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Ranked Choice Vote Details

Ranked Choice Vote ID	682
Ranked Choice Vote	2012 Election of GPUS Steering Committee - Treasurer
Type	Secret Ballot Revealed at Close of Polls
Number of Seats	1
Ranked Choice Vote Administrator	Budd Dickinson
Phase	Closed
Discussion	06/18/2012 - 07/07/2012
Voting	07/08/2012 - 07/14/2012
Result	Results
Presens Quorum	0.6666
Candidates	Jeff Turner Audrey Clement write-in

Background

This online, ranked choice vote will elect a Treasurer, who is a member of the Steering Committee.

About Steering Committee Elections
http://www.gp.org/documents/bylaws.shtml#article6

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE STEERING COMMITTEE
GPUS Bylaws, article IV. The Steering Committee
http://www.gp.org/documents/bylaws.shtml#article4

GPUS Rules & Procedures, Section 1. Powers of Steering Committee
http://www.gp.org/documents/rules.shtml#section1

Candidate Information

Jeff Turner
jeff@jeffturnercpa.com

Aloha GPUS Delegates,

For the first time we have a contested race for election of Treasurer. And
as you can easily tell from other emails recently, there are some serious
differences of opinion on the Finance Committee that have been developing
for awhile. Differences of opinion can be a very good thing; they tell
us that there are shortcomings in our structure that need to be resolved.
There is so much to say about our current state of financial affairs. I
will try to be brief here. Please watch for continuing emails where I will
comment on several of these subjects in more detail.

INTRODUCTION

I hadn't thought much about whether I would run for re-election or not until
about three months ago. I had brought up, and the Finance Committee had
been discussing, the need for Treasurer candidates for the last half year or
so, with no candidate prospects in sight. As the discussion evolved, it
suddenly became clear to me just how much difference of opinion there was
about the exact role and mandated duties of the Treasurer. And I was struck
by the realization that we had never really gone outside of the Finance
Committee to recruit a new Treasurer. And that is when I instantly realized
I had to run for a second term as Treasurer to complete the work I have
begun - to transform our whole financial process into a professional,
businesslike, operation that produces accurate and timely financial
information, on a consistent basis from year to year, and from Treasurer to
Treasurer, the sole purpose being to help us make informed financial
decisions for the Green Party and to comply with the laws and regulations
that apply to us.

MY VISION AND GOALS FOR TREASURER, FINANCE COMMITTEE, AND GPUS

So here is my plan for the Treasurer and the Finance Committee and for all
of you for the next two years of Green Party financial management. Please
give me your vote of confidence for Treasurer and together we can get this
done well.

1. We need an accountant to keep our financial records in a professional
manner. That is not spelled out in our fiscal policy at all, and it needs
to be. We will carefully re-define the Treasurer role, create a section on
the role of an accountant, and clarify how each are related in the execution
of financial management and reporting for the GPUS. The Finance Committee
will produce a fiscal policy amendment proposal to the NC that clarifies
what is more than a bit vague at the present time on this matter.

2. We need to develop a recruitment and training guideline for selecting
candidates for Treasurer in the future. It is my belief that each
succeeding Treasurer, in order to have thorough understanding of our
financial affairs, should come from the membership of the Finance Committee.
We will develop a written plan for recruitment and training of succeeding
Treasurer candidates.

3. I started calling for an accountant on the Steering Committee less than
90 days into my term as Treasurer. In the meantime we have just barely
gotten along without one for two years because we said we couldn't afford
it. But now we are to the point where we can't afford not to. We now have
two and a half years of accounting catch up on. Someone will have to be
paid to do that. Doug Malkan used to get $900/month to do that work. I
think we can do it for less, but both Doug and I offer you our professional
advice that this is not a volunteer task. We have to get this done now and
we will find a way to pay for it very soon.

4. We need a few good people to join the Finance Committee. As Bill Kremel
says, we are the cane and walker crew. We are almost all in our late 60's
and early to mid 70's. We need some younger folks to step up and join in
this effort to learn how to lead financially. We need whoever might be the
next Treasurer to get involved on the Finance Committee now. We will
undertake an aggressive recruitment effort for new members and possible
Treasurer candidates.

5. The bottom line is a frustration that we are a rather large and complex
organization with a very small budget. We have to work on that, yet remain
very professional in how we manage our finances and our information systems.
We will continue to work on that. I want to work with everyone to create a
written operations manual that guides our daily operations. We still carry
too much in our heads and stand at risk of losing important group memory
when personnel changes occur.

