{news} Agenda for 1-29-08 SCC meeting of CTGP at Portland’s Senior Center

[B Barry]

Agenda for 1-29-08 SCC meeting of CTGP at Portland’s Senior Center 

7 Waverly Avenue, Portland, CT 06480   Phone:  860-342-6760   Time:  7:000PM

 

Facilitator:  To Be Determined

 

A.      Preliminaries:

1.       (1 minute): Introductions of voting attendees; non-voting
attendees; chapters; if quorum was met; timekeeper; ground rules.

2.       (2-4 minutes): Approval of tonight’s proposed agenda, any deletions
or additions.

3.       (2-4 minutes): Review and approval of minutes of 1-8-08 SCC
meeting.

4.    (2-4 minutes): Review and acceptance of minutes from the 1-22-08 EC
meeting.

5.       (2-4 minutes): Treasurer’s report from Christopher Reilly.

 

B.      Any proposals/referendums by chapters, committee: 

a)  (20minutes) Policies and Proposals; Election Procedures:   

The election of State Officers and USGP Representatives will be held at a
meeting open to all Connecticut Green Party members in April each year.

Ballots will be distributed to all Connecticut Green Party members at least
2 weeks before the Annual Meeting. 

Although nominations will be accepted from the floor at the Annual Meeting,
anyone wishing to have their name printed on the ballot must submit their
name and the name of the office they are seeking in writing, at or prior to
the March State Central Committee meeting.

Lots will be drawn at the March State Central Committee meeting to decide
name placement on the ballot.  The candidate does not need to be present for
the drawing.

The ballot will be distributed with a cover letter (see example attached)
and statements from any of the candidates who wish to submit one.
Statements are limited to 200 words.

The ballot (see sample attached) should notify the voter that "None of the
Above" should be used to indicate non-support of any of the candidates.  For
instance: if the voter can only support 1 candidate the voter should list
"None of the Above" as his/her second choice.  In that way preventing
election of other candidates from winning by default if the other voters
leave their second choice blank.

Ballots can be mailed to the CTGP Post Office box.  The members should be
told that the ballot must be postmarked no later than 3 business days prior
to the meeting.  The members name and address must be shown on the outside
of the envelope or on a separate inner envelope containing the ballot.

Once the ballots are distributed, the Post Office should only be opened when
2 CTGP members are present.  A list of the names of the members who returned
ballots should be kept by each person opening the box.  The ballots should
be kept in a secure location until they are turned over to the Internal
Elections Committee members at the Annual meeting.

Anyone who does not receive a ballot can request one from a designated
member of the Membership List Committee.  A ballot will be provided if the
requester has met the CTGP membership requirements.

All ballots, whether mailed or voted in person at the election, had to be
placed in a sealed envelope with the voter’s name and address written on the
outside.  This is to ensure people only vote once and that only eligible
voters participate.

To save time mailed ballots may be verified against the membership prior to
the Annual Meeting.

People voting in person at the convention were instructed to seal their
ballots and write their name and address on the outside.  A sealed box
should be available for the members to depot their ballots.

At least 3 election clerks will appointed by the Annual Meeting
participants.

At the close of voting the elections clerks will open the ballot box and
separated all mailed ballots that had already been verified, ballots lacking
names and addresses, and ballots that had not yet been verified.  Then look
up all ballots with names and addresses to verify they are from eligible
voters.  Finally, take the small number of ballots that either lacked names
or were from people not on the mailing list.  Open the former to see if
there was any name inside the envelope.  If not, the ballot is to be
excluded as invalid.  Then take the ballots from people not on our mailing
list and check with the Membership List Committee to verify eligibility.  

For all contested races enter the rankings from all the ballots into a
program called Elect, which is freely available from
www.VotingSolutions-.com.  Keep the configuration files and output files are
available for inspection.

Use ChoicePlus Pro -- Version 2.3.2, which is freely available, open source
software for tallying STV elections.  Details for the election are as
follows:Droop threshold equal to [votes / (seats + 1)] + 1 vote, disregard
decimals was used. 

Fractional transfer of surplus votes from all ballots. 

Duplicate rankings (e.g., more than one candidate ranked #1) were handled by
fractionally diving the ballot between the duplicate-ranked candidates.
This produces some fractional votes in the first round. 

The instructions stated that any rankings following “Abstain” or “None of
the above” would be disregarded, so any such rankings were not entered. 

“Abstain” was treated like a candidate, except that the candidate was
excluded, because votes for abstain have no effect on the outcome. 

To simplify slightly, “None of the above” affects the outcome if, in the
final round, it has more votes than a human candidate, meaning that it is
the “last candidate standing.”  To check this, run the STV tally and then
inspected the results.  

 

The following data should be retained by the Party for future use:

The actual paper ballots, envelopes and other materials mailed back. 

Scanned tif images of all the ballots. 

The rankings on the ballots that we entered. 

Round-by-round STV results. 

The data entry program (elect.exe) and all the configuration files. 

The configuration files for Choice Plus Pro and all output files.

Party Membership Meeting Including the Annual Meeting

 

The Agenda for all general membership meeting of the Party must be mailed to
each member with a notice of all resolutions that the SCC plans to bring
before the membership.  The notice must also include a caution that
resolutions are subject to amendments from the floor and that new
resolutions can also be raised by the attending members.

            Choices:           No amendments from the floor.
Amendments from the floor require 2/3 vote from those voting

 

A Rules Committee will suggest rules for the running of the meeting to the
membership as the first order of business.

.

 

b)  From the EC: temporary Budget Committee members to be EC members;

 

C. Reports:

 

1.  (15 minutes):  Development of Internal Elections Committee. 

2.   (10 minutes):  Committee to support Green Party of CT candidates re:
petitioning, campaign issues. 

 

3.   (15-20 minutes): GPUS reports from: Cliff Thornton, Co-chairperson of
GPUS, CTGP representatives: Tim McKee and Charlie Pillsbury and National
Committee Members: Amy Vas Nunes and S. Michael DeRosa. Criteria for CT
delegates to the 7-08 Green Party Presidential Convention. Arizona Green
Party petition drive.

 

4.   (5 minutes): Political issues the GP of CT has addressed with
legislators during the 2008 Legislative Session: Fight the Hike/universal
health coverage.

 

5.   (5 minutes): Reports from absent chapters.

 

6.  (2 minutes): CT Green Times newspaper. 

 

7.   (5 minutes): Recruitment of potential candidates for state offices,
Register of Voters.

 

8.   (1 minute): ACLU lawsuit.

 

9.   (2-5 minutes, each):  other Chapter reports.

 

10.   Date, place and time for next SCC meeting 2-26-08 and date, place and
time of next EC meeting in 2-08.

 

11.     Any additions

 

Green Party Key Values: non-violence, respect for diversity, grassroots
democracy, social justice and equal opportunity, ecological wisdom,
decentralization, community-based economics and economic justice, future
focus and sustainability, personal and global responsibility, feminism and
gender equality.

 

 

 

 


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