Observations by Joe Tobin, SDC Member, February 5, 2019

A month ago I was browsing through Books a Million when I passed a book that stared me in the face and entitled, American Colonies: The Settling of North America (Alan Taylor.) Being the wimp I am, I bought it. When I finished it, I realized how much detailed information the author provided about the roles of Spain, France and England in shaping of the colonization of the western hemisphere. The author focused primarily on three primary geographic sectors — North, South and Mid-Atlantic — and each of their approaches to governance, economies, religions, politics, social classes, slavery, native tribes and the environment. In short, the book was well-written, fast-moving and pleasurable to read.

A very obvious theme ran through many of the chapters: it was no easy life to be a colonist, slave or native in the seventeen and eighteen centuries. Early deaths from disease, massacres and childbirth, paying the bills, feeding families and adapting to new environments. The “one-percenters” and the ruling class were present in the colonies the divisions caused dissensions at times. It should also be noted that the sea voyages from Europe were also quite treacherous and deadly – not for the faint-hearted. Civil and human rights, particularly executions, were quite primitive by today’s standards.

By the time of the pre- and post- Revolutionary War period, a good number of colonists were familiar with the political thought coming from England, Scotland and France, the written constitutions of the colonies and the writings of such men as Jay, Madison, Jefferson and Paine. From such writings, the founding fathers inserted into the beginning of the Constitution the following statement that would be the ethical and moral standards to benefit human life in American society.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

As we all know, ideals and reality do not always mesh. The history of the United States reflects a good a dark side to it. Blood and guts goes hand in hand with generosity and prosperity. Fortunately, the provisions of the Constitution and the blood, sweat and tears of so many courageous and persistent people of the past have given us, the present generation of Americans, many social benefits.

Since the 1960s American policies and attitudes have changed drastically – civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, domestic and child abuse, working conditions, integration of the military services, the environment, health care, the disabled, and so on. Most Americans would agree that they would not want to turn the clock back to the “old days.” And we owe much to those Americans who made these changes possible.

Today, it is our turn to continue the generous spirit of the past and leave a positive legacy to the future citizenry who may include children and grandchildren. This writer also salutes the many members of the Solivita Democratic Club who have made their own contributions to the betterment of our public institutions and private charities and for many contributions that go unnoticed. As the year 2019 starts, there is also room for club members to take on a specific project that will make a positive difference in the social character of our community of those living in America.

February 2, 2019

The Women’s March began the very first day after Trump’s inauguration in 2017. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. This year’s March took place
across the country on Saturday, January 19, 2019.

Valerie Baker, Ann Branford, Martha Cusimano, James Cusimano, Alice Floss, Shelli Greenfield, Kate Kohout, Debby Randall, Dorothy Schwartz, and Janice Stapleton — members of the Solivita Democratic Club joined the SWANS and the Seniors for Safe Schools & Communities for this year’s protest; advocating legislation for human rights, heathcare and immigration reform.

We want to thank Doug Peterson for taking the picture and Dorothy Schwartz for forwarding the picture to us.

Polk DEC Corner

The Solivita Democratic Club (SDC) is a chartered member of the Democratic Party and is required to re-certify its by-laws every two years. Your board is currently working on updating and re-filing bylaws in compliance with FL Democratic Party Rules and Procedures. As a chartered entity of the Polk County Democratic Party, we will be devoting this space to news about the Polk County Democratic Executive Committee (DEC).

Most recently, the DEC elected Dr. Kathie Sutherland as chair and Mr. Cesar Ramírez as co-chair. The first order of business was to find a larger office space. The new office address is 1547 South Combee Rd., Lakeland, Florida.

On January 5th, Solivita Democratic Club Member Jesse Brooks facilitated the 1st 2019 DEC strategic planning session held at the Lakeland Library.

The DEC had volunteers at five (5) Martin Luther King parades throughout the county. Our own club registered voters at the MLK Parade and Unity Festival in Haines City. Please join us in thanking Bobby and Carrie Vance, Ralph Stith, Kate Kohout, Heddy Peña, and Jesse Brooks for their participation.

For more information and upcoming events, go to PolkDemocrats.org

This has been a truly incredible year for the Democratic Party — and so I wanted to take a moment to thank you personally.

Since I was elected DNC Chair in February 2017, my North Star has been making the Democratic Party more accountable to you — empowering grassroots supporters to take full ownership of this party.

