The County Party is launching a Digital Activism 101 training series -- to teach us the skills and give us the tools to campaign online. 

The series will be divided into three weekly sessions on Zoom, with participants free to attend any or all of them. By the end, we hope more San Diego County Democrats will be ready to take digital action to elect our candidates up and down the ballot this year:

1: Introduction to Digital Activism: Thursday, May 28, 5:00 p.m. (RSVP)

Learn about how campaigns and activists are pivoting to the digital world during the 2020 campaign cycle, and how to use social media as a tool for organizing, persuading voters, and building relationships during COVID-19. 

2: Remote Voter Engagement: Thursday, June 4, 5:00 p.m. (RSVP)
Familiarize yourself with remote voter engagement tools like peer-to-peer texting, relational organizing, and remote group phone banking -- and learn how to use these tools to support campaigns and candidates.

3: Holding Virtual Events: Thursday, June 11th at 5:00 p.m. (RSVP)
Fundraisers, meet-and-greets, and group trainings are now taking the form of meetings online. Pick up some best practices for organizing your own virtual campaign events with friends, neighbors, and fellow volunteers.

These trainings will be hosted by County Party staff alongside campaign pros who specialize in digital engagement. The first one is this Thursday so if you'd like to learn more about getting active online sign up now!

Wendy Gelernter of Take Action San Diego recently shared 3 actions we can take to “make sure that we wake up smiling on November 4!”

1. Join virtual letter writing parties to voters in the swing states of Michigan (5/28) and Iowa (5/30).  It’s a 2 hour commitment, and you get to join in with like-minded people from around the country while writing letters. Sign up here! Sponsored by Swing Left. Letters like these have boosted turnout among Democratic voters by 1.5% – 3.0%.

2. Phone bank in support of Mark Kelly for Senate in Arizona the weekend of 5/30-5/31. Several 2-hour time slots are available on both days. Sign up here! Sponsored by Mission for Arizona (Arizona Democratic Party).

3. Provide input on our electoral strategy.Take this 30 second survey to let us know which state or states you think we should be focusing our activism on in the upcoming months. I’ll report back next week! For some background on this issue, you’ll remember that there are about 12 swing states that are most critical for winning the Senate and the Presidency, and holding onto the House in November. We had originally focused on Arizona, because we had planned to make monthly canvassing visits to the state, and it was the closest swing state to San Diego. But now that geography is pretty much irrelevant, we can focus wherever we want. Arizona is still going to be critical, and even Texas — with 38 electoral votes —  is now in play, based on several recent polls.

   ---

The California Democratic Party is organizing a Statewide Day of Action: Help Flip the Senate! on Sunday June 14 from 1-4PM to support Mark Kelly. Register here. 

Director of Clubs | john@demclubs.org | (619) 302-4751 | www.demclubs.org

Thanks to everyone who contributed before, during and after our May meeting to provide valuable input for Online Voting for clubs.

Thanks to candidates and electeds:

• Rob Howard www.RobHoward4Mayor.com

• Terra Lawson-Remer www.terralawsonremer.org June 16th campaign kick-off

• Will Rodriguez-Kennedy - newly elected DNC member

and Doug Case on behalf of Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins:

• Governor’s May Revised Budget Proposal

• Full proposed budget details

• Sen. Atkins May constituent newsletter

• Press Release on Senate Democrats Proposals for renter/landlord stabilization and the Economic Recovery Fund (includes PDF slide show)

• COVID-19 information and resources here and here

  ---

The Council discussed four methods of Online Voting (link to the details), and a straw poll confirmed that voting with traditional email was the least preferred.

The two most preferred options were:

• For a quick, non-critical vote - the Yes/No function in Zoom moving voting members to a pre-assigned breakout room if necessary

• For a formal, auditable vote that supports different voting methodologies including Ranked Choice and Single Transferable Voting, and is more inclusive of the full membership - OpaVote.com

  ---

General advice:

• Accessibility is a tenet of the California Democratic Party and it’s important that clubs publish dial-in numbers for meetings so that members without computers or smartphones can easily join

• Allow enough time at the start of meetings to credential members, regardless of which method is used for voting

