Salem should retract the memo, as it violates Pacific Green Party rules of order.
Read decision here: https://oregongreenparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Pacific-Green-Party-Leadership-Response-1.pdf
The May 31 “Friday Decision” from the SoS sets a terrible precedent for the state to intervene in the affairs of a political party and override its bylaws and rules of order. For example, the memo claims only the secretary may communicate official business, and not SCC members who are officers of the party. This overturns PGP precedent, and asserts state authority over PGP bylaws. This cannot stand.
To avert a bad precedent, It would be best if the Secretary of State’s office retract the May 31 communication. The memo asserts the “Fillip slate” is valid and finds against what the “Chuck Fall slate” communicated. The “Fall slate’s” position is based on party bylaws, rules of procedure, and the “Filip slate’s” is based on a specious “election report” produced by Seth Wooley, and therefore has no standing.
Pacific Green Party rules of order are very clear.
The business of the party is done at convention and not by proxy, administrative fiat, or anything remotely undemocratic that isn’t blessed by the convention membership. The “elections committee” report Seth Woolley represented to the SOS was the basis for disenfranchising 39 votes. It has no standing, as the May 5th convention has spoken on this. Read on.
If there was ever an intention or even the remote possibility that the party would need to throw out 39 of 75 votes, then it is the responsibility of the convention to throw out the votes, not Seth.
Seth and Nathalie Paravicini delayed producing an “official” report for a week so that Seth could reason how to keep Dan and Lori off of the SCC. Nathalie Paravicini, explained to the Linn Benton membership at a March chapter meeting that their votes had to be thrown out to “keep Dan and Lori off of the SCC”. She admitted to electoral malfeasance, that she acted with others out of malice to skew the vote count to keep members off of their duly elected seats.
Why would Seth and Nathalie and others try to steal an election? Read here.
The false imperative for certainty gives the SOS reason to recant.
The state of Oregon is not articulated any legal imperative to take a side in the dispute between two “factions.” It is barred from doing so under ORS 248.011, and should fully explain its extraordinary behavior. However, the memo states that there is an imperative for “certainty” that overrides Oregon Law. Though the law says the state may not enforce party bylaws, period – including to determine the “leadership” of the party – the Secretary of State’s office has done precisely this, take the position of a partisan and act against another faction. The only exception is if “expressly required” by law, and the state has cited no such law. See the Pulju letter for more about that.
The memo states that the Division must “identify the PGP’s leadership in order to carry out its own legally-required responsibilities…in order to do its job the Division must know who speaks for the party. Uncertainty about the party leads to uncertainty about ballot access, and the Division must identify with certainty which candidates qualify for ballot access through the party.”
“In the absence of any agreement among the PGPO members, the Division must..make its own best determination about PGP party leadership for the purposes of determining which candidates qualify for the ballot…based on review, the Division recognizes the slate of party leaders provide by Mr. Filip on April 23, 2024.”
Though seemingly in a predicament, the state should not put expediency for “certainty” above doing what is right. The state is siding with the group that invented pretzel logic to steal an election. The state can accommodate two factions pending a resolution and adjudicate issues of contention when they come up. So far, Dan Pulju is being denied his right to claim the PGP ballot line for Treasurer as granted by the May 5th convention.
What actually happened at the February 2024 convention?
The majority of the February 24/25, 2024 convention elected Dan Pulju and Lori Burton to the State Coordinating Committee. This is a party decision; they are active officers of the party. Burton and Pulju, along with Suzia Aufderheide and Chuck Fall, now constitute a majority bloc. This bloc constitutes a quorum for doing SCC business.
The vote from the February 24/25 convention was formally accepted by the May 5th convention. The convention rejected the recount by Seth as illegal under our bylaws.
However, the SoS has accepted the names of Mary Geddry and Amy Sacks and considers them State Coordinating Committee members. But they were not elected by a majority vote at the February 24/25th convention; they got 3 and 6 votes respectively against Pulju’s 20 and Burton’s 18 in first round of voting. These were by far the last place candidates, receiving barely 10% of the vote. They were installed by a blatant cheat.
Officials of the state are obligated to exercise due diligence and care before making a decision. Otherwise they betray the public they claim to serve. If the state is going to assert authority to determine the business of a minor party, then it needs to review all the facts. That starts with learning the rules of order that govern Pacific Green Party business. The state’s reliance on the Woolley report shows it has not done this; its treatment is casual, and shows a novice understanding of our party rules and precedents.
Seth and his team concocted a false reason to throw out 39 votes; they did this in order to control and skew the results of the February convention. If this had occurred in a public electoral setting governed by Oregon law, Woolley and his team would be arrested, or sanctioned at least, for throwing out votes.
On its face, disenfranchising over half of the participants is not kosher no matter how you cut it. Woolley’s argument that attendees at the Convention were not “certified” is specious and made in bad faith; indeed, it shows malice with the stated intend to keep Pulju and Burton off of the SCC. All the disenfranchised voters were documented members, were recognized implicitly on account they registered and were screened; they were sent a ballot, and the ballot was counted, and the official result is Dan and Lori were voted onto the State Coordinating Committee.
The SOS needs to reconsider its position and consider that the “Fall slate” reports is a true and accurate record of the party’s business.
