After the video played, Bonifaz appealed to delegates to put him on the primary ballot, with this speech:
There are several more videos of Bonifaz on my YouTube Bonifaz playlist, including one by a videographer who went to Ohio after the 2004 election and got a good few minutes of John Bonifaz speaking impromptu about democracy, election fraud, grassroots politics… on the street, just answering someone’s question.
Please share widely!
Thanks Cos. In the rush of that day, I had forgotten how good of a video and speech he gave.
Bonifaz’ speech was indeed good – and as I wrote at the time, it allowed me to cast a happier convention vote for Bonifaz. Of course, with Galvin’s flouting of democratic debate, I’ve only become happier about that vote in retrospect.
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I’m still not sold on Bonifaz’ ideas about public campaign financing. And I also picked up while listening to this speech again on his endorsement of multi-lingual ballots. Would someone explain to me why that’s an issue? Given that anyone who is voting is either, a) a naturalized citizen, in which case they’ve passed some sort of English fluency test (I admit I have no idea what level of fluency is required to pass, but I would hope it’s somewhat significant); or, they are a natural-born citizen, in which case they have been in the states at least 18 years and would almost certainly know English; given all that, how is it important for ballots to be multi-lingual? Who exactly is being disenfranchised? (As far as my position: once I understand the previous question, I would raise concerns about the importance of preserving a single common language within our country. But first, I want to figure out why this is an issue in the first place.)
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Anyways, it’s a little bit tough for me to support someone who believes ardently in two positions that I am nervous about at best. But I do support Bonifaz, because I have seen both him and Galvin speak and I know that Bonifaz will bring many more people into participating and having faith in their in local government than Galvin ever will. And that for me is an issue of overwhelming importance.
Actually, not all citizens speak great English. Particularly in some of our cities, like Boston and Lowell and Springfield, we have a significant number of citizens with poor English. The Voting Rights Act specifically requires us to make voting accessible to language minority populations, which is a very good thing, because anytime you have a significant group of people who is excluded from voting, you develop all sorts of avoidable social problems that can lead to conflict if they can’t be addressed through politics.
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If you’d like to preserve a single common language, fine – figure out how to do it. But you certainly don’t do it by making it hard for people to vote. I’d venture that it’s the opposite: if you make it hard for a whole community to vote, you’re discouraging them from integrating, while if you actively welcome them into the political process, you’re encouraging them to integrate.