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for an organization as obsessed with electoralism as DSA is, it's weird how much our national political committee seems to hate actually voting on the measures put before them.
of the 28 NPC measures for which roll call votes were released, the average participation rate was 65% - 10.5 votes per measure (quorum is 9).
data represents only votes taken between regular meetings on loomio, where voting is as simple as clicking.
data represents only votes taken between regular meetings on loomio, where voting is as simple as clicking.
if you separate the 28 NPC measures in the data into electoral endorsements (16) and other matters (12), the participation averages are 71% and 56%, respectively. NPC members ella, ajmal, chris m, and michelle voted on under 50% of "other" but over 85% of electoral measures.
*note that for engagement % by measure, i've reduced the denominator in the engagement figure by 1 - on one measure, chris riddiough voted twice. i'm told that her account somehow registered on loomio in duplicate, causing an incorrect total count in the denominator on all votes.
the overall participation numbers are dragged down significantly by jeremy gong, who voted on exactly two things - the nixon endorsement (yes) and a slate of "other NEC recommendations" for endorsement (also yes), both of which were in mid-august of this year.
endorsing the prison strike? gong has no opinion, i guess. endorsing my chapter's statement on the anniversary of the white supremacist terrorist attack of august 12th? can't be bothered! supporting the dream act? too busy to click, maybe.
actual abstentions can be entered, but seem to be rare. what we're seeing here is lack of engagement. is it apathy? fear of reprisal? (unlikely, as they had no reason to believe at the time that these votes would be published & things like meeting minutes are uncontroversial)
on some measures, such as those to release NPC meeting minutes (and, oddly, the decision to endorse AOC nationally) not voting is an implied yes vote. with engagement so low, deciding which measures get tacit approval via nonvoting is a powerful influence. who makes that call?
i applaud this step toward a more transparent NPC. as our elected representatives in this organization, their votes on all matters should be visible to members. we should demand publication of roll call votes on ALL matters before the NPC, both within & outside regular meetings.
the overall lack of engagement we see in these votes and the disproportionate interest in electoral endorsements over the actual business of the organization is deeply troubling to me.