MY GREEN CREDENTIALS AND EXPERIENCE

I've been an active Green from the day in 1992 when I read in the newspaper
that the Green Party had just gained ballot status in Hawaii. I called Ira
Rohter in Honolulu and organized a Green Party tour around Hawaii Island.
At the end of a week end of three community meetings we had over 200 new
Hawaii Green Party members. Out of that came a dynasty of Keiko Bonk and
Julie Jacobson and Bob Jacobson who collectively held a seat on the Hawaii
County Council for well over a decade running. I was active in Hawaii Green
Party leadership for 10 years before I became an alternate delegate to the
GPUS in 2003. Since that time I have spent most of my time on GPUS affairs.
Last month I was elected Membership Chair for Hawaii, because I want to work
with David Sacks to set up our Hawaii membership and donor records in the
chapter feature feature of Salsa, our GPUS donor database and membership
communication tool.

I am the only remaining charter member of the original Finance Committee
when it was formed in about 2003. I have been involved in every budget
process since that beginning. In that first year I devised a way of
grouping the many committees into the four main functions of the Party. I
made different cost accounting categories for keeping track of things. Some
pieces of this have been adopted over time. I want to finish that job for
you to make our financial reports more clearly understandable and useful.

I have served on the Fundraising Committee and the Merchandise Committee for
most of the years that I have been on the Finance Committee, as I believe
they are closely intertwined and need that coordination between them. The
Merchandise Committee has lost membership and hasn't functioned for well
over a year. I want to restart that group. I need three or more folks who
want to join together with me to run the business of merchandising for GPUS.

I have run for public office so I understand the daunting task of
campaigning. If you haven't ever done that you can never know how all
consuming it is to do a good job. I have that experience, understanding,
and empathy for all our candidates for office.

MY PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIALS AND EXPERIENCE

I have been involved in business since I was five years old. My accumulated
experiences with many businesses, start ups, liquidations, and non-profits
has brought me to the place of being a highly experienced and well rounded
entrepreneur and organizer. I bring those experiences into the service of
helping the Green Party back office function efficiently, or as we say in
Hawaii - mo'betta', so that the rest of you can be free to spend more time
at politics.and have the business of the Party well taken care of.

I have a BA in Accounting from the University of Washington, and was
involved in Beta Alpha Psi, a national accounting honorary fraternity during
my college years.

I have held a CPA license in Washington for over 30 years, then moved to
Hawaii where I have held that license for over 20 years while building a
practice of consulting for small businesses and non profits. I have a
staff of three that handle the routine bookkeeping and payroll, along with a
partner who does all the tax work. I do the practice management, new client
development and set up, and general consulting and mentoring of clients,
staff, and others in my community. We are taking good care of 50 or 60
small businesses and foundations at any given time.

I have started several non-profit organizations and mentored many others in
my professional career. From that experience I have learned that you can
only rely on volunteers so much. You still need effective volunteer
leadership and that usually means paid staff. I have seen so many
volunteers burn out only to have an organization fail to keep the continuity
that comes from paid staff.

MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS TREASURER (in mostly chronological order)

1. Engineered a proposal, which you approved, to keep the DC office open
when some were calling for it's closure.
2. Completed and passed a major rewrite of the fiscal policy with the help
of many others.
3. Crafted and passed a 2011 budget that enabled us to hire our current
Fundraiser. A huge credit in this matter goes to Brent for securing a
major donor that enabled us to do that hire at a time when we were nearly
down to our last penny.
4. Helped plan and get approval for moving our office to it's current
location, cutting about $500 off of the monthly rent and utility expense
with the direct help of Leenie, Tamar, and many others.
5. Changed insurance agents for modest financial savings, but much better
service.
6. Overseen the process to change banks that was initiated by others. This
has been nearly a year in process.
a. helped select a new bank - a credit union in DC which is walking
our talk about doing business locally with human scale enterprises
b. discovered that our new insurance agent has an excellent payroll
service to replace what we had at SunTrust Bank - the result is a new time
keeping tool for staff management
c. selected a new credit card processor to replace SunTrust, which is
expected to achieve another level of savings on merchant services fees
d. enabled us to begin placing reserve fund balances in a savings
account to earn interest - hopefully more as the economy recovers and rates
go back up to normal levels
7. Prepared frequent (several times a month) cash reports of deposits,
disbursements,and band balances for the SC, Fincom, and Funcom to keep them
appraised of our struggling financial conditions.
8. Helped to reduce our debt from nearly $100,000 when I took office, to
just over $20,000 recently, until we recently added loans for ballot access
work
9. Worked with David Sacks and Brian Bittner to develop income record
keeping processes that give us better, more accurate donor information than
ever before
10. Maintained good working relationships with our vendors and suppliers
11. Sent many hours on the upcoming and the prior year's ANM to make sure
that they are/were a financial success, rather than what occurred several
years ago

Please watch for my emails that will explain matters financial further.
Thank you for your support.

