I don't even know where to begin, but begin I must. So we’ll start with my beginning.
I have been a liberal activist for a very long time, indeed for most of my life. I started out - unwillingly - in queer activism and education in the far north of rural Maine. I have been called everything you can imagine - things that aren't even fit to print. I have been told that I am causing the downfall of western civilization. I have been physically attacked resulting in plucking fine grains of gravel out of my scalp for days on end. Anyone who knows me personally knows that when I say I live and die for my causes, I mean it. It is part and parcel of who I am and it is how I move in this world. I do not agitate from a "more sanctimonious-than-thou passion." I organize from outrage.
The problem with Doug MacEachern's recent piece is the same as the problem with the rest of the HB2305 propaganda - the author does not know what in the hell he is talking about. Political organizing and outreach is OK as long as it is in keeping with past practices, according to MacEachern. That is fine if you want to live in the antiquated world produced by those antiquated methods.
But therein lies the problem: I do not want to live in that world.
MacEachern is welcome to channel McCarthy and brand me and those like me “Communists” or “Falwellian” or whatever thing he cares to brand us. If he wishes to turn his column into a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of journalistic immunity - fine, let him. If he chooses to compare the exercise of our unalienable rights- those of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- with moral duplicity and hate-mongering, he is welcome to reveal himself for the partisan pawn he is. I would rather channel Margaret Chase Smith; I will not brook his bitterness and selfish political opportunism.
As to the rest of you, let us peel back the curtain in terms of how the ground game actually works.
Democrats run a data-driven people-focused volunteer effort. Volunteer teams are recruited to work the neighborhoods in which they live. In Arizona, they typically are not official party members, and thus not terribly beholden to a "Party Central", either. They are folks who believe in a particular cause or candidate, and the party’s organizers build them into a coalition to get out the vote and win elections.
But when it comes to voting here in Arizona, we have some unique circumstances. Our voter ID laws are among the most restrictive in the nation. Voter intimidation is rampant. Polling staff is poorly trained, and the poorly-run polling locations have changed addresses from 2011 to 2012 to 2013, and I would not be a bit surprised to see changes in 2014 as well. Our demographics are rapidly shifting; the population itself is transitory. In Maricopa County as of November 1st, Republican precinct committeemen outnumber Democratic PCs almost five to one despite Republicans only accounting for six percent more of the electorate than Democrats - and only 36% of the total. We are not truly a red state. There is just a very large, very old Republican machine, and a very small, very young Democratic one.
To that end, in order to do things like rebuild Arizona's education system, ensure equality under the law, and make Arizona a place where hardworking men and women can live and dream again, we Democrats have had to set fire to the old ways. We simply cannot continue on the way we have in years past. Republican leadership has run Arizona into the ground. We Democrats owe it to the voters, to our friends, and to our families, to take to the streets and fight for our cities ,towns, and ultimately, our state- and fight we do. We raise money. We knock on doors. We make phone calls. And yes, we collect ballots.
Let's be clear about a few things. A man profits nothing if he gains the world and loses his soul. I have trained volunteers to collect ballots. I have sat with scores of other Democratic organizers who have trained legions of volunteers across the county to collect ballots. Our training went something like this: “In order for the ballot to be counted, it must be completed by the voter, it must be in the envelope, and that envelope must be signed and sealed by the voter.” We emphasize this in no small part because the signatures on those envelopes are checked against voter records, and if they aren't in order when they arrive, the Recorder will throw them out. More to the point: even if the voter says they're voting a straight Republican ticket, when they hand over that ballot to a Democratic volunteer, it gets taken and put with the rest of the ballots and off to the Recorder it goes. Anything else is voter suppression and we Democrats will not stand for it. We do not cheat. (It is worth noting that Republicans have always been permitted under state law to engage in the same behavior, and the Maricopa County Republican Committee likewise instructs its PCs to assist voters in "properly" completing their ballots. In this regard, I have no reason to believe they cheat, either. Even if I did, without proof it is a libelous allegation to make, and I'll not stoop to that level.)
