Nathan Willis

The Thing is

Nathan Willis at

Had a conversation with a friend about those election-process issues I brought up and how vulnerable they are and how progressives have historically resisted the temptation to try and "game" them for their own advantage while the Republicans have done it with glee.

The obvious conclusion is "we, yes literally we (and yes literally literally)" ought to start running for local office to try and shift the playing field.

The thing about that plan is, though, that to get involved with the political system means you'll have to spend lots of time with people who enjoy politics and want to talk about politics and think about politics and want to be politicians. And holy cow is that an unappealing prospect of the first order.

Christopher Allan Webber likes this.

Or maybe not local office, but even election commissions and so on.

Nathan Willis at 2016-11-11T16:39:13Z

The county boards of election are fun in Ohio. They're staffed by members of the two parties that took the top two slots in the last gubernatorial race. That's normally the Republicans and the Democrats although the Greens almost bounced out the Democrats due to Ed Fitzgerald being such a horrible Democrat candidate in the 2014 gubernatorial.

Typically you have to be recommended by the county party's central committee to the Ohio Secretary of State to fill any vacancy on the board. That means that you have to be involved in the local party itself and generally be a member of the local central committee. Those only get re-staffed every 2-4 years depending upon the party and generally people run for them unopposed. I cannot run for those slots for so long as I remain a federal civil servant due to Hatch Act prohibitions especially considering the nasty yet horrible agency I work for.

Structure in other states will differ. I am a former poll judge. That had to go on hold, too, for so long as I remain a federal civil servant. Once I am not a civil servant I can be reappointed relatively quickly as a poll judge.

Stephen Michael Kellat at 2016-11-11T20:20:44Z