Respectfully, Jeff Turner CPA
Treasurer GPUS

Audrey Clement
aclement65@hotmail.com

WHY I'M RUNNING:
I seek election as GPUS Treasurer, because I'm seriously concerned about the state of the party's finances. Recent cash flow reports indicate that the party has been barely making payroll for the past several months. As a result, it had to rely on a loan from party members to finance its presidential ballot access drive in 2012. In addition, no regular financial accounting reports have been prepared for the past two years, and no recent attempt has been made to reconcile the party's bank records with the reports it files with the FEC, in contravention of FEC best practice guidance. Finally no employment agreements have been executed for over two years, which is not fair to GPUS staff.

Some of these problems are attributable to the fact that the party let its accountant go two years ago as a cost savings measure, but this state of affairs is untenable. Either the party needs to raise the funds to hire an accountant or it must purchase accounting software that will enable it to maintain its books and free the Treasurer to perform his/her other duties. If elected Treasurer, I plan to do what it takes to make party fully compliant with its own Fiscal Policy and FEC regulations.

EDUCATION:
B.F.A, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
Ph.D. Political Science, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa.

PROFESSION:
- IT professional employed as contract programmer for various federal
government agencies since 1989.

QUALIFICATIONS FOR GPUS TREASURER:
My qualifications include three years as local party treasurer, and one full
year as treasurer for a state political committee that financed the three
runs I've made for Arlington County Board. As treasurer for my local and
personal campaign committees, I file regular electronic financial disclosure
reports, and I routinely reconcile those reports with their corresponding
bank accounts. These skills are needed to produce the financial disclosure
reports that GPUS is required to file with the FEC.

In addition, for fifteen years I programmed and maintained the financial
accounting reports for a Philadelphia area Medicare physician's private
practice. The physician utilized the financial database I developed as
evidence in a suit filed on behalf of the Philadelphia Medical Society
against a Blue Cross clearinghouse for non-payment of Medicare claims. The
medical society ultimately won a multi-million dollar settlement against
Blue Cross.

PRIOR POLITICAL CAREER:
- Congressional Fellow, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation, 1987-88.
- Political reporter, Philadelphia New Observer, a Black weekly newspaper,
1985-1990.

GREEN PARTY POLITICAL CAREER:
- Co-Chair, Green Party of Virginia, 2005 to present.
- Delegate/Alternate to GPUS NC, 2005-2011.
- Treasurer, Arlington Green Party, 2009 to present.
- Treasurer, Committee to Elect Audrey Clement, 2011 to present.
- Green Party Candidate, Arlington County Board - November, 2011, March,
2012, November, 2012.
- Co-Chair, BRPP Committee, 2007-2010.
- Co-Chair, Ecoaction Committee, 2010-present.
- GPUS Steering Committee Co-Chair, March, 2011-July, 2012.

GREEN PARTY PETITIONING ACTIVITY:
- Virginia, 2008 - 6,400+ signatures, 2012 - 2,000+ signatures.
- Arkansas, 2010 - 800+ signatures, 2011 - 450 signatures.-
- Maryland, 2010 - almost 1,000 signatures.
- Illinois, 2012 - 540 signatures in one weekend.
- Plaintiff in a suit filed by the Libertarian Party to overturn a law
adopted at the behest of Virginia's reactionary but popular governor that
will invalidate 2,000 signatures gathered by GPVA and the Virginia
Independent Greens and 2,000 signatures gathered by the Libertarian Party
prior to the General Assembly's belated adoption of a 2010 census dictated
redistricting plan.

PERSPECTIVE ON GPUS:
Green Party political fortunes have waned since Ralph Nader's 2000 run for
President on the Green Party ticket and the attendant backlash from the
Democratic Party. In the wake of this political fallout, Green Party
activists have become discouraged and have turned their swords on one
another.

