Members of the DSA on the Ballot Delivery page of the DSA website.
Circling the News ran some protesting tips from DSA, Democratic Socialists of America in its October 19 musings.
One reader wrote, “Stop endorsing DSA please. They have destroyed our city.”
Rest assured that CTN was not promoting DSA, rather, this editor was amused by the complexity of the suggestions given to people who were attending major protests for DSA.
Los Angeles residents only have to look to the protests last week at City Hall, to understand the social unrest is influencing the government.
For example, protesters were advised to turn-off geo-location devices in cell phones or to use a burner phone.
Other tips included: since some of the demonstrations were about police violence against people of color, that lighter-skinned members of DSA-LA should follow the lead of members (in other words let other people be photographed or televised – it doesn’t help the cause to have a Caucasian at the front of the group).
This editor printed the suggestions, because I felt readers should understand that this is a well-organized group that wants to control the narrative in the media and government. Residents should be aware of DSA, especially if they are considering voting for someone endorsed by the DSA.
In April, the Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed opposition to “labor organizer Hugo Soto-Martinez, a candidate backed by the Democratic Socialist Party’s (DSA) Los Angeles chapter, for endorsing anti-Israel measures in his DSA questionnaire.”
According to the story, DSA expects its candidates to endorse B.D.S. (Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and to commit that they will not travel to Israel.
Soto-Martinez is running against Mitch O’Farrell.
The SWC does not endorse candidates, but “But when someone seeking to election to a post where he would be impacting on all citizens of Los Angeles, endorses extremist anti-peace boycotts of the Jewish State, we must protest,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC Associate Dean and Director of its Global Social Action.
CTN sent an email to the SWC to ask if any of the other candidates endorsed by DSA, such as Kenneth Mejia or Erin Darling had expressed similar views in a DSA questionnaire. A response had not been received, but if it is story will be updated.
DSA logo
BALLOT HARVESTING:
Additionally on the DSA website (dsa-la.org/elections/how-to-ballot-delivery), it explains how to ballot harvest (printed below), which is renamed “Ballot Delivery.” Ballot harvesting is legal in California.
How To: Ballot Delivery
- Confirm strong candidate support
- If voting for other candidate, thank them and move on.
- “Have you received your ballot already?”
- Great, Will you find it?
- Will you vote now?
- Ask at least 3 times.
- “X candidate is in line with all the values in our voter guide and we need your help to change this city”
- “I want to make sure that your ballot doesn’t get lost in the mail or in the city bureaucracy. If we fill it out together right now, there’s an official place to sign it over to me and I can bring it to the city directly either today or first thing tomorrow morning.”
- Once you have successfully filled out the ballot using our voter guide, please ensure you place all of the ballot pages in the envelope provided.
- Have the voter fill out the red box on the right side with their signature, date and the voter’s address. YOU will fill out the top portion with your signature, name and under relationship to the voter write “Volunteer”
Once you’ve collected the ballot:
Congratulations! We are one step closer to ensuring we change LA for the better!
- If you are canvassing with DSA-LA, take the sealed and filled out envelope and leave it with the lead(s) at the end of your canvassing shift.
- If you collected it on your own or with a different non-DSA-LA sponsored canvass, please drop off at your nearest post office or nearest ballot box: (and a link to the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Ballot Drop Box locations was provided).
You may not be intending to promote demonstrations and ballot harvesting; but that is what you are doing. Inadvertently or not. That is what giving them publicity does.
Wish you could refrain from poisoning your important local publication with selective political posting intended to inflame political division. Not a supporter of the DSA or Marjorie Taylor Green.
are there not voter intimidation laws to prevent someone from pressuring you to fill out a ballot?