Ranked Choice Voting Campaigning Report for July 29
On Saturday from about 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., I campaigned for Rank MI Vote at the Bank Street Farmers' Market. The most interesting thing that happened was at 11:22 and 11:40, when two petitioners showed up, with real petitions (not those fake petitions for harvesting e-mail addresses or identity theft). I was perplexed. It's too late to be gathering signatures for anything in 2023 and seems too early to be gathering for 2024. It was Chris Glasser (and a friend) from the Eastside neighborhood, who recently posted on Reddit about the lack of Kalamazoo City Commission candidates. He's collecting 1,000 nominating petition signatures to qualify for the August 6, 2024 Primary Election ballot as one of three announced Democratic Party candidates for Michigan's 4th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's "RELUCTANTLY A DEMOCRAT" who has "supported third parties in the past and have volunteered for organizations that advocate for Ranked Choice Voting." I thought that Michigan election law prohibited collecting petition signatures more than a year before an election, but Chris says his only restriction is that he has to collect all of his signatures within an 180-day period.
If he was a non-partisan candidate, he would have to collect 2,000 signatures, which is an example of Michigan election law being biased against independent candidates. According to the Michigan Secretary of State's Petition Manual, the Congressional candidate filing deadline for the August 2024 Primary Election is Tuesday, April 23, 2024 at 4 p.m. The same deadline applies for U.S. Senator and State Representative candidates, except "Democratic and Republican candidates who seek the office of ... State Representative ... may file a $100.00 fee in lieu of a nominating petition". If Chris began signature collection on July 29, then his 180 days will be up on Thursday, January 25, 2024. For the August 2022 Democratic Michigan 4th district Congressional primary, there was only 1 candidate, Joseph Alfonso, who submitted 1,027 signatures in December 2021. However, he had to run as a write-in candidate, because 68 of his signatures were deemed invalid, leaving him 41 valid signatures short. It is recommended that candidates always collect at least 10% more than the minimum number required, which would be 1,100 for Michigan Congressional candidates. For Rank MI Vote in Kalamazoo, we needed 2,745 and submitted about 3,300 pre-verified signatures, which was about 20% more than we needed.
Unlike last week at the farmers' market, when I saw only 1 person I recognized, I saw plenty of people I recognize this week. Here's a list of 16 of them:
Associated with the city of Kalamazoo: Mayor David Anderson, former Mayor Bobby Hopewell (still draws a crowd, he wished me luck "on the ballot"), City Commissioner Stephanie Hoffman, former City Commissioner Erin Knott, retired Assistant City Attorney John Kneas
Associated with the Kalamazoo Public Library, Central branch: Amy Alcenius-Hoisington, reference librarian; Terry New, Interim Director; Kevin A.R. King, Head of Community Engagement; Jarrod Wilson, Head of Technology Services (said he was on vacation last week); Trustee Linda S. Mah
Associated with First United Methodist Church: Ray Sweany, David and Judy Kingsley
Others: Franklin Davidson; former WYZO radio country music DJ Dan "Diggler" Proczko; Judy Sarkozy, now fully retired following a recent loss of vision
Chris and I both finished our afternoon at the farmers' market by having an extended conversation with Tobi Hanna-Davies. She told us about one time that she voted at St. Joseph Catholic Church on Lake Street. As she was ready to put her ballot into the tabulation machine, someone called out her ballot number, which is tied to the voter's identity. She complained about it and asked for a new ballot. I've never experienced anything like that, but the last time I voted, the person at the tabulation machine stood way too close as I was entering my ballot, close enough that he could have read my votes. I had to ask him to stand away from the tabulation machine while I entered my ballot. I then complained about his behavior to the precinct chief. This kind of nonsense only gives people more reason to vote by absentee ballot, which I encourage all my supporters to do.
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