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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 22

I think "not counted" (as they put it) isn't a fair categorization when it was more about upgrades. However I disagree with their assertion that it would've fundamentally changed the results of the convention

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 22

Here’s what I’ll say: I didn’t build the system, I stepped in to tabulate. Do I think the original system was over promised given the tech stack? Yes. Do I think upgrades weren’t happening perfectly at credentials? Yes.
But the body was given multiple opportunities to redo a ballot. They declined.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 18

I said it on the other site so I’ll say it here too- Sorry I didn’t consider when making a friend at age 15 that we may both someday move to Minneapolis and separately get involved in politics!
Guess I’ll try it Dawyn’s way: having no friends at all

taylr @taylordahlin.com · Aug 17

forsyth disputes minneapolis DFL's characterization of their observer, says he filed a challenge.

forsyth is complaining maddie love is friends with fateh supporters who are "critics of the mayor"

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

Basically!

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

Not necessarily, you'd just have to build in the logic. Like another user said, the true time suck would be building out the UI and nailing down all the logic/rules for upgrades

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

That’s democracy though, people vote for their own interests. It’s what we’ve all agreed to in the rules ahead of time.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

Those “spoiled” ballots also could’ve been observers who had a blank ballot code because they weren’t actually delegates. Elections often have thin margins, you recount and accept the results.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

You can’t control spoiling ballots though. It happens at every convention because people don’t follow directions. I think that is the least fair pool to draw from because in this case it’s defined by an incorrect ballot code.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

They didn’t start upgrading alternates until after the initial report from what I saw. So it seems very possible that 50 delegates left and 90 alternates were upgraded. I get the urge to nitpick individual numbers, but that’s why it seems important the body was given the choice to redo and said no

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

The alternate only vote pool had very similar vote margins to the delegate only pool, so there would have to be some very lucky upgrades (i.e all of one campaigns supporters upgraded and none from another) to change the results

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

I can understand that, which is exactly why I made the thread to bring some transparency. Immediately after I offered to review upgrades with the DFL and still would. However statistically, looking at alternate votes) it’s incredibly unlikely to substantively change results.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

I can’t speak to that since I was uninvolved in the creation. However when I sat there for a few hours trying to help her fix it, all our discussions were results related. Credentials was asking alts to go out to registration to be upgraded the old fashioned way throughout the day prior.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

They were instructed to! Normally, alternates have to constantly check-in at a desk to see if they're eligible to be upgraded. The Minneapolis DFL instead chose to have all delegates and alternates vote and do the upgrading on the back end via credentials committee, then only count the votes of dels

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

It was the system- no wait, the counting- no wait, the upgrades- no wait now it's been too long- no wait....
I will sit here all day and defend democracy and math. They can tire themselves out.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

Off the cuff: If you have movement technologists and not a company build something user friendly that would handle registration, auto-upgrades, and voting, you're probably looking at $5-7k to build and then either support costs or volunteer upkeep.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

Unrelated but if anyone wants to fund building a real electronic system for convention balloting that DFL units can use, hmu 😂

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

this has been changed :) thank you for flagging!

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

And for the final thing I will say about this:
The only way Frey would've come out ahead of Fateh is if every single one of his alternates were upgraded (not including spoiled ballots) and NONE of his challengers' were #math

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

You can read the full statement I submitted to the Minneapolis DFL and State DFL immediately after the convention here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Minneapolis DFL Statement

Hello, My name is Maddie Love, I'm a DFLer who has been involved in the party since 2018 and has spent the last half a decade working in political data. I currently work as the Data Director at the M...

docs.google.com

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

Ultimately I stand by the integrity and analysis of everything I did. I have half a decade of experience in political and labor data. It would be a dangerous and anti-democratic precedent to set if the state party were to overturn the will of the delegates.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

This immediately changed once I displayed preliminary results to campaigns. Suddenly the Frey team began arguing that the results shouldn’t even be SHOWN to the delegates. They “disagreed” with it. You don’t get to block democracy from happening just bc you don’t like the results

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

After the first ballot, the Frey staffer at the teller booth actively collaborated with me to get the formulas fixed. I verbalized my approach to the campaigns that were present and they were all in support.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

3) Frey’s campaign was on board with the system and me stepping in to help tally the votes - UNTIL they saw the results.The voting system was reviewed ahead of time SEVERAL times by the DFL in meetings with campaigns. They raised no objections, to my knowledge.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

That’s why I prefer a SQL approach for analysis vs spreadsheets, which is what we pivoted to and were able to calculate results in about 30-45 minutes after I was allowed to make that switch.

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Maddie Love @maddielove.bsky.social · Aug 1

The head teller had built a spreadsheet to do all of this. I hadn’t seen the spreadsheet before that day, so I’m not sure what her intended approach was, but all the formulas were breaking. If you’ve ever used Excel for complex work, you know that this happens often and easily.

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