The Massachusetts Democratic Party, in fulfillment of the “Charter of the Democratic Party of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” hereby calls a Convention for the purpose of endorsing statewide candidates and amending the Party Charter. Said Convention will be held at the DCU Center in Worcester, 50 Foster Street, on Friday June 4 and Saturday June 5, 2010. The schedulewill be announced in the Final Call to Convention, which will be published in May 2010.
For full details see the Preliminary Call to Convention for all the details.
Please note that in addition to endorsing candidates, the vote at the Convention is key to “ballot access.” Every candidate needs to get at leat 15% on the first ballot in order to appear on the Democratic primary ballot.
It’s easy to change your registration. Just go to your city or town hall during business hours and fill out a very easy form.
For those of you who are already Democrats and take part in the process, encourage your friends to register as Democrats. The number of delegates allocated to your community for the State Convention, is based, in part, on the number of registered Democrats.
On a very technical note, seventeen year olds who will be 18 on or before the day of the next election in their communities, can register to vote now. So even if you are 17, you can become a registered Democrat, as long as you will be 18 on or before January 19.
So don’t just blog blue, register blue.
With all of that, who is hearing what about AG, Auditor, Treasurer and Secretary? For Auditor and Treasurer there will be no Democratic incumbent running for re-election. Open thread!
Un-enrolled is the ideal way to register to vote. Quite simply you have more flexibility. Why would you want to affiliate with a party? Party politics give us lousy candidates, group think, and power to the party heirarchy. When I learn someone is registered in a party I know i am dealing with someone who cannot think for themselves and needs direction.
If you are registered as a Democrat you can vote in the Democratic primary and take part in our caucuses.
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p>If you are registered as unenerolled you can vote in either the Democratic primary or the Republican primary but you can not take part in a Democratic caucus.
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p>I would contend that you have significantly greater influence and flexibility if you are in the former category. One of BMG’s statistics junkies could probably tell you how many contested Republican primaries there have been in recent years. Even better how many of these were at all close. For example, I would exclude the Brown/Robinson race.
That was a blowout for a four candidate race. In becoming a democrat, you are at the end of a very long line of coat-holders who want their special interest served first. Being unenrolled, you can pick the primary that interests you! The Republicans have quite a gubernatorial primary coming up. You guys are stuck supporting the lame duck.
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I’m enrolled in the Democratic Party because we get a lot more done together. As a Party, we can facilitate candidate support and advocate policy more effectively. As an active member on the state level, being a Party member gets you access to Democratic politicians. I see elected officials at all types of Party events, and have spoken to many of them about specific issues or legislation that I probably wouldn’t otherwise have been able to get face time for. As an active member on the local level, I like that I can get together with my neighbors and discuss local issues. I don’t see that happening often with organized groups of unenrolled voters.
for the more moderate voter who’s not interested in being involved in caucuses, being unenrolled makes sense. I’m with you on that one.*
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p>However, the suggestion that people in either (or rather, any) political party can’t think for themselves is asinine. We’ve all taken the time to learn about issues, decide which are particularly important to us, and found a political party (major or minor) which best represent those viewpoints.
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p> * to be clear, I don’t want unenrolled people voting in my big-D Democratic primary. But, the law in MA allows for it, so there it is.
…I’d probably register unenrolled as well. Being involved at the level I wish to be, however, pretty much requires being either a Democrat or a Republican and I agree with the Democrats much more, hence my choice.
I was going to respond to your post saying until the Democratic party stops spamming enrolled civilians to death, I’m going to switch back to independent after every primary, when this Globe letter to the editor caught my eye:
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You CAN vote in a primary in MA as unrolled. If he’s refering to minor parties, I believe Libertarian and Green are recognized in MA and were free to field candidates. He is of course free to write in a candidate on any primary ballot.
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p>Political parties are not completely private organizations. SCOTUS has ruled that they cannot deny the franchise for any of the reasons provided in the Constitution (eg. a “white primary”).
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p>Your actual vote is secret and you’re free to vote against your own party, but there’s never been a guarantee that affiliation is secret. On the merits as an organizer I’m glad that is public record, as is which ballot an unenrolled voter pulled.