• Zoom Waiting room can be used while credentialing members

• Create pre-assigned Zoom Breakout rooms before the meeting, based on emails

• Zoom Breakout rooms can be used to ‘step outside’ and talk with a member during a meeting

• If possible have multiple co-hosts to address issues that arise during a meeting, don’t try to do it all yourself

There were various concerns raised during the meeeting, that were addressed:

• Breakout rooms are included in the Zoom Pro plan, but have to be enabled in settings

• OpaVote doesn’t have a configurable option for No Endorsment. This is not an issue for when it is being using in a Zoom Meeting with code voting for multiple rounds of voting, per Robert’s Rules of Order. For Ranked Choice Voting in a meeting or by email, a No Endorsement candidate can be configured, but rather than use the OpaVote defaults (that could allow this pseudo candidate to be removed) instead the raw data could be downloaded and counted using the club’s rules for eliminating candidates, allowing No Endorsement to always be an option, or the round elimination to be halted if no candidate reaches a minimum threshold.

• OpaVote doesn’t automatically support super majoirty e.g. 2/3 thresholds. Again the threshold limits and methods for elimination of candidates (San Francisco RCV, Oakland RCV) can be configured for each club’s endorsement rules by downloading the raw data available from OpaVote.

• If OpaVote is used for voting by email how to insure that all members received and responded to the ballot? OpaVote provides details on emails delivered, bounced, opened and if the member(s) voted. Reminders can be sent via OpaVote every 3 days to members who have still to vote. The secretary or coordinator of the vote could also contact members by other means to remind them. This is little different than members not reading an email giving them notice of an upcoming vote. [Not mentioned at the meeting is that OpaVote uses SendGrid for email delivery, and is likely to be more reliable at delivering emails than other methods used by clubs.]

• [Not mentioned at the meeting: OpaVote provides an API for retrieving election results, so very specific voting methodolgies can be configured, if required.]

The Council took a few quick OpaVotes, and there was one schocking result:

Many thanks to the Club Development Committee members for quickly meeting (on Mother’s Day!) to draft these online voting recommendations.

Please let anyone of us know if you have more questions, or need more help in configuring any of these options.

We finished the meeting with a brief discussion of the proposed Bylaw changes to be discussed and voted on at the Central Committee Meeting on Tuesday May 19, 6PM.

Slide presentation here. Please review and join the Zoom meeting for discussion.

If you missed the meeting you can still watch it on our YouTube channel with Closed Captioning and a searchable transcript.

Reminder: we need every club to let the Party know of changes to meeting details, newly elected officers, and bylaws - online form here. Please send us updates for the Party calendar to include your Zoom registration and dial-in phone number.

Next Steps

The Chair and the Committee will draft language for clubs, to act as a Safe Harbor rule for conducting online voting. This will not prohibit clubs from using alternate methods, but other methods will need to be discussed with the Committee before validating an Associate Member endorsement recommendation for an Area meeting.

Thanks for all you are doing at this calamitous time (see Detailed Results above).

Cheers, John Loughlin

Director of Clubs | john@demclubs.org | (619) 302-4751 | www.demclubs.org

Agenda

• Introductions of those in attendance, including elected officials, guests

• Online Voting discussion and proposal

  • Zoom meeting - using Yes/No feature

  • Zoom meeting - using Polling feature

  • Email voting - using plain old email

  • OpaVote - used in a Zoom meeting and for email voting

• Bylaw changes for online voting - Safe Harbor rule

• Upcoming meetings of interest

  • North Area Caucus - May 16, 2PM

  • Central Committee Meeting - May 19, 6PM including proposed bylaws changes

• Announcements

You can register here for all of the Council of Clubs Meetings and you’ll get details on how to join from your computer/smartphone/regular phone. If you have any problems please email clubs@sddemocrats.org.

Today’s meeting will focus on Online Voting for clubs. Thank you to everyone who’s shared what their club is doing to hold online meetings, what’s working well and what needs some improvement.

We’ll share our collective knowledge and the Club Development Committee will outline a proposal to ensure the integrity of our voting process.

We hope to reach a consensus on the preferred voting method and then have the Party provide a Safe Harbor rule that clubs can easily adopt before the end of June 2020.

