As some of you may know the Boston Globe yesterday ran a story regarding the possibility that Jim Ogonowski might not maybe make the ballot. Saying that as of Monday he was 259 signatures short with a week left of certifying to go. The timing was mighty conspicuous to me falling on the day of a $1000 a head fundraiser for Jim held by Mitt Romney last night. I’ve been trying to get in touch with the Secretary of State’s office since yesterday morning at 9 am and made four calls to do so. Openness in government doesn’t seem to be the strong suit of the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office, who pretty coincidentally is responsible for well, openness in government.
I finally received a phone call back from Brian McNiff the Press person in the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office after 4 phone calls. I asked him if he could share with me the updated numbers from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s computer system for both Jim Ogonowski and Jeff Beatty. He said he had no update from the numbers he gave the Globe on Monday. When I pressed him for numbers he said ask the “State Committee”, I guess he meant the Republican State Committee. I told him they just get the numbers from your office so could you please just share them with me. He refused again.
I then asked Mr. McNiff why he could share them with the Globe on Monday but wouldn’t share them with me. He said he didn’t have them. I asked him nicely if he could get them for me. He said it’s not something they normally do and that I should really ask the “state committee”.
Finally I point blank told him that it was ok to share the numbers with the Boston Globe for publication on the day of a $1000 a head fundraiser with Mitt Romney but not with me. He promptly said “that’s not what we did,” and hung up on me. But Brian it is what you did.
It seems to me that the office responsible in the Commonwealth for providing the citizenry information would be more forthcoming with it. But if it doesn’t help the powerful I guess you don’t get it.
Feel free to call the Secretary of State’s office at 617-727-7030 to get the numbers if you can.
Never having done it before, is this something that is generally done- that you just call up the Secy’s office and ask for a current signature count? Is it possible that the Globe made some sort of formal request in advance- maybe in writing? I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.
I’ve called the Sec’s office with questions about signatures for senate and rep races and they’ve always been helpful and readily available. I don’t know if the protocol is different for a statewide election or for a federal race as opposed to state.
This doesn’t sound like something he would do with malice aforethought. That being said, If I were Galvin, I would get to the bottom of this and if need be, fire some folks.
First, disclosure: I worked on a campaign challenging Galvin two years ago.
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p>Now, two points:
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p>1. Galvin’s image is quite at odds with reality. For example, he tried to appear in public as if he supported election day registration, while in fact he used his influence to kill efforts for election day registration that had a good chance of passing in 2006. He is the reason we don’t have it yet. There were a number of other cases where I found his public image quite at odds with reality.
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p>However, I don’t think that’s relevant to the point of this post. I doubt this is something Galvin did “with malice” or anything like that. Rather,
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p>2. Galvin is not tech savvy at all, is comfortable and set in his ways, and that attitude pervades the department. There are nice, well-meaning people working at the Secretary’s office, but they’re not going to do much to make information easily available to the public in new ways. That will probably only change once Galvin leaves.
Actually not. Save us the theatrics.
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p>Consider the Globe a friend for actually letting everyone know. A couple hundred signatures won’t be hard to get. Should be fairly easy to get don’t you think? When not just get extra signatures to begin with? Is it that big a deal to do the signatures right? The boneheads at the Ogo campaign and the MA GOP are truly the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
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p>You are basically trying to set up the next post. Mopping up the mess when the numbers are reported. Get Barney Keller ASAP!!!
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p>Kerry and MA Democrats Wicked Scared of Ogonowski!!!!
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p>Zzzzzzzz, snoozer. Please, spare us.
Thanks PP. MA GOP will only get involved after the primary. So it’s just the Ogo campaign.
We’re not talking about help with advertising or message… we’re talking about gathering sigs. Surely having Ogo on the GOP primary ballot is better than not for MAGOP, right?
So that boat sailed, and we will see if Ogo is on it.
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p>Individual state committee members can and did help the campaign of their choice, but the Chairman, Director and Staff are precluded by the bylaws from interfering or helping (above and beyond providing public information and such). MA GOP cannot help, nor should it, IMHO.
just wondering out loud about the general practice.
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p>Seems to me there’s a big difference between helping candidates get on the ballot itself and helping candidates with their campaigns, that’s all.
What are you, refusing to pee until you get the latest signature count? I’m not sure where your pressing need, or even your right, for this information is. It’s between the SS office and the campaign. If they have to answer the door every time some dweebo is curious how many signatures Ogo’s got, they’re never going to get anything counted.
