{news} Accepted minutes of the 7PM 1-22-08 meeting of the EC of the Green Party of CT

[B Barry]

Accepted minutes of the 7PM  1-22-08 meeting of the EC of the CTGP

Location:    Ruby Tuesday Restaurant, 3240 Berlin Turnpike, Newington, CT
06111      P: 860-667-0282

Attendees: Co-chairpersons: S. Michael DeRosa, Cliff Thornton; Treasurer:
Christopher Reilly; Secretary:

Barbara Barry.          Observers: none.

 

CR: current  Treasury balance: $2639.

 

Proposed 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)  (10minutes) Policies and Proposals; Election Procedures resubmitted from
5-10-07:   

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 for
receipt 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, or at the last SCC meeting prior to
the Annual Meeting of the GP of CT. 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 and statements from any of the candidates
who wish to submit one.  Statements are limited to 200 words. The ballot
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.
Voters may also be able to mark “abstain” i.e. the vote is note counted.
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 are 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 at the prior SCC meeting prior to 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 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: Drop 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 Secretary of the CT Green 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 All the
election data shall be given to the Secretary of the Green Party of CT, at
the close of 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: a) No amendments from the floor.  

b)  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: a)
petitioning volunteers, b) Party Designation Committee, c) Ballot Access
Committee. d) 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. 

a) Criteria for CT delegates to the 7-08 Green Party Presidential Convention
and what instructions will the CTGP  give to their 20 delegates?          b)
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.   (5 minutes): 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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