CLAIM DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE REPORT
NOVEMBER 21, 2003

Synopsis

This morning, I met up at Center for Voting and Democracy's (CVD) office with:

Members of Californians for Electoral Reform
Larry Gordon of Fairvote Canada
Ken Ritchie of the Electoral Reform Society in the UK
A group from the University of Florida including Charlie Grapski, Ian Richards, and Thomas Mott
Caleb Kleppner and Rashad Robinson of CVD
Lynne Serpe who just worked on insistuting Single Transferable Vote all over New Zealand and now is back in NY.

We then went over to Washington College of Law at American University for an afternoon session where we heard, among others, from:

Meanwhile, in the other room a number of people met to discuss the possibilities of a Constitutional amendment securing the right to vote as explained and proposed in Congress by Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Detailed Report as emailed in from D.C.

Hey there. Just wanted to check in while things are still fresh and let you guys live vicariously, as well as pass along a contact or two before I forget them. So this morning at 9, a few of us met up at Center for Voting and Democracy's (CVD) office. There were:

Myself
Paula Lee, Steve Chessin and another gentleman from Californians for Electoral Reform
Larry Gordon, co-founder and Exec. Director of Fairvote Canada
Caleb Kleppner and Rashad Robinson of CVD
Ken Ritchie who is Chief Exec. of Electoral Reform Society in the U.K.
Charlie Grapski, Ian Richards, and Thomas Mott from University of Florida
Lynne Serpe who just arrived back in the US from working on Single Transferable Vote and Green issues in New Zealand.

We had an interesting discussion, networked, and every one of them got one of our cards and one of our flyers for F-IRV with the website address added on by me by hand. They also all got a 5 minute rundown of where we're at.

After that I drove Ken and Lynne over with me to Washington College of Law at American University for lunch. There I saw John Anderson, 1980 Presidential candidate, former Congressman and Chair of the Center for Voting and Democracy. Didn't talk to him but I will if I see him again this weekend. Anyways, we then broke up into another room where we had four hours of various sessions dealing with issues relevant to state reformers. There we introduced ourselves and one woman, Karen Dolan, heard Ferndale and knew about it since she had met with Helen Weber while doing the movement to get councils to come out against the war. We then heard from a whole plethora of different groups and had discussions on tools, resources, tactics and cooperation in achieving state and local reforms. We heard from:

One of the groups that particularly caught my interest was the Ballot Initiatives Strategy Center whose Exec. Director Kristina Wilfore spoke. Their whole job is to help people working on ballot initiatives and she gave a very interesting talk about her experience with them. I think we should contact them and if I see her again I will talk to her. But their website is http://www.ballot.org and her email is kwilfore@ballot.org. Phone 202-223-2373. I have one of their pamphlets too.

After that I got to talk to Caleb and Dan Johnson-Weinberger a little, went out to catch some dinner, and then they had a whole evening of showing movie clips, some poetry, a stand up comedian and other democracy-related entertainment. Caleb assures me that CVD will stay in touch and help us in Ferndale and they are definitely very excited about what we're doing. Now I'm finally home and it's up and at 'em again in 7 hours for me!

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CLAIM DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE REPORTNOVEMBER 21, 2003

Synopsis

Detailed Report as emailed in from D.C.

CLAIM DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE REPORT
NOVEMBER 21, 2003