Decisive victory for Jill Stein in Ohio Green presidential primary
February 6, 2012 in Presidential Campaign
From Jill Stein for President:
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Jill Stein scored a very big win at the state convention of the Ohio Green Party on Saturday, winning 90% of the vote in a four-way race in presidential balloting. The convention met in Columbus to select delegates to be sent to the Green Party presidential nominating convention in Baltimore this July. |
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Ohio’s presidential preference vote was the nation’s first, and was Stein’s first test in the race for delegates. As a result, it provides an early indication of how Green Party members are assessing the candidates seeking the party nomination. The other candidates included on the Ohio ballot were Roseanne Barr, Kent Mesplay, and Harley Mikkelson. Stein spoke to the convention briefly before the vote and stressed the importance of providing voters with an alternative to the “two establishment parties.” After the convention, Stein attended a fundraising party with supporters in Columbus. On Sunday, Stein traveled to Indianapolis to speak at Occupy the Super Bowl. There, she rallied with union members from across the midwest, and met with the Indiana Greens as they begin petitioning to place Jill Stein’s name on the 2012 ballot. |
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All Party System said on February 6, 2012
It’s a very sad day to see third parties being led down the garden path with plurality elections of names and decisions.
If you want to read about pure proportional representation, then please take the time to read what I wrote about ranked choice voting in multi-winner districts, the Sainte-Lague parliament seat distribution system under the single transferrable vote (STV). Please don’t confuse this with IRV, which is for single-winner districts only. The Sainte-Lague is for two or more, the more the better.
Go Ogle 2012
http://usparliament.org/stv.php
Why do you THINK they called it Google?
Zeleni said on February 6, 2012
Not to feed the trolls, but you keep saying that IRV is for single-winner districts only. Well, a presidential candidate is a single-winner district..
All Party System said on February 7, 2012
Zeleni, you are incorrect. The prez/vp is currently the only national election in the USA, and there are two names being elected. So in effect, I would call that a two-member district, but it’s pretty much being elected as a single winner, even though it is a two-member district.
Vaughn said on February 6, 2012
I can’t remember the exact totals, but the ballot had Jille Stein, Kent Mesplay, and two write-in spaces. The first round also had a vote for Dennis Kucinich.
Richard Grayson said on February 6, 2012
The headline refers to a primary but the body of the post refers to a convention, which seems accurate.
Anonymous said on February 7, 2012
roseanne has the starpower to win youd be fools to think about president as anything other than a popularity contest. she wins
RMW Stanford said on February 7, 2012
Star power to win the Presidential election, do you mean the Green party primary or the general election? There is zero chance that Roseanne would win the general election and the only thing I think she would do is make the Green party the but of a lot of jokes.
Pberg said on February 7, 2012
I have to wonder about all the state Green Parties that will be holding conventions instead of primaries. Some have no choice, but some, like NY chose to do so.
With a lot of the party leadership and insiders being either close to Jill Stein, and/or long time supporters of her, and with the party leadership and insiders being the ones most likely to be at conventions, doesn’t having conventions instead of primaries where you give many more Greens the potential to vote, bias the outcome? Especially as opposed to someone like Roseanne Barr who has much more name recognition than Stein, and could do better in an open primary?
While I don’t claim that any particular person planned it this way, we know in some states the insiders that are strong supporters of Jill are the same people that choose to hold convention that they will comprise most of those attending.
I just think it doesn’t look good. (And I say that while liking Jill as a candidate.)
Vaughn said on February 7, 2012
In our case (Ohio), we had the option of collecting thousands of signature in a few weeks or nominating via convention so we took the easy way. Four Green candidates were invited (including Roseanne before she officially joined the race) and Jill was the only candidate that came. About 50 registered Greens voted at the convention and there were many people that are very new to the party.
Dave Schwab said on February 7, 2012
In the case of New York, the decision to have a convention instead of a primary was made before Roseanne Barr entered the race. NY Greens would have had to gather a lot of signatures at the coldest time of year, and we are generally tired of petitioning so much in recent years and glad that we don’t have to spend all our time on it after winning ballot status in 2010. At the time, the race didn’t look very competitive, and so the costs of a primary seemed to outweigh the benefits. I don’t think calculations of trying to bias the outcome had any part in the decision.
Pberg said on February 8, 2012
While Roseanne Barr officially re-entered a relatively short time ago, she had been considering, (and collecting written support from Greens) for quite a while, long preceding any decions by a NY state body, (though it seems some of the Greens leadership never had any intention to have a primary, and said so a while back).
BTW, Greens in NY did not have to collect even one signature last year. (Oh and the minimum number of signatures for president would be a little over 1,000. Maybe ten for every person at a convention? Less time that the convention would take?)
Honestly, I don’t see the choice of convention over primary as trying to set up a bias particularly for Jill, though it could seem that way and who knows what people’s intentions are. I see it more as a small group of people who want control over the process, and therefor chose a process that will give them and those close a say and most Greens will not even know about.
Unfortunately, when it come to the presidential primary in NY, Greens will just have to stay home.
Ben Manski said on February 7, 2012
A few facts re: the question on a preference for primaries versus conventions:
— The Stein campaign organized to get signatures to get on the ballot for the D.C. primary. No other candidate did this.
— The Stein campaign made an emergency effort to get Jill and Kent Mesplay on the Ohio primary ballot. No other candidate did this.
— The Stein campaign submitted the proper paperwork on time and by the deadline in every state that has a primary. The same is not true of all the candidates on the primary ballots.
— The decision by New York State to hold a convention was not something the Stein campaign had any role in. That decision was not our preference.
Pberg said on February 7, 2012
I have no doubt the Stein campaign had nothing to do with these decisions in any state. I perhaps was not clear, but it seems all this came from state leaderships, and had nothing to do with the Stein campaign.