ORIGINAL: Bob Mitchell
ORIGINAL: KidEpoxy
Bob
The fairly obvious answer is
Remove the EC from deciding which qualified candidates get to be on the ballot.
(read: Dont let the EC decide who lost before the ballots get printed and members get to vote)
Make it an Election committee rather than a nomination commitee, just check that they meet the requirements and dont do that behind closed doors... the requirements are pretty much public info, right? Tell us why guys were cut in the candidate anouncement: "Nominee JoeBlow did not meet XXX requirement to be on the ballot."
The fix is simple.
That may be an over simplification, KE.
If you change the nominating process so that all qualified candidates appear on the ballot, then I think the election process also has to change to accomodate that.
As you said, the qualifications to be a nominee (let's just focus on DVP for now) are fairly simple and are public knowledge. You must be a Leader Member. You must live in the District. You must be nominated by a member who lives in the district. That's all the basic bylaws state, and nothing there is debatable. You either are or aren't. The EC can't determine who is and who isn't qualified. It's set out in black and white. Let's calll this "Part 1"
The "Standing Rules" add additional requirements, but those deal with convincing the nominating committee that you are able to to the job, not just meeting the minimum qualifications as set out in the bylaws themselves. You must submit certain paperwork to the nominating committee by the established deadline. (acceptance statement, resume, etc). This is where the judgement (or control) of the EC comes into play. It's also where the ballot is limited to 3 nominees. Let's call this "Part 2".
If you determine the make up of the ballot by Part 1 only, eliminating Part 2, you eliminate, or at least certianly inhibit, the ability of the EC to control the election. Once they lose the ability to control the ballot, the only way they can control the election is by out and out election fraud. I'm not yet cynical enough to go there.
Once you eliminate the song and dance requirements of Part 2, I suspect that multiple candidates for a given position would be more common. We already know of one election for President that woud have had at least 4 candidates. I know you disagree, but with multiple candidates a possibility, then I think the best election process would be one of election by majority, not plurality. That introduces the very high liklihood of the need for run-off's, and the need for a system to handle them easily and relatively inexpensively. That makes the "fix" a bit more complicated than just a redefinition or elimination of the nominating committee as it now exists. (And as an aside, for all intents and purposes the EC IS the nominating committee, and is why I've use the terms interchangably at times.
Getting the guys in charge to accept, endorse, and implement the fix is hard.
By the conspiracy theory,
the ones that have the power to stop the Good Ole Boy system are part of that alleged system,
Witlhout a doubt. It would be interesting to push the point, though, and see who would object to taking a well thought out and workable proposal to the Leader Members for a decision. But it has to be well thought out, structured with possible issues considered and handled, or it would simply be a non-starter. Contrary to what another poster here has expressed, discussion and frank back and forth is the only way I know to come up with such a proposal.
and even if 2 or 3 "outsiders" or "guys that are hard to work with" are elected, that will just be 3 vs 10 or so in any EC vote to fix anything.
Gaining support for a proposal that may not be popular would be difficult for anyone, outsider, insider, whoever. Someone who is "hard to work with", as you say, would almost certainly be doomed to failure. Having new ideas and proposals is not synonymous with "hard to work with". But I've made myself pretty clear on that one more than a few times.
Bob, you like MarkS
will he help you "fix" the nomination process to get the EC's fingers out of controlling the names on the ballot?
Don't know. I wish I'd asked the question of both candidates while both were posting. Horrace has had a couple of opportunities to respond in this thread with specific suggestions about the nominating procedures and has gone off on a tangent rather than respond directly. I think I'll email Mark and see what he has to say about it, and ask to post his reply here as I have with comments from DM. I'm sure several of you have strong opinions about that, but the only way to know for sure is to ask.
I'll let each of ou think that one over and draw your own theories on if Muncie wants to "fix"(oops, that sounds bad) "repair" the nominations/elections
That's funny.
A related question that I haven't heard an definitive answer to yet. Has there ever been an instance where the nominating committee kept a name off the ballot, even though there were 3 or fewer qualified nominees? Has there ever been a situation similar to last year where the nominating committee was forced to hold a name off the ballot due to the limitation of 3 candidates?
Horrace....I suspect that if anyone here knows the answers it would be you.
Another question for those of you that may agree with me that the current ability of the EC to control who appears on the ballot is not in the best interests fo the AMA: Is that agreement a result of the fact that the EC DID keep Horrace off the ballot last year, or because they CAN keep a name off the ballot, be it Horrace or anyone else? Two distinctly differrent things.