National LWV Convention: Grassroots Democracy at the League
Step 1: LWVMP Program Planning Meeting
In February at our Program Planning meeting, our League recommended to the national LWV that there be an update of the Election Systems position. The national LWV board reviews all of the proposals submitted by local and state Leagues. Our proposal was not recommended by the National Board, so it ended up on the "Non-recommended Study" list. Determined to pursue the update at National convention, we scheduled a caucus and began preparing background information.
Step 2: Local Preparation and Strategy
Beverly Bean and George Riley, who put together the background information, noted that previous Election Systems issues were addressed through resolutions at the 2004 and 2006 National Conventions. So instead of going the non-recommended study route, we decided to try a resolution.
Because the LWVUS Board was recommending a Rule (Rule 10.1) for the 2008 Convention that required distribution of all proposed resolutions to local leagues one month prior to convention, we distributed the resolution to all 850 leagues using National's e-mail data base. It may be electronic, but it's still a lot of work.
Step 3: Not Well Received
Two days before the Convention, we received a call from the Chair of the Resolutions Committee indicating that it would oppose the resolution because it circumvented the program planning process and went beyond the scope of the two previously adopted resolutions.
We made an appointment to meet with the Committee on Saturday morning to discuss its concerns. Even though our resolution was less specific than the 2006 resolution and consistent with Congressional testimony by the LWVUS President, we were unable to change the recommendation of the Committee.
Step 4: When Is a Rule Not a Rule?
In the meantime, there was a great deal of consternation with Rule 10.1 - not only because Leagues were required to follow a process that had not been adopted, but it also gave the Committee too much say over resolutions. In a majority vote, the delegates stripped the Committee of its responsibility to make recommendations, so we were back in play.
Step 5: Our Caucas
We held a caucus at 7:30 Sunday morning to explain the issues and gather support and speakers for the resolution. About 60 delegates attended. Many expressed intense interest in the topic.
Step 6: Stumbling on "Therefore"
That Sunday afternoon at a plenary session, we moved consideration of our resolution. In a quirk of the word processing spell checker, "ballots" was changed to "toilets". It goes without saying that when this appeared on the overhead for the delegates to read, there was a collective gasp followed by a good laugh by everyone there.
After President Mary Wilson recovered her composure over this gaff, the motion was ruled out of order because the "therefore" section did not speak to what we wanted the National Board to do.
The President gave us the opportunity to revise the motion and return after all other motions were placed into consideration. Under intense pressure, we re-wrote the motion and once again placed the motion into consideration.
Step 7: Up for a Vote
At that point, we finally had a chance to address reasons for recommending the resolution. In reference to Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails, I noted that some experts analogize their similarity to toilet paper rolls because they are produced as rolls and are flimsy, which perhaps explained the earlier "spell-check" error. This gained another round of laughter. LWVMP managed to bring notes of levity to convention proceedings.
Resolutions were up for a vote on Monday morning. Even though we had at least 10 delegates speaking in favor of the resolution, we did not garner a majority vote of the 650+ delegates required to put the resolution into action.
"Be it resolved that:
LWVUS will use the following criteria for advocacy:
a. support durable, privacy-protected paper ballots;
b. support statistically valid, random audits after every election.
Further resolve that LWVUS establish a listserv on election sytems."
Step 8: Last Words
Though we lost the battle, the war is not over. LWVUS recently appointed an Election Audit Task Force which will be making recommendations on requirements for election audits. As one of the members of the Task Force and a pro-speaker for our resolution noted, the only way to have accountable and transparent recounts and audits is to have durable, privacy-protecting paper ballots - one of the elements of our resolution.
This is grass-roots democracy at its best – even with a loss.
Janet Brennan, LWVMP President