However, Republicans seem to believe that Democrats bang down random doors or that we only show up at homes for shut-ins. Perhaps they have to take a flying shot in the dark on who they talk to because their data tools are botched, but ours are not. We Democrats don't have the resources to be sloppy and thus, we aren't. We have figured out the people we need to talk to - and those we don't. There is no purpose in wasting my time trying to convince a Doug MacEachern that Democrats are not the spawn of Satan when I can instead spend that time convincing an average voter that if they want change from what Republicans have done to Arizona maybe they should give the Democrats a try.
It is an insult to the elderly, to the homebound, and to all such disadvantaged voters to pretend they are so feeble-minded that they vote Democratic because some scruffy hipster college kid volunteer conned them out of their ballot. Reality is you have folks who don't trust the mail. Reality is you have folks who are afraid to show up at the polls due to our Sheriff’s habit of patrolling them. Reality is, frankly, voters will seal their ballot up and hand it over just to get Democratic volunteers to stop showing up on the doorstep asking if they’ve voted yet. Nobody's going to vote for the bastard cutting food stamps in order to pay himself farm subsidies because a volunteer banged on his door one time too many - but on the flip side of that door you could maybe convince them to vote for the Democrat promising a jobs bill if you knock just one more time.
The real insult to intelligence is in pretending that HB2305 actually puts an end to ballot collection: it does no such thing. Yes, HB2305 forbids voters from allowing any paid or volunteer worker of any political committee to carry their ballot in for them. However, the law explicitly states that precinct committeemen are "not presumed to be acting on behalf of a political committee unless an agent of the political committee or party has directed precinct committeemen to collect or return early ballots." Republicans carved a precinct committeeman sized loophole in HB2305, and then instructed their precinct committeemen to go find out who hasn't yet voted and get them to vote. HB2305 effectively leaves intact Republicans’ ability to collect ballots, since they aren't explicitly instructed to “collect ballots” in those words. But every PC knows that every PC in every party in Arizona can collect ballots. So let's knock off the sanctimonious "election integrity" bafflegab. Republicans have 3,356 precinct committeemen in Maricopa County. Democrats have 708. Republicans organize with their PCs, Democrats organize with volunteers and coalition partners. The law is not written to end ballot collection in general. It is written to end it for everyone except the Republicans and their PCs.
The law doesn't ensure better elections - it ensures redder elections. HB2305 changes the signature count numbers to benefit Republicans - and destroy third parties. HB2305 changes the petition requirements to stop angry voters from rebuking their Republican legislature at the polls. HB2305’s mail-in ballot purges are designed not to tighten the system, but to winnow the rolls and cull the Democratic voters. HB2305 makes no effort to use electronic records and reduce the number of provisional ballots like the City of Phoenix’s system does. HB2305 does not enhance oversight for the ballot verification process. HB2305 is a GOP wish list of “things that need to go” because they hack at Republicans’ absolute control of this state – things Republicans will need to stop before they lose everything.
The response to HB2305? It was an unprecedented signature drive to collect tens of thousands more signatures than were needed from every single county in the state. I am proud to have been part of the coalition that made that possible. I touched every part of the process. I have held the future of our state in my hands. Is this a higher passion? Perhaps. We are, after all, ensuring the longevity of third-parties, who are never going to vote for us. But moreover, we have chosen not to go silently, but to rage against injustice, to burn for all we are against the darkness.
So let MacEachern libel my good name, enrage me though it may. Let him, or any of his ilk, or any benighted elected official attempt to salvage any part of this effort and defy the will of the voter. I'm tired of being asked how I manage to live here. I'm tired of having the worst schools in the nation. I'm tired of being the poster child for hateful legislation. We Democrats will overcome all of that. Together, we will build a better Arizona.
If that is a moral crusade, by God, let us make war.
Fight on, Dems.