There is nothing wrong with infighting per se. In fact it is only through
intramural conflict that party activists hone their skills for partisan
political battles. The problem is one of degree. While it's right to
criticize leaders for their shortcomings and even question their
qualifications for a particular office, it's wrong to denounce them as
"destructive" or "racist" with no more evidence than personal animus. While
it's right to exhort party members to work harder or to criticize their
arguments as weak, it's wrong to scapegoat them because they are perceived
as unpopular.

Other conflicts throughout history have shown that scapegoating colleagues
and demonizing leaders are the hallmarks of defeatist organizations. GPUS
needs to transcend defeatism. We can do this by electing party leaders who
are committed to ballot access as the party's mission or principal goal. We
also need leaders who are committed to following party rules, because it's
only through the impartial administration of those rules that the conflicts
within the party can be effectively mediated and defeatist sentiments
contained.

MY RECORD SET STRAIGHT:
Co-Chair, BRPP.
During my tenure as co-chair of BRPP, the committee reported a number of
proposals codifying party rules governing: the reporting of proposals,
Steering Committee business, GPUS fiscal policy, and the Presidential
Nominating Convention. All of those proposals were ultimately adopted. While
a faction of the NC has consistently decried the time and effort devoted to
the codification of party rules, and some believe there is no need for them
at all, GPUS has benefited from them.

Consider, for example, that planning for the 2012 Presidential Nominating
Convention has proceeded flawlessly due to the deliberations that the party
undertook in adopting convention rules in 2008. Consider also that the SC
and the NC recently adopted measures to issue loans to fund the 2012 ballot
access drive following rules laid out in the party Fiscal Policy adopted in
2010. Were it not for the expeditious issuance of these loans, the all
important ILGP ballot access drive would have faltered. Instead on June 25,
ILGP delivered almost 30,000 ballot access signatures to the Illinois State
Board of Elections.

Consider finally the amount of bandwidth the NC devoted to apportioning
itself in 2007 and again in 2011. The result was both an NC and a PNC
apportionment that most of the NC can live with and one that will reward
state parties who prove effective at getting ballot access, while opening
the door via the population mechanism to those parties struggling with
repressive ballot access laws.

As BRPP and later SC Co-Chair, I facilitated the adoption of these provident
rules. I'm proud of my record in that regard.

Co-Chair, Ecoaction Committee.
The Ecoaction Committee is remarkable both for the size of its membership
(31) and the degree of consensus on matters within its purview. Debate on
the committee has been vigorous at times, and disagreement on contentious
issues like the substitution of biofuels for fossil fuels has abounded. Yet
Ecoaction experiences very little of the acrimony witnessed on the national
list. No doubt this reflects a widespread consensus on the need for
ecological wisdom that is the hallmark of the Green movement worldwide. It
also reflects a spirit of comity and respect that committee members extend
to one another as a matter of course.

As co-chair of Ecoaction, I took advantage of the consensus I found there to
promote an amended mission statement that accords the committee the right to
submit Platform amendments directly to PlatCom. That proposal was
overwhelmingly adopted by the NC in 2012 despite a protracted debate over
the meaning of ecological wisdom and the propriety of tasking Ecoaction to
promote it. Could less bandwidth have been expended on the proposal?
Perhaps, but the importance of the concept cannot be overestimated.

Co-Chair, GPUS Steering Committee.
Over the course of the past year, I've participated in Steering Committee
deliberations on diverse issues. While the debate has been acrimonious at
times, the overall tenor of SC conference calls has been civil. I've
contributed to that civility by compromising or otherwise deferring to my
colleagues on more than one occasion. I am also happy to report that I
helped forge a consensus that while the SC ought to decide whether proposals
submitted for consideration by the NC comply with party rules, the NC
decides on the merits of those proposals. In a nut shell, the SC rules on
questions of form. The NC decides questions of substance.

SUMMARY:
I've labored hard for GPUS over the past seven years both in committee and
in the field, and I'm currently a Green Party candidate for local political
office. First and foremost, I'm committed to the Green Party, because I
subscribe to Ralph Nader's belief that ballot access is the civil rights
struggle of our times. In addition I believe that ecological wisdom and
social justice can only be achieved through the election of Greens to
government at all levels. If you agree with my priorities, are impressed
with my qualifications, and satisfied with my performance, then I ask you
for your vote for GPUS Treasurer.

Audrey Clement, Ph.D.
GPVA

write-in
n/a

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