This afternoon I dropped by Medford city hall and Somerville city hall to turn in nominating petitions for John Bonifaz, having traded my Cambridge, Boston, and other sheets to other people at last night’s PDS meeting. Receipts in hand, I went to the Diesel to relax with friends, and less than an hour later, got a message from the candidate: we met our signature goal!
Volunteers for John Bonifaz, Democratic candidate for Secretary of State, have gathered more than 10,000 signatures from voters across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and have submitted more than 90% of them to city and town halls as of 5 p.m. today.
As I’ve noted here before, based on my experience I think 7,500 signatures would have been enough to assure more than 5,000 certified. It appears we turned in over 9,000 (not counting the ones I turned in today, which I hadn’t reported yet).
(I am the campaign blogger for John Bonifaz)
I’m very glad to hear John’s campaign made it to double and he’s going to be on the ballot. I’m look forward to a real debate on democracy this year.
Thank you! Please come visit John’s web site and participate by commenting on the blog. Other lurkers are more likely to comment if they see more comments, I think.
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I plan to cover a variety of election reform issues and would love to hear what you’re interested in. I’m spending some real research time on some of these posts, so go ahead and pitch some interesting questions.
How certain is it that Bonifaz will receive the requisite 15% of delegates at the convention?
My hunch is that the correlation between Patrick delegates and Bonifaz delegates is strong enough that Bonifaz will manage to clear the 15%.
Are delegates more likely to vote for Bonifaz because he’s got 10,000 signatures? My guess is yes, because he’s demonstrated that he’s not just a nagfly but has some level of support and so should at least be on the ballot.
Nothing is certain, but there are a lot of delegates interested in election reform who want to see a real leader on the issue. 15% shouldn’t be too hard. We’re not taking anything for granted, of course đŸ™‚ We need to tell delegates about John’s impressive record and voters’ bill of rights and enough of them will vote for us.
I don’t the Bonifaz signature effort was ever in doubt, especially since we learned last Sunday in the Boston Globe that his signature effort is being directed by a longtime Green Party activist Patrick Keaney. Is it true take Keaney really can’t sign the paper because he is a member of the Green/Rainbows?
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Here is the link to the Green Party site that has a posting of the source.
http://www.green-rainbow.org/news/2006/20060507_bostonglobe_undaunted
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I have posted before and I don’t mean to be redundant, but I still have not seen any response from Mr. Bonifaz concerning his Democratic credentials. Delegates are activists who are going to want to know why they should support him over a longtime loyal Dem like Galvin. Every day President Bush makes a stronger and stronger case that supporting Nader in 2000 was disasterous for the nation. Galvin was advising Gore. Bonifaz was supporting Nader and fighting for the Greens. (And Bonifaz was threatening to run for Senate against Kerry.)
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Also, is the Bonifaz platform going to expand beyond voting rights? (BTW – Galvin has a great record on modernization of our voting machines and an excellent outreach to register new voters.) I would like to hear specifics on corporate responsibility, securities regulation, historic preservation etc. Cos has said he will going to make a pitch to the delegates. Time is running short, and we haven’t heaqrd much yet.
I did say Bonifaz would be posting more portions of his platform on the web site over time, and indeed, if you look at the issues page now, you’ll see an open document format policy statement, and his responses to the wide-ranging DFA Cambridge questionnaire. I’m pretty sure he’ll be adding more, but it sounds to me like you didn’t even look. Do some modicum of basic research before throwing those lines about, please?
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Speaking of doing some modicum of basic research, I don’t get where all of these “Bonifaz fought for Nader” claims are coming from, except for Galvin’s stump speech. It’s false. I don’t think he ever volunteered for the Nader campaign. He certainly didn’t make a public endorsement, or go out campaigning for him. I know why Galvin is making this stuff up, but why are you? (or, do you have some real references – aside from the meeting where Bonifaz went to urge Nader to focus on different priorities, a recommendation Nader never took)
I wanted to thank the DFA Cambridge and Progressive Demcorats of Cambridge volunteers who collected signatures for Bonifaz this weekend at Harvard Square Mayfair, particulary Lesley Phillips, who organized the effort, and several others like it!
