October Johnson County Democrats

October Johnson County Democrats

It's a week early but we're at the "October" Johnson County Dems meeting stuffing envelopes. Me moved it up a week to get the mailing together for the October 24 BBQ in Hills. Our guests of honor, it says here, are Congressman Loebsack, new state rep Curt Hanson, US Senate candidates Bob Krause and Tom Fiegen, and Sec of Ag candidate Francis Thicke.

We start by remembering Larry.

Pete D'Alessandro and Jesse Harris are representing for the governor. We're getting the band back together. "We're up against some pretty significant folks who want to turn the clock back on us," says Pete. "They (GOP) talk abut me, we talk about we." Jesse talks details and my beret slipped off for that part.

Sue Dvorsky plugs the IDP web site Iowa Knows Better which had lotsa good stuff about the GOP governor candidates. ("Good" from a Dem's perspective, natch)

The Yoda of Voting Equipment, Doug Jones, discusses his paper Early Requirements for Mechanical Voting Systems (pdfan "The average UK voter casts as many votes in a lifetime as an American casts in one election" (how many of YOU get through all the judges?) We get the history of serial numbering ballots in the UK and why that doesn't fly here.

We're at our usual spot, the school district building, where the wifi gives me:

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This site is blocked by the SonicWALL Content Filter Service.

URL: http://facebook.com/

Reason for restriction: Forbidden Category "Personals and Dating"

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But Twitter apparantly is okee. Anyway we get a lot of interesting trivia while everybody stuffs envelopes. Everyone except me; I'm telling you all about it instead. "Elections should satisfy the least educated supporter of the losing candidate that they lost fair and square," says Doug.

"I'm not impressed with the move toward monopoly" in voting equipment, he concludes.

"I think the best system available today is optical sense scanning" he says when asked. He specifies the ES&S M100 which is what Johnson County has.

Our only elected official is Bob Dvorsky; a lot of folks are still at Larry's service. No city candidates.

Jean Falk talks BBQ details, Ed Flaherty rallies the troops. Robin Roseman talks parade details. I offer the second half of the database report (the rest of the mailing labels.)

We decide to apply to hold the 2nd CD convention next year. And we adjourn.