[Lnc-business] report on Oklahoma visit

[Norm Olsen]

Hello Wes . . .

 

>>> I’m sending this info to all of you know in case you’d like more information before that meeting.

How about a report in the form specified by the policy manual:

With the assistance of staff, prepare and present ballot access reports at each

general LNC meeting in a spreadsheet form which will include:

a. The specific affiliate(s) which is intended to benefit from the effort

b. Funds allocated to the effort

c. Expenses already incurred

d. Brief description of the progress of the effort in terms of specific

statistics related to the effort

e. The specific individual(s) or organization(s) to which any funds were

disbursed and/or which use of the any LP trademark, service mark, or

logo were approved.

Norm

--

Norman T Olsen

Regional Representative, Region 1

Libertarian National Committee

7931 South Broadway, PMB 102

Littleton, CO  80122-2710

303-263-4995

 

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of Wes Benedict
Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2015 1:48 PM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Cc: Richard Winger
Subject: [Lnc-business] report on Oklahoma visit

 

 I went to Oklahoma for two reasons: first, to help with the petition drive, but second, to get a closer look so I could decide if I thought we should just shut it down. We are spending about $2,500 a week there, and we're about to double that rate, so if we are going to cut our losses and end it, the sooner the better.

My bottom line report to the LNC executive committee is that I'm confident we can ramp up our signature collection rate enough to finish the drive before the March 1 deadline, but we are going to have to exceed the $65,000 budget for Oklahoma by $15,000 to $25,000 to finish the drive.

I'm recommending we try to finish the drive, but it wouldn't be so unreasonable to end it now if that's what you decide to do. Things have gone worse than we had originally planned. 

We initially hoped that we could do this drive for $2 per signature and that we could finish it by early fall. Recent petition drives in places like Arkansas have gone well, and with stories of petitioners fighting over turf and demanding the opportunity to work for us in some places, it seemed like we might actually be exceeding the market rate for signatures in some cases.

But things have been harder than expected in Oklahoma.  On October 27, we raised the rate in Oklahoma from $2 to $2.50 per signature, and even at that higher rate, finding enough people to work has been a challenge. 

Before we started the Oklahoma drive, stalwart libertarian petitioner Andy Jacobs warned us that petition drives for initiatives in other states in the fall would be competing with us for workers and would drive up our costs, so we needed to get it done over the summer. Unfortunately, we didn't start until the end of the summer.  And while Andy did good work for us in Oklahoma for several weeks, he, as well as other petitioners, have indeed left Oklahoma for the higher paying non-Libertarian Party Petition work in other states that he warned us about. Although Andy is out of Oklahoma now, he does continue to stay interested in our progress and has been generous with suggestions for improvement. I'm sure he'd be happy to share his thoughts on our Oklahoma effort with any of you directly if you reach out to him. 

One suggestion from Andy is that we should pay more to entice petitioners back and possibly even pay $5 per signature for door to door petitioning. Our petitioners have had hard times finding good locations with lots of the kind of foot traffic that makes for productive petitioning. Door-to-door petitioning can give very high validity signatures, so the $5/signature rate for 100% validity is not so far off from $2.50 per signature for around 65% validity.  

In hind sight, I wish we had started this drive earlier. But I don't think right now we need to offer a higher pay rate (not that we could afford it, anyway). Instead, we need to focus on recruiting more petitioners, and we are already seeing success from that. 

Projections I've sent to Bill Redpath and Nick Sarwark show that with the new workers we've already recruited, we will likely finish the drive on time. But we also have several more petitioners saying they will probably be here soon to help, and if just a couple of those pan out, we could finish in January. 

I've heard lots of complaints from petitioners that it's been very hard to find good locations in Oklahoma to collect signatures. Petitioners have told us the grocery stores won't let them petition, public places like universities and festival grounds have been hostile, and the Oklahoma Driver's licensing places are too numerous to have significant people at any single location. 