Read community news story and interviews for back story: https://wholecommunity.news/2024/06/09/after-election-dispute-2-oregon-green-party-factions-hold-separate-conventions/
What does the SOS get wrong?
The report does not acknowledge concerns from the “Fall slate” that Woolley was wrong to throw out 39 votes. That’s no a mere “irregularity,” but a red flag that something is wrong. 39 votes not counted is 39 votes illegally removed from the roster.
Moreover, the SOS report does not consider how the “Fall Slate” corrected the preposterous and highly irregular disenfranchisement of convention participants by convening the May 5th convention.
The May 5 convention established that the final Opavote at the close of the voting period for the February convention is an accurate expression of the will of the February convention.
The Secretary of State cites my May 30 memo that the “debate over officers…stems from an internal dispute over the business of the February 24/25 convention…The actual vote results from convention that Dan Pulju and Lori Burton…were elected…to the State Coordinating Committee.” This is the key fact that should give the SoS pause from taking the side of the “Flip faction;” the actual results show Lori and Dan were elected to the SCC.
It is against this result that Seth Wooley issued his preposterously specious “elections committee” report. However, for the record, this dispute in fact started almost 4 years ago in August 2020 over the Covid, and has culminated in the February convention election theft conducted by Seth and co-conspirators. This matter is about suppressing dissident perspectives.
Key mistakes and incorrect assumptions that impeach the SOS’s rationale for siding with the “Filip faction.”
The memo reasons from the premise that the “disputed results center on the decertification of the two local chapters…and the ‘election committee’s’ decision not to recognize certain other votes…According to the Fall Slate, two acts render the Filip Slate illegitimate.”
This premise is not accurate; there are multiple reasons the Filip Slate is illegitimate.” The chief illegitimacy is the “elections committee” report the SOS relies on to side with the Filip slate. The report rationalized a way to keep Dan Pulju and Lori Burton off of the SCC. This is the key issue; the decertification of chapters is smokescreen for the egregious violation of the PGP’s rules of order that elected Pulju and Burton to the SCC. The SOS’s phrasing “not to recognize certain other votes” obfuscates an egregious violation of the rules: making up a fake reason to prevent members from taking seats on the SCC.
Seth is not a reliable witness; more like the fox guarding the hen house.
2) The memo states that “on April 15 the Division reached out to the PGP secretary of record Seth Woolley asking him to confirm the leadership of the PGP in light of the dispute.” Wooley had no authority to answer that question. Justin Filip took over Secretary duties in February. By April 15th, Seth was just another member of the party, even if a former secretary.
Furthermore, anything from Seth is tainted on account he constructed a reason to keep members off of the SCC.
It is a mistake for the SOS to rely on Wooley for information about the party, given an obvious divide and his partisan position. The SOS’s office received memos in March from Suzia Aufderheide and Chuck Fall describing the dispute with a request that the SOS not any filings from Justin Filip on account of the dispute – including from Filip. Until an undisputed filing happened, the SoS had no ground to believe any change had occurred.
3) The memo contradictorily states that “Although the Fall Slate disputes the legitimacy of the Filip Slate’s election, the Division sees no clear reason to overturn the results of the Party’s convention…and the election committee’s decision not to recognize certain other votes was based on the failure of the recognized to “credential” the votes of the Supporting Member…the Fall Slate …has not raised any “procedural flaws that necessarily invalidates the Party’s convention decisions.”
This statement is inaccurate. The chief procedural flaw we have raised is that 39 ballots were thrown out so Dan and Lori would be kept off of the SCC. That has never happened before in Green Party history; there is no precedent for Seth’s claim that members were not “credentialed;” he neglects to tell the Secretary of State that only an act of the convention can remove members from a ballot and throw out their votes. Nathalie took the election management out of the purview of the convention, and put it in the hands of a rogue “elections committee” that had no authority to speak on the business of the convention.
As explained, the actual result of the February convention is that Dan and Lori were elected and the chapters were not “decertified.”
By taking the side of the Woolley / Filip / Paravacini slate in the Pacific Green Party dispute, the Secretary of State is blindly interfering in the business of the PGP and condoning corruption, like a bull in a china shop.
In review:
We convened a May 5th convention and reclaimed PGP democracy by asserting the rules of order for convention democracy; the Convention established that Lori, Dan, Suzia, and Chuck are a majority bloc in the State Coordinating Committee; and at the May convention members rendered judgement and removed Seth Wooley’s and Nathalie Paravacini’s membership and her officer position for conspiring with others to steal an election.
The Secretary of State office should not take the side of election thieves; in numerous communications we have indicated that a violation of our rules of order is at the heart of this dispute. The “elections committee” finding that 39 votes can be retroactively thrown out, outside the purview of the convention, is preposterous and is a highly “irregular” example of an electoral count that should have made the Secretary of State suspicious of what Woolley represented about why 39 votes didn’t count.
Here is a link to some back story: https://greenlibertycaucus.org/green-liberty-resolutions-seek-blessing-from-convention/
Here is a link to the March convention report: https://greenlibertycaucus.org/march-11-convention-affirms-january-21-convention-vote/
These are the Green Liberty agenda items for the February 2024 convention that triggered election theft by Nathalie and Seth: https://greenlibertycaucus.org/chapter-resolutions-february-2024-convention/