MDP Botches U of M Regent Nominations

*Updated with link to the formal appeal.
*Updated with a correction to the Note on Weighted Voting.

At the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) State Convention held August 24th, 2024, the Party was unprepared and did not run the nomination for U of M Regents according to Party Rules. They instead ran the nominating process the way they’ve always run it before, a common practice in the Democratic Party that often puts Party officials at odds with new Party rules - the rules in question changed in 2018. The Huwaida campaign has issues a press release covering other issues at the Convention, not including the tabulation issues described below, and filed a formal appeal with the MDP that does includes these voting tabulation issues.

State law (MCL Section 168.282) gives the political parties the power to nominate U of M Regents - to decide who the voters are allowed to vote for, who appears on our ballots in November. Michigan law doesn’t give any further instructions governing how the parties are to hold their nominations. Consequently, under Michigan law as I understand it, the process for these nominations is determined by the Party’s rules.

I currently serve on the MDP State Central Committee (SCC), the SCC Executive Committee, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and as Chair of the MDP Progressive Caucus Rules and Bylaws Committee. I have previously served 4 years on the Washtenaw County Democratic Party Rules and Bylaws Committee, and 4 years on the State Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee.

During my first term on the State Party Rules Committee (2017 - 2019), the Committee was charged with a “line by line” review of the rules. The package of amendments that came out of the line by line review made the rules substantially clearer and significantly more democratic. Mark Miller, then Chair of MDP Congressional District 6 and long time veteran of the State Rules Committee, was kind enough to write up his views on the process and results for Michigan Progressive. Mark also Chaired, and I served on, the sub-committee that eliminated the old Directive on Proportional Voting (DPV), no longer available on the MDP website, and replaced it with the new Rules for Voting and Elections (RVE), currently available on the MDP website. Mark provided his views on the RVE here.

Under the Rules for Voting and Elections as adopted by the Party in 2018, the method used to select the nominees for the U of M Board of Regent positions is not allowed.

Specifically, there are two seats open for the U of M Board of Regents. Because the two positions available are for the same office - U of M Regent - this is a multiple-position office under MDP RVE 2.1:

multiple-position office: an office for which more than one person is to be elected.

Under the RVE, there is one and only one option for electing candidates to a multiple-position office, in this case the office of Democratic Party Nominee for U of M Board of Regents. Under the previous DPV there was a lot of confusion because many methods of voting were allowed, but not well or adequately explained in the DPV. During the line by line review, all methods other than majority voting and slate voting were removed from the rules to avoid confusion. The RVE specifies that majority voting is only used for single-position offices and slate voting is only used for multiple position offices. This was discussed extensively in the sub-committee on the DPV and adopted by the full Rules Committee and by the Party. Under the new RVE, multiple-position offices must be elected by the method of slate voting as described in the RVE 6.4 and 6.5. No other method is allowed.

The Party did not contract with their voting software supplier, VOATZ, to run an slate voting election. On the electronic ballots, the candidates were listed individually - despite the fact that two of the candidates, Illich and Diggs, were announced and widely advertised as running as the Unity Slate in the Regents’ election.

Fortunately, the voting results as reported at the Convention can be tabulated according to RVE slate voting rules and the correct result obtained. Unfortunately, the MDP did not do so. They tabulated the votes according to majority voting rules, not slate voting rules. Under majority voting tabulation, the Unity Slate won both seats. Under slate voting tabulation, the Unity Slate won 1 seat and the Huwaida Slate won 1 seat. Slate voting provides proportional representation while majority voting only gives power to the majority, silencing minority voices.

Here’s the math.

The two members of the Unity Slate, Illich and Diggs, received 2812 + 2424 = 5236 weighted votes, and the Huwaida Slate received 2313 weighted votes. The total weighted votes cast were 5236 + 2313 = 7549. For an explanation of weighted voting see the Note on Weighted Voting below. The weighted vote is the correct vote to tabulate under the RVE.

Under majority voting tabulation, the highest vote getter wins, provided they have 50% + 1 of the votes. If no one has 50% + 1 or more of the vote, the lowest vote getter is eliminated and the election re-run with the remaining candidates. Since there are only two positions available and only three candidates, the two remaining after the first elimination are the winners under majority voting. In this case, Illich and Diggs.

