Colleagues -
Hope you are all well, and recovering from the election.
Now that you (hopefully) have a few minutes, please take a minute to let us know what you know about Ballot Base.
If you remember, last week, I asked . . .
Can anyone tell me what happened to Ballot Base?
From what I understand, Shane Cory took it down. Did he do so at the direction of this body? Our Chair? Did he delete it? Or do we still have it?
We have several states who lost their entire databases, we lost a lot of money, and a great tool . . . I've been wondering about it since DC, several activists have asked me about it, and below my sig is an eMail exchange I found . . . since this post originally, I've since been told that the Barr campaign used Ballot Base (renamed Liberty Manager?).
It is important to know (for me, and for our members and affiliates) what happened. Since this is the budget meeting, how many more projects are we going to *waste* their money on? Without a reasonable explanation? (Apparently no explanation!)
We have a fairly poor reputation amongst many of the activists, and we need to fix that, IMNHO. We *must* have activists - they are the lifeblood of this movement, and the party. Without activists, there is no party.
And FYI, here's a good, quick analysis of this year's results . . .
> 2008 (Barr) 0.4% (45 states)
> 2004 (Badnarik) 0.3% (48 states plus DC)
> 2000 (Browne) 0.4% (49 states plus DC, plus Smith in Arizona)
> 1996 (Browne) 0.5% (50 states plus DC)
> 1992 (Marrou) 0.3% (50 states plus DC)
> 1988 (Paul) 0.5% (46 states plus DC)
> 1984 (Bergland) 0.3% (39 states)
> 1980 (Clark) 1.1% (50 states plus DC)
> 1976 (MacBride) 0.2% (32 states)
> 1972 (Hospers) statistically insignificant (2 states)
Have a gentle day, y'all . . . :o)
--
In Liberty,
Rachel Hawkridge
Libertarian National Committee
Region 7 Representative
Office Hours: Wednesdays 10-2 - come by, have coffee! Bring your own milk for latte (I don't keep it.)
206.792.9840
206.769.2492 cel
www.LNCRegion7.blogspot.com
An eMail list exchange . . .
Person 1> > The LNC's BallotBase voter contact tool (promised to LP
Presidential candidates in time for those primaries) crashed in
mid-December and has not been in operation since.
Person 2> Please elaborate, because I had heard similar rumors elsewhere.
> Are you saying that BB was not used for ANY calls Jan 8 in NH?
Person 1 said . . .
Ballot Base, which could have been a tool that activists
could have used to advocate with Libertarians and voters for their
candidates, if it worked, went down on December 15. The complete
caller log is available (at least at the moment) on the site.
BallotBase has not been up since. I did call the National Director,
some days ago, to discuss the matter. To his great frustration, it
has not been up since December 15.
According to its own records, and according to the National Office,
BallotBase has not been up since December 15, so it should not have
been possible to use it for calls on January 8.
Hope you are all well, and recovering from the election.
Now that you (hopefully) have a few minutes, please take a minute to let us know what you know about Ballot Base.
If you remember, last week, I asked . . .
Can anyone tell me what happened to Ballot Base?
From what I understand, Shane Cory took it down. Did he do so at the direction of this body? Our Chair? Did he delete it? Or do we still have it?
We have several states who lost their entire databases, we lost a lot of money, and a great tool . . . I've been wondering about it since DC, several activists have asked me about it, and below my sig is an eMail exchange I found . . . since this post originally, I've since been told that the Barr campaign used Ballot Base (renamed Liberty Manager?).
It is important to know (for me, and for our members and affiliates) what happened. Since this is the budget meeting, how many more projects are we going to *waste* their money on? Without a reasonable explanation? (Apparently no explanation!)
We have a fairly poor reputation amongst many of the activists, and we need to fix that, IMNHO. We *must* have activists - they are the lifeblood of this movement, and the party. Without activists, there is no party.
And FYI, here's a good, quick analysis of this year's results . . .
> 2008 (Barr) 0.4% (45 states)
> 2004 (Badnarik) 0.3% (48 states plus DC)
> 2000 (Browne) 0.4% (49 states plus DC, plus Smith in Arizona)
> 1996 (Browne) 0.5% (50 states plus DC)
> 1992 (Marrou) 0.3% (50 states plus DC)
> 1988 (Paul) 0.5% (46 states plus DC)
> 1984 (Bergland) 0.3% (39 states)
> 1980 (Clark) 1.1% (50 states plus DC)
> 1976 (MacBride) 0.2% (32 states)
> 1972 (Hospers) statistically insignificant (2 states)
Have a gentle day, y'all . . . :o)
--
In Liberty,
Rachel Hawkridge
Libertarian National Committee
Region 7 Representative
Office Hours: Wednesdays 10-2 - come by, have coffee! Bring your own milk for latte (I don't keep it.)
206.792.9840
206.769.2492 cel
www.LNCRegion7.blogspot.com
An eMail list exchange . . .
Person 1> > The LNC's BallotBase voter contact tool (promised to LP
Presidential candidates in time for those primaries) crashed in
mid-December and has not been in operation since.
Person 2> Please elaborate, because I had heard similar rumors elsewhere.
> Are you saying that BB was not used for ANY calls Jan 8 in NH?
Person 1 said . . .
Ballot Base, which could have been a tool that activists
could have used to advocate with Libertarians and voters for their
candidates, if it worked, went down on December 15. The complete
caller log is available (at least at the moment) on the site.
BallotBase has not been up since. I did call the National Director,
some days ago, to discuss the matter. To his great frustration, it
has not been up since December 15.
According to its own records, and according to the National Office,
BallotBase has not been up since December 15, so it should not have
been possible to use it for calls on January 8.
2 comments:
Is there any further information about the nature of the problems that caused it to "crash"? What is meant in this case by "crash"?
I discussed this question with Stuart Flood. He stated to me that BallotBase as implemented, with available hardware, was unable to handle the flood of Ron Paul supporters who tried to use it, and that *he had warned the LNC, prior to its vote to offer use of BallotBase to the Ron Paul campaign, that BallotBase could not deliver what they were proposing.*
Furthermore, there had been a simultaneous offer from the LNC to allow Libertarian Presidential campaigns to make use of BallotBase, which promise was never kept. Flood stated to me that he had specifically informed the LNC, in advance of its making the offer, that the BallotBase software as written was incapable of performing the functions that the LNC was promising its Presidential candidates.
I therefore see no reason to blame the BalllotBase designer for these difficulties. Despite being told, based on Mr. Flood's description, that BallotBase was incapable of doing what would be promised, the LNC still made the offers.
Many Libertarians view the effort to use LNC, Inc resources to support the Ron Paul campaign a violation pf the statement of principles, namely that it was theft of resources given to the party to advance Libertarian candidates, and an act of fraud against party donors.
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