My uncle lives in Oklahoma City. I visited him Saturday night briefly and was surprised when he told me he had seen petitioners lately at the grocery and post office and he assumed they were ours. I asked him exactly which locations because I wondered about the conflicting reports. He specified by name the Crest grocery, Buy For Less grocery, and post office near his home. I had hoped to find time to visit those stores myself to ask why they might be letting petitioners for other efforts work there but not libertarians (assuming that was the case).  

I didn't find time for that, but LPOK vice chair Tina Kelly has since told me that even she had been personally told by those chains she couldn't petition there, only to find out later that one of the petitioners she recruited somehow did get permission at a location of both chains. 

I think some of our stalwart petitioners like Andy are used to finding locations where they occasionally hit the jackpot and collect over 500 signatures on a single day. That makes up for the more common slow days. Petitioners who come from out of town usually have transportation and motel expenses they pay out of pocket. Locals don't have the travel overhead and we are getting a few locals working. They may be slower than someone like Andy, but they can go slower and still make the economics work. Locals can spend more time asking for permission at more places and can afford to get chased away from more locations. 

I personally saw the entire batch of petition forms. That was reassuring. In fact I pulled an all-nighter Monday and scanned all 2,000 sheets in case we need help remotely with validation, and because while often hearing anecdotes of certain petitioners routinely getting better validity than others, I wanted the opportunity to see for myself. 

LP vice chair Tina Kelly has been indispensable to this drive. Petitioners turn in signatures to her, she gives us the counts, we wire funds, she writes checks, and pays the petitioners. She also visits with the elections authorities to find out important rules and procedures for our petition drive. She has worked to get cooperation from a couple single-issue groups doing ballot initiatives. Although results from those cooperation efforts have been lower than hoped, we’ve gotten a couple thousand signatures from the cooperation.  

Tina's son recently put the Oklahoma registered voter database online in a searchable format to assist with validity checking. That will be hugely helpful. 

While Tina has done lots of work, it's hard for one person to do all that she does plus respond to all the complaints from current petitioners and inquiries from prospective petitioners, not to mention answering frequent questions about progress from Bill Redpath and me. We recently decided to have Paul Frankel help with some of the local management assistance. I had gone to Oklahoma with the expectation that I might recommend removing Paul to save money, but right now I think we should keep him at least for a month to make sure new petitioners have someone they can reach quickly any time of day. Later we can reevaluate the cost of having him there. 

 Tina invited me and the LPOK officers and activists to a nice restaurant Tuesday night. I asked who would be a candidate if we got ballot access. Out of about ten people, at least 3 indicated interest, including one who was against attempting this daunting petition drive originally (because it’s so much work), but would run if we made it. 

I told the prospect who might be interested in US Senate I'd give $200 towards the $1,000 filing fee if he runs in 2016, and someone else quickly offered another $200. I think we’ll get several people to run for office in addition to having our candidate for President on the ballot if we get ballot access.

(My plane, where I'm writing most of this note, just landed in DC. Final thoughts below from the office.)

I’m not counting on legal help to make a difference in time for us. However, if our counsel or the Oklahoma ACLU is successful in time, of course that might make things easier. 

I’m also mindful of keeping alive the dream for 50 state ballot access, and the negative impact giving up in Oklahoma now might have.

A Libertarian from Austin, Texas, Michael Chastain, donated $4,000 last week to help the Oklahoma petition drive. That’s in addition to the five thousand or so we raised online recently: 

http://www.lp.org/blogs/staff/serious-help-needed-for-oklahoma-petition-drive

I rushed out to Oklahoma Saturday partly so I could be back in the office Wednesday to meet Mr. Chastain in person (he was visiting the D.C. area and was interested in visiting the headquarters today--Wednesday).

I’ll have more good news about support from Mr. Chastain soon. 

The LNC-EC is schedule to meet Monday 12/7/2015, to decide whether or not to continue the LPOK drive. I’m sending this info to all of you know in case you’d like more information before that meeting.

cc'ing Richard Winger.

-- 
Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
New address: 1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232, wes.benedict at lp.org
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at: http://lp.org/membership

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