Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Political Participation
PROPOSAL TO DELETE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION SECTION
We propose to delete the 2004 Political Participation Section of the Democracy Chapter."
Relevant policy positions were included in the 2010 GPUS Platform Amendment Proposal to the Political Reform Section.
For more information, contact Marnie Glickman at marnie@greenchange.org.
ORIGINAL 2004 TEXT OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
Greens advocate direct democracy as a response to local needs and issues, where all concerned citizens can discuss and decide questions that immediately affect their lives, such as land use, parks, schools and community services. We would decentralize many state functions to the county and city level and seek expanded oversight and decision-making power of local governing odies, such as neighborhood boards and associations, over issues that pertain to their jurisdiction.
1. To ensure transparency in government, lesser bodies such as neighborhood boards and county governments must have subpoena power over state governments, which, in turn, should have subpoena power over the national Congress.
2. Every jurisdiction should have a civilian complaint review board with subpoena power and the ability to order the dismissal of police officers who make false arrests and abuse those whom they arrest.
3. We call for more flexibility by states for local decision-making.
4. We advocate citizen rights to initiative, referendum and recall in all states. We believe that these tools of democracy should not be for sale to the wealthy who pay for signatures to buy their way onto the ballot. Therefore we call for a certain percentage of signatures gathered to come from volunteer collectors.
5. We call for citizen control of redistricting processes and moving the “backroom” apportionment process into the public light. Give the 10-year redistricting process to the Census Bureau or an independent agency. Minority representation must be protected and secured in order to protect minority rights.
6. We will act to broaden voter participation and ballot access. We advocate universal voter registration and an election day holiday and/or conducting elections over more than one day (say on a weekend).
7. We believe that a binding None of the Above option on the ballot should be considered.
8. We support statehood for the District of Columbia. The residents of D.C. must have the same rights and representation as all other U.S. citizens.
9. We advocate that all persons convicted of felonies shall regain full citizenship rights upon completion of their sentence, including the right to vote and to run for elected office.
10. We advocate that prisoners be granted the right to vote. [See section H.Prison Conditions on page 35 in chapter II]
11. Individual participation in the life of our local community – in community projects and through personal, meaningful, voluntary activity – is also political and vital to the health of community.
12. We support citizen involvement at all levels of the decision-making process and hold that non-violent direct action can be an effective tool.
13. We advocate maintaining and enhancing federal guarantees in the areas of civil rights protections, environmental safeguards, and social “safety net” entitlements.
14. We demand re-enforcement of our civil liberties of speech, assembly, association and petition. Citizens may not be denied the right to public, non-violent protest. Citizens who engage in protest may not be intimidated by government surveillance, repression or retaliation.
15. We call for the implementation of Children’s Parliaments, whereby representatives are elected by students to discuss, debate and make proposals to their city councils, school boards, county legislative bodies on a local level, to state legislatures statewide, and to Congress nationally.
16. As legislatures are updating voting equipment in response to the federal Helping America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2001, we support the growing movement of citizens calling for a strict requirement of a voter-verified paper audit trail for all voting machines installed across the United States. Electronic voting machines must include a verifiable paper trail that allows every voter to verify that his or her vote was recorded and counted accurately, coupled with random audits based on the paper trail. Technology must be used that incorporates a voter-verified paper trail that is accessible to vision-impaired voters.
17. Vote-counting software codes manufactured by private corporations have been deemed proprietary, banning public review of the means by which elections are determined. Therefore, to protect against fraud, voting machine source code must be open for public inspection and verification before and after an election.
