CC if we want. Johnn-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (VDF) 7941: We should allow non citizens, youth and those with a criminal record to register Green. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (SB) Also, in 79- 41, pg. 16, it says no person may be in a county council unless they're registered Green in a recognized Green Party local. We would like to have an exception for those who can't otherwise register. 40. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7943. Implies that a county council member can register DTS and keep his/her seat. 41. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (VDF) 7943: Who makes the decision about removal of members of county councils? Recall election? Other method? John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (SB) In 79-43, we'd like to have language allowing how a person can be removed from office. 42. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) 7943: What happens to those registered as "Decline to State"? Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (SB) 79-43, I concur with JMC's concern: "Any party member that registers with another party..." what about DTS registration? And recalling of a county councilperson, the recall procedures need to be done somewhere other than in our bylaws. 43. Jo Chamberlain, San Mateo County: (VDF) 7943: Also, we need to define the procedure for removal of county council members. 44. Greg Jan, Alameda County: (VDF) 7943: We must make sure we have due process for removal of county council members. Greg Jan, Alameda County: (SB) [7943?] In addition to the Q of what body does this, there's the Q of due process. I don't know if we'll be able to fit all this in this one document, but I think it's imperative that we do. 45. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (VDF) 7943: Recall elections are only allowed for paid elected positions. We should develop our own process for removal of county council members. Michael Feinstein, Los Angeles County: (SB) [7943?] Also, recalls, the state of CA provides for recalls only for PAID offices; there is no recall process for non-paid positions such as county councilmembers. 46. David Marin, Contra Costa County: (SB) [7943??] This issue of whether we let DTS voters vote in our primaries. I'm quite confused about what this proposed code says. Also, if we decided to change this, would we have to go back to the legislature or do it at a plenary? 47. Jonathon Lundell, San Mateo County (JL) 7945. This repeats 7920 language. Do we really need to say it twice? 48. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (JMC) 7951 - "committee" should be replaced with "CC" and the words "which shall be" deleted. John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (VDF) 7951: Replace "committee" with "county council". John-Marc Chandonia, San Francisco County: (SB) 79-51, All meetings of the committee, it should probably say meetings of the county council. =============================================================