The caucuses in MI, WA, and ME were horrible (memo to Kerry delegates)

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and need to be fixed. Bluntly speaking Kerry is our nominee. The terrible problems with these caucuses are not why he is the nominee. But any complaints about them by delegates from Dean, Sharpton, or Kucinich will be seen as sour grapes. Thus Kerry delegates have to press this issue at the convention.

First off, Michigan was a total disgrace. There is no other word for a senario in which African American voters wind up not having polling places in Detroit, Ypsilanti, and Flint. This was totally bungled unless landlords in those three cities entered into a bizare conspiracy to disinfranchise black voters.

Meanwhile both Maine and Washington were just bungled. We still, over a month later, don't have a final count from Maine. Maine isn't Haiti. It isn't Botswana. It has phones, electricity, fax machines, and computers. It is nothing short of totally bizarre that we still don't have final results. Washington did get their results in but also were late and were marked by confusion.

Let me again bluntly state. Kerry isn't at fault here. There was no massive conspiracy to hurt Dean or help Kerry. Kerry benefitted at most a very slight amount. This isn't about ends, it's about means. Means matter, even when the ends aren't affected by them. The means here stank to high heaven.

We must show at our Boston convention that we care about the honesty and competence with which our elections are carried out. We must show that we won't tolerate banana republic style plebecites. And Kerry delegates must take the lead. This matters, and matters a whole lot.

Election cheating often looks like election incompetence. There is rarely a memo outlining the cheating. There rarely is a stuffed ballot box. Instead there are messed up voting machines or messed up polling places. There are messed up voting lists. To arrive at a conviction that cheating occured we often look at motive and character. Those are hard cases to make.

If, God forbid, we have to argue against a crooked election in Florida, West Virginia, Ohio, or some other state, we need to show we actually care about honest and competent elections. We have to show the people that we value democracy and not just Democratic government. If we show the public we don't care how our caucuses are conducted, then the public won't care about any complaints we have about the general election. It is as simple as that.

I have only one firm suggestion for future caucuses. They must be run by election professionals who are paid for their work. That is a neccessary thing. Only people who know what they are doing will know what they are doing. Professionals know what they are doing. After that, we can hash out the rest.

This is the Kerry delegate's job, and I hope those of you who are delegates help do it.

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1. kick

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2. While I agree

one needs to consider what the situation was in Michigan.

In 2002 the pugs ran several candidates as Democrats in order to block money from being used in the campaigns. The pugs were caught but not all were removed from the ballots....they were never prosecuted for falsifying Affidavits of Identity. That is why the MI Dem Party ran the caucuses. I personally know the state party chair who organized the caucuses and know that the errors that were made were unforseen. They know and have learned from this experience.

The entire elections process in the US is screwed up. States should not be given the freedom, if you will, to count ballots anyway they want, or have SOS's who are responsible for certifying the results also be allowed to chair campaigns or set the rules on who can be stricken from the voter rolls. There should be consistant rules across the board for every state to follow in Federal elections so the entire nation is not negatively affected by a handful of state's voter rules. The rules should be exactly the same for every state.
The same should apply to the primaries/caucuses.

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3. I didn't know that we had a reason to go caucus

I had assumed that the Republicans made us do it. But still we have to fully investigate the whole mess and see just what happened. My assumption is that we simply didn't let the landlords know what they were agreeing to host. That was just dumb.