Political Activity

Jack Waugh

There is an organization calling itself a "Movement for a People's Party" (MPP). Everything I have found out about it to date is consistent with a model that the founders of it established for the interim a national organizational structure using a top-down method, but that they intend that once parties are formed State by State, those will be able to form a federation or a confederation or a coalition for the national level, and establish democracy or democratic representation internal to that, or will be able to convert the existing national organization into such a democratic or representative organization for the State-level People's Parties.

I presented to this existing structure, myself as a Virginia resident interested in collaborating in the work toward the formation of a People's Party for Virginia and toward gaining recognition for such party as a political party under Virginia law.

There has been a call via the Zoom online conferencing service or similar, where a few people presented themselves similarly. The participants in the call agreed to return to a call among themselves every other week. The call was set up and run by a person from the top-down structure, apparently a Florida resident. This "regional coordinator" has allowed me onto a Slack account for the state parties and that account has an area for Virginia (and I assume there is an area for each State). This person said that we on the call were not the only ones who had expressed interest in the party from Virginia. I suppose we shall learn how to get in touch with the others. If there is any honesty and straightforwardness in this operation, we shall learn that.

To date, I am the only Virgina adherent to have posted in the area on Slack.

I posted a request for agreement from the other Virginia adherents for the following points:

Because we abhor terrorism and international aggression, and because we support the dignity of all human beings regardless of the circumstances of their birth, we find the existence of a Virginia-Israel Advisory Board to be anathema.
Because we want to establish equal representation for all who have the right to vote in Virginia, and because we fear that the current system of "one dollar, one vote" will not lead to any mitigation of the existential risks stemming from global heating and other types of pollution and resource depletion, we will work toward changing the voting laws in such a way that when Virginia residents vote in single-winner elections, they will have the use of a voting system chosen for its (reasonably to be expected) resistance to spoiler and/or vote-splitting effects.
To the degree that we shall have power over the platform of the national People's Party, we undertake to exercise that power toward adjusting the national platform's voting-system plank to accord with the above, and no longer to exclude rated-choice voting, in the case of single-winner elections.
We advocacte for change to the Virginia laws regarding political parties, to remove the privilege of parties to put a name on an election ballot. The legal requirements for a ballot line should be the same for all candidates regardless of their party affiliation or lack thereof, and regardless of whether they received a nomination or endorsement from a party. Similarly for having write-in votes counted; any laws specifying or restricting that should not mention party. However, not from anything herein do we intend that candidates who do gain ballot lines should be prohibited from having up to three party affiliations listed by their names.

Jack Waugh

Update: I was kicked out of Movement for a People's Party and its Vriginia branch without trial or chance to respond.

rob

@jack-waugh What happened?