Wisconsin Greens have voted and the results are in! In the presidential preference vote, 50% of first-round votes went to Howie Hawkins, 47% to Dario Hunter, 1.6% to David Rolde and 1.6% to none of the above. With 4 delegates available, Hawkins and Hunter win 2 delegates each. 

Barbara Dahlgren, Jo’Nathan Kingfisher, Mike McCallister, and Tiffany Anderson were chosen as delegates to the Green Party US Presidential Nominating Convention. Dave Schwab, Jennifer Kedroske, Nero Grok-Gallagher, and Monte Letourneau were chosen as alternate delegates.

A proposed WIGP bylaws amendment to lower the voting threshold from two-thirds to 60% was approved by 90% of the vote.

Thank you to the candidates who took the time to join us at our Spring Gathering to speak about the issues, and thank you to the Green Party members who participated!

Read on for a full breakdown of the results.

144 Wisconsin Green Party members were eligible to vote, and 64 members cast ballots.  We had four parts to our ballot: a ranked-choice voting method (Meek Single Transferable Vote) of presidential candidates Dario Hunter, Howie Hawkins, David Rolde, and none of the above options; a ranked choice vote for delegates which were nominated at the spring gathering; a ranked choice vote for alternate delegates which were nominated at the Spring Gathering, and a Y/N vote for a ballot question to lower our voting threshold to 60% for statewide decisions.

The election was conducted and observed by several Green Party members on the steering and elections committees led by Tom Rodman, our IT committee chair and member of the elections committee. We chose OpaVote to facilitate the election process online, and opened voting from the evening of Saturday April 18 until Tuesday April 21 at midnight.

The resulting vote counts were as follows, starting with the Green presidential nomination:  

*These numbers represent voter decisions not to rank the choice in the column.  For example, 41 people did not rank “none of the above” for any of their 4 choices, and left the option blank. 

Due to the threshold for our ranked choice vote, considering the four delegates allotted to us by the Green Party National Committee, Rolde did not meet the threshold to qualify for a portion of the delegation.  The race was very close in the first round between Hawkins (50%) and Hunter (47%), and the resulting delegation will have two delegates committed to Hawkins and two delegates committed to Hunter.

The delegates nominated were: Mike McCallister, Jo’Nathan Kingfisher, Barbara Dahlgren, and Tiffany Anderson with a “none of the above” option.  All four candidates met the threshold of 10% and were elected.  Our new delegates: McCallister, Kingfisher, Dahlgren, and Anderson shall choose, as a group, which members will represent the Hunter vote, and which will represent the Hawkins vote during the Green presidential nominating convention.

Four alternate delegates are nominated in the case that any of the delegates would be unable to carry out their duties.  The candidates who were nominated were: Nero Grok-Gallagher, Jennifer Kedroske, Dave Schwab, and Monte Letourneau.  Dave Schwab met the threshold first with 30 votes above Grok-Gallagher’s 14 votes, Kedroske’s 8 votes, and Letourneau’s 9 votes for first place.  In the consideration of voters’ 2nd choice, the remaining candidates carried 15, 12, and 11 votes respectively, and none met the threshold.  The third choice consideration put Grok-Gallagher and Kedroske at 17 each, and in consideration of the 4th choice, Kedroske took 19 votes to Grok-Gallagher’s 18.  

Finally, the Wisconsin Green Party voted to change its bylaws in order to lower its voting threshold on internal party matters.  The threshold has been two-thirds in order to pass resolutions on any issue in which the membership cannot come to a consensus.  The bylaws change would lower that to 60%.  Voters answered in the affirmative with 56 voting “yes” and 6 voting “no”, meaning the amendment passed with 90% support.  The WIGP bylaws will be changed to reflect the new passing vote percentage of 60%.

Thank you again to all who participated.  This was an historic event to have the Wisconsin Green Party votes conducted online.  We are proud to be able to practice what we preach by using ranked-choice voting methods in order to weigh in on these important decisions.  Even better, we have made this election more democratic than the last presidential race, which had fewer participants due to the challenges involved in traveling across the state during months with severe winter weather.  We strive to continually improve our voting processes in order to better represent the Green vote in Wisconsin, and to bring more voices into the critical decisions we make as a group toward a more democratic, peaceful, just, and ecologically sustainable society.

Sincerely,

Barbara Dahlgren, Wisconsin Green Party Co-Chair

Dave Schwab, Wisconsin Green Party Co-Chair

Tom Rodman, Wisconsin Green Party IT Committee Chair

Bill Breihan, Wisconsin Green Party Treasurer