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p>If he is unenrolled he has MORE choice because he can choose either ballot. In MA I’m pretty sure you don’t have to re-declare your unenrolled status after you vote. My experience also is that parties and campaigns are good about honoring email unsubscribe requests.
One of downsides of the age of the internet is giving an easy voice to the ill-informed.
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p>I was referring to US Mail spam, BTW. There’s no way in hell I’m providing my e-mail as part of voter registration.
…the junk mail and call levels are generally HIGHER since both parties think they may have a chance of getting your vote. I usually tell people who complain to pick a side so at least one side will know you probably aren’t available. Any thought you might have that enrolling is an invitation to the candidates of the party in which you enroll to hit you harder during the primary season is negated by the fact that if you consistently pull one party’s ballot the candidates basically treat you as if you’re registered in that party for contact purpose. (I’ve never heard ‘spam’ used for postal junk, hence my assumption.)
Last time I forgot to switch back after a primary, I got barraged by crap from the DNC.
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p>I normally get very little mail. Phone calls from both parties, yes, mail no.
Maybe they got excited by a new enrollee. It sounds like you get more mail from them than I do and I AM not only fully registered with the party, but quite active. As David pointed out though, you no longer have to explicitly unenroll after voting.
You don’t. That used to be an issue, but the law has been changed. The Globe should not have run this letter, as it is obviously riddled with inaccuracies about the way the system actually works.
…attached an editor’s note as I occasionally see done to correct a factual error.
Great news.
When I voted for Ed Reilly in the dem primary, I had to declare my unenrolled status upon finishing voting. Has it changed?
…a poll-worker didn’t know what they were talking about. David pointed out that is no longer the case and I’m pretty sure that change is not more recent than last year’s primary.
It’s easy to sit on your hands and complain about the choices your given every two years. Its hard work to actually get involved and work to support better candidates. Let us know when you’re ready to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Why is it that only a handful of people voted in the last senatorial election? My feeling is that party politics turns people off. Nasty debates about us being better than you turns voters away from the polls. The parties stifle competition and give us less choice vs more. The majority of the people in this state choose to be un-enrolled, why is that? They are doing so because they see party politics as being divisive.
and it’s perfectly fine that you feel that way. However, those of us who have been working hard to support candidates during the primaries have obviously done a fairly decent job, as most of them seem to win the support of said un-enrolled voters.
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p>Not to mention, there is no way around the fact that our American system is designed to have two parties and it will never change. Third parties just aren’t viable as we don’t have proportional representation. Even if a third party were to emerge, it would eventually form a coalition with one of the other parties in order to actually govern. And in that sense, how would that be different than now? Even though there are 60 “Democrats” in Congress, they are by no means unified in thought. You could definitely break the tent into 2 separate camps between the moderates and liberals; you may even be able to do it 3 times! But the debate would remain the same as what you’re seeing today, just under different tents.
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p>Maybe you don’t believe in parties at all, but that is also impossible based on the same conditions as above. It’s pretty basic game theory when you think about it. All parties know the options of the other parties, and being rational, will do what is in their best interest regardless of whether it is the optimal strategy or not.
…then it’s fine. There ARE more than two candidates in the general for Senate. While realisticly only a couple have anything resembling a fighting chance I do think that any debates should include all candidates so voters can make up their own minds. I go with preponderance of agreement, plus there’s something to be said for being able to achieve a majority, rather than plurality of the vote.
Well, to try to answer the question that you asked, Kate, I’m hearing Suzanne Bump for Auditor.
We need solid progressives to run for all our State Offices, including ensuring a progressive gets the office of Treasurer and Auditor, and that the corrupt/incompetent Secretary of the Commonwealth, Speaker of the House, and His Excellency the Governor, get dumped by the good voters of this state. If you build it they will come-if there is a solid grassroots challenger than these candidates will at least have a fight and we can move them more to our positions. Tim Toomey went from being a Reagan Dem to a Progressive over night thanks to a strong primary challenge, ditto Travaglini. It can happen at bigger levels too.
Vs. deval: Christy Mihos, Charlie Baker, an former dem Tim Cahill.
Vs. Glodis: Mary Connaughton.
Galvin is getting wonderful taxpayer funded publicity right now with his commercials. But tell me: if Galvin is doing what he’s doing? What the hell does Martha Coakley do?