The Elections --

How Did We Do?

(723 words)

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An amazing amount of effort fueled the KPFA Local Advisory Board elections with a broad base of support coming from the LAB, the listeners and the staff. Let's take a bird's eye view of what it took to make the elections happen.

This process began more than a year ago as people stepped forward with proposals on how to save KPFA from being destroyed by the Pacifica National Board. An early insight into the problems with the Pacifica governing structure was that democratization was necessary for stations to maintain their integrity and to return Pacifica to its mission. In October, 1999, Californians for PR (proportional representation) submitted 4 election proposals to the listener group, Committee for a democratic Pacifica. A dialogue began with representatives from different groups, selecting from the proposals a process of choice voting with add-ones. In February, 2000, the election proposal was presented to the LAB who formed an Election Project committee who would spend 160 hours drafting election rules.

In May, 2000, the Election Project Committee presented their proposal to the LAB who approved it with two amendments. An Election Coordinator was appointed to put together an Election Committee. The Committee selected a loose structure of teams but this structure proved to be ineffective. The Election Committee then decided to hold bi-weekly meetings, later becoming weekly, from June through October to coordinate the process (500 hours of meetings). A small core group worked outside the meetings for two months (4 people at 20 hours per week for a total of 600 hours).

Throughout the summer, many programmers gave air time to announcements for voter registration, nominations, voting and candidate interviews and statements. Voter registration and the nomination period were extended when time constraints became apparent. With candidates nominated and ballots sent out, the committee then fielded problems with ballots while putting extensive effort into promoting the candidates. The last paper ballots were collected at the station at midnight October 31. After the voting period closed, 40 plus volunteers gathered for two evenings, November 1 and 2, to enter the data into a computer program that then analyzed the 5534 ballots received in a few short seconds.

So many people throughout the listening area were committed to seeing the LAB become an elected body that finding volunteers was one of the easier parts of coordinating the election process. But no one anticipated how difficult it would be to communicate and coordinate the process. The complexities of preference voting were not adequately described to the voters while it took enormous effort to give equal access and exposure to the 26 candidates who ran. Time constraints and the burden of handling all the minute decisions that had to be made took their toll as the core workers extended themselves over and over, in a pressure cooker atmosphere. And, in the end, there was some disappointment that many listeners did not participate (25% did) and that there was not enough air-time devoted to adequately cover the candidates.

Diversity preferences allowed two men of color to be elected over the plurality of votes received by two men not of color. Enough women were elected without applying diversity criteria. Interestingly, the proportion of people of color elected before diversity preferences were applied (26% or 3 of 11) was equal to the number running (7 of 26). This points to the need of involving more people of color in the electoral process. Eleven newly elected LAB members were installed on November 15, eagerly stepping into their new positions. The staff will add their new members and there will be a joint celebration on December 13.

Some glaring and many minor problems have become apparent. More effort needs to be made to educate the KPFA community about the democratization process. Better, more complete explanations of the complex process of preferential voting need to be given. The ballots should have names randomly placed to eliminate the bias of people marking their choices in order of appearance. But we have succeeded in supporting and creating an electoral process, imperfect and as difficult as it was, that has chosen a LAB committed to reaching out into the community to bring listeners and the station to work together in keeping KPFA a vital link in our lives. This deserves congratulations and thanks to the many who have made this moment possible.

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