David says: This is not my comment. I deleted the original and replaced it with this one because the original contained a hugely long URL that was screwing up the browser window. Folks – PLEASE create links, don’t just post enormous URLs. Creating links is really easy, or alternatively you can use tinyURL. Thanks! -David
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more research . . .
My apologies – I did not see the posting on open source.
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Did Mr. Bonifaz fight for Nader? Perhaps that was a bit overblown. According to the Globe story previously cited, he voted for Nader. He also represented Nader in his attempt to get into the presidential debates. A noble cause, but I am not clear if his hard work on behalf of Nader was matched by any effort on his behalf to defeat George W. Bush in 2000 or 2004. (Let’s not redo the “It doesn’t matter if you voted for Nader in Mass.” That’s been done to death.)
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Link
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Regarding the Green Party, I find it a little bizarre that Jill Stein, the Green nominee for Sec of State, has domated $100 to Mr. Bonifaz. Is this an indication that Mr. Bonifaz will not support the Democratic nominee if he fails to get the nomination? I understand that this may not be important to some,but many Deomcrats/delegates want to know and deserve an answer.
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Link
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by: progressivedem @ May 10, 2006 at 22:05:18 EST
First, on Jill Stein, I had asked her about John Bonifaz at the Green-Rainbow state convention in March, she said she’s been friends with John for a long time and that “the same people” who convinved him to run had asked her to run as the GRP candidate (who that was she didn’t specify). She seemed resigned that the Democratic establishment would not let John get a fair shot, though I’m personally more optimistic about that, but she’s planning to continue the campaign for voting rights if John gets eliminated. Whether John will support Galvin or Stein, I have no idea. [If we had fusion voting, it is highly likely we would have endorsed Bonifaz, but we don’t]
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Also, I think some one supporting Nader in 2000 is almost ancient history at this point, at least to people of my generation (mid-20s). Maybe it’s just the fact that most people I know who could vote by Nov 2000 were just 18 and voted for Nader, but these same people were all actively ABB and some even pro-Kerry in 2004. John comes from an obviously different age group, but in 2004 was a lawyer in challenging the Ohio vote fraud for the Cobb, Badnarik, and eventually Kerry campaigns.
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This attitude that anyone who supported Nader or voted Green, or voted Republican, can’t be a Democrat is the main reason I’ve never considered myself one. Most of my partisan votes have been for Democrats, but I have voted for Greens for a few times, and a Republican once, always voting for the person I believed best qualified for the job.
He also represented Nader in his attempt to get into the presidential debates.
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He did this under the auspices of the nonpartisan National Voting Rights Institute, an organization Bonifaz founded. The NVRI advocates for more open elections and the right to vote, and doesn’t take sides by party. I think it shows John’s record of vigorous advocacy and strong leadership for election reform and voting rights.
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Perhaps the most prominent action Bonifaz has taken in recent years on the national scene as part of his National Voting Rights Institute work, is to act as the lead counsel for the attempt to recount Ohio after the 2004 election. Originally, the Kerry campaign shied away from that, so as not to look like a “sore loser” in the media, so Bonifaz represented the Greens and Libertarians (parties that fall on extreme opposite ends of the political spectrum in most ways). Later, Kerry got in on the act, so Bonifaz represented his interests too. Unfortunately, Ohio’s Republican government was intransigent and managed to forestall a real count of the votes.
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I think it’s dirty to imply that Bonifaz’s work with the NVRI is somehow disloyal or anti-Democratic, especially considering how much effort they put into causes helpful to Democrats, like protecting the right of poor people and minorities to vote, and attempting to recount Ohio in 2004. Come on, we’re the Democratic party! The NVRI, like the ACLU, is a principled nonpartisan organization that does important work to protect our rights.