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p>If you’re that full of beans to move things along, why don’t you go gather signatures?
It’s a progressive idea. The more citizens know about their government, the better decisions they can make.
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p>There’s also the quaint idea that we have a government of, for, and by the people, not for bureaucrats or elected officials, who may or may not be partisanly motivated.
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p>It seems to me that part of the reason our country is in Iraq was because some of skeeziks in the White House were hand-feeding “information” to military analysts and reporters (like Judith Miller). If the Globe has a right to the information, EaBo does as well. A nefarious reason for EaBo not getting the requested information may be lacking, but as someone suggested, the Secretary of State’s office should be more electronically up-to-date.
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p>Mark
and I’m not taking a side here
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p>government is for the people, not the person. Those bureaucrats or elected officials have been set to work by the people to do the people‘s business.
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p>They’re being interrupted by a person.
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p>
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p>Surely there’s a balance, and in general I believe that government doesn’t utilize IT effectively to be more open without adding much cost. But, surely people in government have jobs to do in addition to being open about their jobs.
Surely they can’t stop doing the people’s business every time a person interrupts.
is public relations. He freely admitted to me that he gave the information to the Globe. I was trying to follow up to post on a blog, while i’m not a journalist, I was trying to get to the bottom of a story. If he can give it to the Globe he can give it to me. His job is to provide communications people with information. If it was a clerk I was bothering I could see your point.
The Globe doesn’t chase stories for fun. They chase stories to publish them, so that tens (hundreds?) of thousands can read them.
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p>So clearly, working with The Globe ensures that the information goes to people.
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p>EaBoClipper, however, doesn’t have a readership of tens hundreds of thousands. He’s got a readership of hundreds, and no press pass.
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p>
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p>So, like I wrote, I’m not saying you were treated well or that you should or shouldn’t get the information. I merely question the notion that government officials should drop what they’re doing to dig up information that anybody asks for, at any time, pronto.
EaBo – as you say in your original post
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p>That seems to me the crux of the answer, no? You asked for information and he said he had nothing newer than what you already knew. I’m trying to figure out the problem here other than you getting (improperly, it seems) jerked around from person to person.
thing, but that’s why departments make policies, not ad hoc decisions, about such things as the release of information.
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p>I strenuously disagree with the idea that the Secretary of State should disseminate information to or only bother with question from the press, but not individuals.
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p>General information should, and in many of the Commonwealth’s departments, is made available on websites.
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p>Specific questions? Well, how many questions like EaBo’s do you suppose the S of S gets every day? I doubt too many.
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p>If there’s a problem with too many requests for information, then they should make a policy about releasing information. It doesn’t seem like they have one.
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p>Mark
I do not think I was suggesting that the SoS “should disseminate information to or only bother with question from the press, but not individuals.”
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p>EaBo asked a question. The SoS’ office answered that the information is the same as was in the Boston Globe – no change. Isn’t that answering the question? Isn’t EaBo an individual? Didn’t the SoS do exactly what you suggest they should do? (Again, after tossing him around in an apparent inappropriate fashion.)
I asked for new numbers. I was told to contact the state committee for those new numbers that he wouldn’t get them for me. He said all he had at his fingertips was what he gave the Globe on Monday. If you think the numbers hadn’t changed in two days by even 10 signatures ok then think that. I was treated rudely and it took 4 calls to get a call back. The information should be publicly available on-line.
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p>And PD43s should be available on-line as well. I’m trying to find the law to see if the SoS office is afoul of it.
This is the certification process.
But I will say that I had a very frustrating experience with the SoS’s office today. They seem to have given me some information that was not, technically, “true”.
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p>As Napoleon once said, “Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence”
What sort of information were you asking them for?
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p>When I’ve had to get past election return numbers from them, I’ve had to wait by the phone while they flipped through books (yes, paper) to look up the numbers for me. This makes it quite cumbersome if you want, for example, numbers for every precinct in a senate district in a primary from a couple of years ago.
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p>On the plus side, they are willing to read out the numbers to me over the phone one by one. As I said in an earlier comment, there are some very nice, helpful, well meaning people in that department. It is also very badly overdue for a tech upgrade and new processes.
Oh, wait, it hasn’t been published yet. If you don’t know, PD 43 is Public Document 43, the most important biannual compilation of election statistics that the State of Massachusetts offers. Or, at least, used to offer. For some reason, the Secretary has yet to publish 2006. Illegal? Probably not. Pathetic?
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p>Definitely.