At the April 30th special meeting the Central Committee suspended…

…the Policies and Procedures portions regarding binding of a club's associate votes until Director of Clubs and the Chair certify that a club has acceptable accommodations to COVID-19 pandemic electronic meeting policies, and that such acceptable accommodations be developed by clubs individually within 60 days of today.
- Unapproved Minutes 4/30/20

Thanks for everyone who completed the form already but for those who didn’t, we still need every club to let the Party know of changes to your meeting details, newly elected officers, and bylaws. To make it easy, the Party has setup an online form here.

I look forward to seeing/hearing you at 10AM - Zoom meeting registration

Cheers, John Loughlin

Director of Clubs | john@demclubs.org| (619) 302-4751 | www.demclubs.org

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
- Charles Dickens, The Tale of Two Cities

I hope you, your family and your fellow clubmembers are well.

This month’s meeting will focus on Online Voting for clubs. Thank you to everyone who’s shared what their club is doing to hold online meetings, what’s working well and what needs some improvement.

We’ll share our collective knowledge and the Club Development Committee will outline a proposal to ensure the integrity of our voting process.

We hope to reach a consensus on the preferred voting method and then have the Party provide a Safe Harbor rule that clubs can easily adopt before the end of June 2020.

At the April 30th special meeting the Central Committee suspended…

…the Policies and Procedures portions regarding binding of a club's associate votes until Director of Clubs and the Chair certify that a club has acceptable accommodations to COVID-19 pandemic electronic meeting policies, and that such acceptable accommodations be developed by clubs individually within 60 days of today.
- Unapproved Minutes 4/30/20

You can register here for all of the Council of Clubs Meetings and you’ll get details on how to join from your computer/smartphone/regular phone. If you have any problems please email clubs@sddemocrats.org.

For our second meeting of 2020 here is the proposed agenda:

• Introductions of those in attendance, including elected officials, guests

• Online Voting discussion and proposal

  • Zoom meeting - using Yes/No feature

  • Zoom meeting - using Polling feature

  • Email voting - using plain old email

  • OpaVote - used in a Zoom meeting and for email voting

• Bylaw changes for online voting - Safe Harbor rule

• Upcoming meetings of interest

  • North Area Caucus - May 16, 2PM

  • Central Committee Meeting - May 19, 6PM including proposed bylaws changes

• Announcements

We’re postponing the voting on Club of the Year until our June 20 meeting, as by then we’ll have agreed on how to run the voting :)

Thanks for everyone who completed the form already but for those who didn’t, we still need every club to let the Party know of changes to meeting details, newly elected officers, and bylaws. To make it easy, the Party has setup an online form here.

I look forward to seeing/hearing you this Saturday, 10AM - Zoom meeting registration

Cheers, John Loughlin

Director of Clubs | john@demclubs.org | (619) 302-4751 | www.demclubs.org

Thanks to everyone who joined our first virtual Council of Clubs meeting. If you missed the meeting, or just want to see how good you look on Zoom, the YouTube recording is available here (complete with transcript).

Some notes and actions from the meeting (thanks Phil):

Notes

• We all need to learn how to campaign remotely

• Canvassing will need to incorporate phoning, texting, videos, Zoom meetings

• Candidate websites to provide engagement with thoughtful digital experience

• GO Team considering alternate approachs to reaching voters

• For clubs to hold private endorsement (and officer election) votes Zoom is not adequate - other tools are required

• Accessibility should always be a priority for club meetings, with dial-in numbers available for all Zoom calls

• Clubs should prioritize easy access to remote meetings over enhanced security, at least to begin with, while clubmembers come up to speed

Actions

• Check out SwingLeft and consider supporting a flippable Senatorial campaign

• Share the Party’s Resource Guide for Coping With COVID-19 Effects

• Share volunteer sign-up for Party’s wellness-check program

• Share your online voting experiences and tools with the Council of Clubs

• Club Development Committee to create draft policy & procedure for remote voting

• Let the Party know of changes to your club’s meeting details, newly elected officers, and bylaws. To make it easy, the Party has setup an online form here.

You can register here for all of the Council of Clubs Meetings and you’ll get details on how to join from your computer/smartphone/regular phone. If you have any problems please email clubs@sddemocrats.org.

John Loughlin|Director of Clubs|john@demclubs.org|(619) 302-4751|www.demclubs.org