GMO Strategy: Why are you calling the election officials?

In my recent post What do we do now about GMOs?, I outlined what I think are the key beneficial actions that we can do now to protect ourselves and others from risky experimental "novel" GMO food and agricultural products.

In today's blog, I want to highlight an action that I do NOT think is a smart one to take. I'm open to hearing additional facts, but from what I see so far, it doesn't make any sense, and could even have negative impacts. 

To me, when we call others to action, we have a responsibility to make sure that the action is fact-based and strategically smart.

I also think that right now we're in a particularly powerful moment regarding the GMO issue, because so many people have had their attention drawn to it because of our recent election's California Proposition 37 (GMO labeling).

But when we call on people to take ill-considered actions, or worse follow wild goose chases, it can harm not help our mission. For instance:

• It can make our movement look incompetent and silly, undermining our credibility with people who know the facts, and compromising the quality work being done by competent people.
• It can hurt our relationship with our allies, disrupting their ability to take action for our benefit, and even making them want to reduce or withdraw their support for our cause.
• It can waste people's time and energy that could be better spent on actions that are much more likely to have a positive outcome. 
• It can dissipate people's enthusiasm so that they abandon taking action and retreat back into their individual lives.

Let's not waste this opportunity! Let's make sure the actions we do, and encourage others to do, make sense and are the best use of their time and enthusiasm.

The action I'm discussing here is the request that we phone California election officials and ask them to count all the votes. The advocates assert that this will benefit the outcome for Prop. 37. There's also an online petition making a similar request.

However, my assessment is that this will not help Prop. 37 and could hurt our larger mission. Therefore, I encourage people NOT to do or forward this action. Instead, I invite you to look at at my prior blog for smarter actions that we can all do.

OK, so let's look more at this situation.

1) What is the call to action?

I've seen two different versions:

* A post that calls on people to call their election officials and request that they count all the votes so we know the final count for Proposition 37. The message is "CALL, make sure they are counting in your county."
* A petition that makes the same request.

2) What is the actual situation with the election count?

So, this seems serious, right? Except for one problem.

** The state and its counties are already obligated to count all the ballots, and are in the process of doing so. They have one month to do so. Calling them and telling them to rush will not change that outcome or the speed. They know this is a priority. There is no evidence that they are delaying this unnecessarily. **

There's one more key point: 

** The state has not announced its final results on the vote. It is the media that has made predictions based on its assessments of the tallies so far. Those estimates are nearly always right, but they are not official. We are waiting for the official results. That is the current status.

This is how it always is. We just don't usually pay attention to these specifics, because the predictions are nearly always right. And, if you want to hold out for the final vote on Prop. 37, and remind others to do the same, that's fine. But calling the election officials isn't going to get it here any faster.

For more on this, see http://www.sos.ca.gov/admin/press-releases/2012/db12-110.pdf and http://vote.sos.ca.gov/unprocessed-ballots-status/

3)The YesOn37 Campaign is not asking us to do make these calls
One person who was pushing this action said that the YesOn37 campaign was asking us to do this. I asked her to give me a direct link to the campaign's supposed request. She offered none.

However, I did find this posted on the YesOn37 campaign site:

"As with every election, not every ballot is counted on election night and currently the California Right to Know campaign is awaiting a final vote tally from the state.//As of November 9, 2012, the vote totals are 5,152,927 NO to 4,569,271 YES.//It is rare for the outcome to be reversed when the final tallies are in, but we will continue to monitor the counting until the final results are certified.//Please continue to check back here for the updates on the latest results." http://www.carighttoknow.org/151504/vote_count 

4) OK, so why are some people calling for this?

When I asked the advocate for more information, I wasn't surprised that she directed me to this post that I'd previously read. 

http://www.naturalnews.com/037930_vote_fraud_Proposition_37_uncounted.html

I encourage anyone who reads this post to do so with a critical eye. Yes, I understand that it's passionate and has that dramatic suspicious tone that some people love.

But, first, he's not really presenting a fact-based case for any particular actions, including phoning election officials. Instead, he's just putting out his various assorted suspicions of the process, based on shadowy insinuations and assumptions. 

And if we're suspicious of the validity of the whole process, then pushing the election offices to count faster won't solve that!

The author also makes notable factual errors that would've been easy to get right. 

For instance, he says that most of the uncounted votes "must  be" electronic. 

Well, actually, the election office has said that processing has been slowed somewhat by the big increase in absentee ballots. That's because every signature in these ballots needs to be checked by hand against the records, for accuracy. 

So this again seems like lots of drama and pointed fingers but nothing of substance to warrant phoning election officials.

5) So what seems true? 

When I step back with all this, what I see is that the vote results so far seem in line with the polls before the election, which showed Prop. 37 as close and probably losing. It's great if the results turn out to be a win for Prop. 37, and I'm not holding my breath.

Now, I don't think that's what the majority of voters would've chosen in a fair factual debate. But what I think caused this (likely) loss is that big corporate dollars came in and told outright lies that convinced people to vote against Prop. 37. Thus to me, our remedies need to address that. And my remedies do.

But calling the election office and telling them to count the votes faster has nothing to do with that and thus is a waste of time. And we have much better things to do with our time!

For what I think are the priority actions right now, I invite you to read my recent blog, What do we do now about GMOs?.

Blog content (c) Copyright Patricia Dines, 2012. All rights reserved. Links are encouraged! My content is also available for reprint, but please contact me for permission first. Thanks!

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