Under slate voting tabulation, the process is a little more complicated but clearly explained in RVE 6.4.

Rules For Voting and Elections 6.4.2:

… The votes for each slate is divided by the total number of votes for all slates to form a proportion (decimal fraction), e.g. 0.2410 rather than 24.1%. …

Illich and Diggs were announced and advertised as the Unity Slate for Regents, so we use their combined votes as the total votes for the Unity Slate.

Unity Slate: 5236 / 7549 = 0.6936

Huwaida Slate: 2313 / 7549 = 0.3064

Rule 6.4.2:

… The proportion of the total vote received by each slate is multiplied by the number of positions to be elected,...

There were 2 positions to be elected.

Unity Slate: 0.6936 x 2 = 1.3872

Huwaida Slate: 0.3064 x 2 = 0.6128

Rule 6.4.2:

… the whole number portion of each result is the number of persons elected from that slate…

The whole number portion of 1.3872 for the Unity Slate is just 1.
Therefore, the Unity Slate receives 1 position at this step of the tabulation.

The whole number portion of 0.6128 for the Huwaida Slate is 0.
Therefore, the Huwaida Slate receives 0 positions at this step of the process.

However, there is still 1 unfilled position.

Rule 6.4.2

…  If there are any unfilled positions, the slate having the largest fractional portion of the above results shall receive the first unfilled position. ….

The fractional portion of 1.3872 for the Unity Slate is 0.3872.

The fractional portion of 0.6128 for the Huwaida Slate is 0.6128.

Since 0.6128 is larger than 0.3872, the Huwaida Slate wins the 1 remaining position.

Final Result:

Unity Slate: 1
Huwaida Slate: 1
Total Positions: 2

Under MDP Party Rules, this is the result of the election.
This is not the result MDP reported to the Secretary of State.

This is a very serious issue.
Under our State law, MDP Rules govern this nominating process. Since the MDP did not follow their own rules, they are in violation of Michigan law.

With great power comes great responsibility.

The MDP should immediately review their own rules and correct their tabulation and their report to the Secretary of State.
//

For those interested: here’s the story of what happened when I first joined the MDP, and my 4 year progress report (2016 -2020), after which I was elected to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on the Solidarity Slate (also see the platform). Here’s my 2023 DNC report. I’ll write a final DNC report before the end of the year when my term ends. Some other good articles from this era include this piece on clearly distinguishing between capitalism and markets, this one on collective bargaining, and this piece on cargo cult democracy. For a summary of problems in the Democratic Party, see this press packet.

Note on Weighted Voting
The votes discussed above are not votes cast by individual voters. There were only 1248 individual voters credentialed at the convention, according to the report provided by the MDP at the beginning of the 3pm Convention session, as provided for in the Call to Convention Section 1.A.

These are the MDP equivalent of Electoral College votes. In the Electoral College, each state has a fixed number of votes in any one election cycle and these numbers change with population every 10 years with the census (as population goes up or down, the number of Electoral College votes a state gets goes up or down). In the MDP, each Michigan County has a fixed number of votes in any one election cycle, and these numbers change as the number of votes for the top of the Democratic ticket changes in each county. In presidential election cycles, the top of the ticket it the presidential candidate, in non-presidential cycles the top of the ticket is considered the Secretary of State (for some reason, see MDP Rules 6.1.2)**. For every 500 top of the Democratic ticket voters in a county, the county receives 1 SADV, or “vote”. So, for example, if say, Claire County has 2,500 voters for Benson in 2022, then Claire County gets 5 votes (technically called the County’s “State Allocation of Delegate Votes” or SADVs) in the 2024 nominating process.

No matter how many people vote in Michigan, we only get 15 votes in the Electoral College. 

No matter how many people vote in Claire County, they only get 5 “votes” (SADVs). If 1 person from Claire County is at the Convention, they cast all 5 “votes” (SADVs). If 5 people from Claire County are at the Convention, they each cast 1 “vote” (SADV). If 10 people from Claire are at the Convention, they each cast 0.5 “votes” (SADVs).

**Originally given as Governor instead of Secretary of State, we apologize for the error.