I appreciate discourse which helps us to operate in the most fair and democratic ways. This email, which I’ve seen twice now, is not such discourse and my concern is that such commentary might be construed as such by members of our state party who read these forum posts, because of a group of individuals who enable such discourse to run rampant in our state party forums, unchecked for accuracy or relevance. The purpose of voting thresholds is to ensure a small majority does not affect important decisions. Our threshold is two-thirds (67%), not 75% as it is inaccurately stated above. To win a contest where a threshold is required means that the winner is not just the one with the most votes- the winner has to show that a minimum amount of votes were cast towards that contest. This is an important aspect of our internal decisions, particularly when there is lower participation (80% in this case). Essentially, if you don’t pass the threshold, the results are showing that not enough voters are supporting your cause. Lowering the threshold only serves to concentrate the power of decision-making into fewer hands. We have, unfortunately, voted to pass a related proposal into our policies and I do not believe further centralization of our internal party structure is ever the right solution. For those of you who read and/or participate in these forum discussions, or perhaps vote as GA/SGA Delegates, I urge you to pay closer attention to the narratives you’ve witnessed or have been convinced to subscribe to from within our party. Compare these narratives to our Ten Key Values and ask yourself if they are a reflection of our values before making decisions which affect how we operate and who/what we support as CA Greens. Nicole Castor GP Sacramento County On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 9:54 AM Erik <erikrydberg34@gmail.com> wrote:
Spam detection software, running on the system "gateway", has identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message has been attached to this so you can view it or label similar future email. If you have any questions, see the administrator of that system for details.
Content preview: Erik Rydberg for Secretary of State Michael Feinstein for Secretary of State [...]
Content analysis details: (5.2 points, 5.0 required)
pts rule name description ---- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- 3.0 SPAMPIC_ALPHA_2 Image contains many alphanumeric chars 0.8 SUSPECT_JPG Suspect jpeg image found 0.2 FREEMAIL_ENVFROM_END_DIGIT Envelope-from freemail username ends in digit (erikrydberg34[at]gmail.com) 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (erikrydberg34[at]gmail.com) 0.0 HTML_IMAGE_RATIO_08 BODY: HTML has a low ratio of text to image area 0.2 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.0 UNPARSEABLE_RELAY Informational: message has unparseable relay lines 1.0 FREEMAIL_REPLY From and body contain different freemails
The original message was not completely plain text, and may be unsafe to open with some email clients; in particular, it may contain a virus, or confirm that your address can receive spam. If you wish to view it, it may be safer to save it to a file and open it with an editor.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik <erikrydberg34@gmail.com> To: GPCA Discussion List for SGA Votes <gpca-votes@sfgreens.org> Cc: Bcc: Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 16:20:48 -0700 Subject: Re: GPCA Needs and Internal Primaries: SOS No Endorsement Erik Rydberg for Secretary of State
Michael Feinstein for Secretary of State
On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 4:17 PM, Erik <erikrydberg34@gmail.com> wrote:
When one candidate receives the majority of the vote to endorse them...
Erik Rydberg for Secretary of State
and the other candidate receives the majority of the vote to oppose them...
Michael Feinstein for Secretary of State
and the result is that the Green Party of California endorses no one... changes must be made.
We are going to grow as a party exponentially. There will be more and more candidates running for the same seats. This is why I suggest creating an internal primary system where endorsing more than one candidate is not an option. Endorsing two candidates for the same office is meaningless... and not endorsing anyone when you clearly have a candidate that the party is in favor of is hindering. Now GPCA cannot do anything for either candidate.
75% is too high of a threshold when you have two candidates running for the same seat. Especially if both candidates are highly liked by the party which is not the case in this scenario... it was a landslide for one candidate over the other... but if it was a close race, it would be a much tighter in percentages and neither candidate would come out with an endorsement every time.
We need to prepare ourselves for multiple good candidates in the same race in the future. We need to take back our primaries that were taken from us by Top Two. We need this internal primary system to be conducted early, well before the filing date closes. We need to lower our endorsement threshold so that we never have a "No Endorsement" outcome and we must never endorse more than one candidate.
If we make these kind of changes we will empower our state party to be ahead of the game in terms of campaigning for endorsed candidates, in terms of fundraising for them and in terms of submitting our endorsements to the California Voter Information Guide on time. We cannot afford to be behind the curve when we're running against capitalist funded parties.
I hope everyone has paid close attention to who it is among us that fought these endorsements every step of the way. We have to make bold changes if we want bold results.
I am very proud that GPCA is going to send a loud signal to Peace and Freedom Party and all socialist and Corporate Free Independent Candidates that we will be inclusive and endorse them. It's the least we can do for Peace and Freedom seeing as they endorsed 5 Greens in comparison the 4 Peace and Freedom candidates we endorsed.
This is a step in the right direction. We have a lot more work left to do. I couldn't be happier to be doing this work alongside every member of Green Party CA who wants to grow and build the party. Thank you to every SGA Delegates that voted for me and to those that didn't you will see in time that I am here to help grow the party and take our power back rich capitalists and corporations.
Solidarity
"Dream big, but it's always one step at a time." - C.T. Lawrence Butler(Food Not Bombs/Green Committees of Correspondence)
--
*Erik Rydberg *
*Green Party of California(GPCA) Spokesperson*
*erikrydberg34@gmail.com <erikrydberg34@gmail.com>530-781-2903*
cagreens.org
--
*Erik Rydberg *
*Green Party of California(GPCA) Spokesperson*
*erikrydberg34@gmail.com <erikrydberg34@gmail.com>530-781-2903*
cagreens.org
-- gpca-votes mailing list gpca-votes@sfgreens.org https://list.sfgreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpca-votes