Much of that work has been around our presidential primary process — making it more transparent, fair, and inclusive. I believe that if we do that, we’ll put our party in the best possible position to take back the White House in 2020.

But so much of our progress has come from you holding up your end of the bargain. We’ve asked you — a lot — to donate to support the DNC, and you’ve come through. Most people don’t know this, but the majority of the DNC’s fundraising in 2017-18 came from donors giving $200 or less.

With your support, we enacted some of the strongest reforms to our party in decades — here are some of the ones I’m most proud of:
We took the historic step of reducing the influence that superdelegates have over our presidential nominating process. Now, superdelegates will refrain from voting on the first presidential nominating ballot, unless a candidate has already passed the threshold to secure the nomination. This change empowers the grassroots and respects the will of the voters.
The DNC voted to expand the use of primaries so that more people can participate in the presidential nomination process. Primaries are more accessible for many voters, including seniors, shift-workers, students, members of the military, parents of young children, and people with disabilities.
For states with caucuses, our reforms recommend that those states take steps to make their caucuses as accessible as possible, including offering absentee voting for voters who can’t make the caucus in person and implementing better processes for tracking ballots in case a recount is needed.
We’ve announced an initial framework for presidential primary debates in 2019 and 2020, which will help maximize viewership and allow our candidates to talk about our party’s values and ideas in front of as many voters as possible.
To accommodate a potentially large field, we’re taking two unprecedented steps for our first two debates:
We’re including grassroots fundraising as a qualifying criterion for debate participation, in addition to other objective measures that gauge candidate support such as polling.
In the event that the qualifying field of candidates requires these debates to be held over multiple nights, the lineup for each night will be determined at random, with qualifying candidates assigned one night per debate. The random selection of candidates will be done publicly.
These steps are a really big deal — they’re going to make our party more inclusive, and ultimately more successful. But we’ve still got a lot more work to do — this is just the beginning. So as we head into the new year, I’d love to hear what you think. I’ll ask you the same questions I’ve been asking all DNC staffers:
What do you think worked in 2018? What should we keep doing?
What do you think we can do a better job of moving forward?
Let me know what you think here — and don’t be shy, I have a pretty thick skin. Our team will go through all of your answers over the next few weeks, and your input will be really helpful as we continue to make our plans for the next two years.

Thank you so much for everything you’ve done over the past two years, Ellis — with your continued support, I’m confident we can take back the White House and win up and down the ticket in the years to come.

Happy New Year,
Tom Perez
Chair
Democratic National Committee

Vote by mail has been a stunning success in Florida, increasing turnout and making it easy and convenient to cast a ballot with time to research and reflect. But a new study shows that mail ballots cast by African-American, Hispanic or younger voters are far likelier to be rejected than others — and rejection rates for all voters vary widely by county. These findings demonstrate the need for statewide uniformity in how county supervisors of elections evaluate ballots and that voters need to be sure they understand how to properly complete a mail ballot.

The study, commissioned by the Florida ACLU and conducted by Daniel Smith, chair of the political science department at the University of Florida, shows that Pinellas County is a model for how to do vote by mail right. Pinellas has few of the problems facing other counties.

Statewide, 1 percent of ballots cast by mail are rejected, and that’s 10 times the rate for those who vote in person. Although 1 percent might seem small, it adds up to thousands and thousands of people who were disenfranchised when their ballots were rejected. In the 2016 general election, about 29 percent of Floridians (2.7 million) voted by mail. In Pinellas, where far more than half vote by mail, the rejection rate was 10 times lower than the state average, about one-tenth of 1 percent.

For a mail-in ballot to count, it must be signed and dated, and the signature must match the one on file. Either problem can be “cured,” and Pinellas is particularly good at it both through education about avoiding glitches in the first place and through proactive measures to alert voters in time to fix their mistakes when they do occur.

The problems are most acute among younger voters. In 2016, voters between 18 and 21 were eight times more likely to have their vote by mail ballots rejected than were voters who were 65 or older. In fact, more than 4 percent of all mail votes cast by these youngest voters were rejected. In the 2016 general election, voters under 30 years old accounted for nearly 31 percent of all rejected ballots even though they cast just 9.2 percent of all vote by mail ballots.

For younger voters, it’s quite possible that their signature has changed from when they preregistered at 16 to when they signed a ballot at 18 or 21. For Hispanic voters, it’s possible that variations in signature — one might include a mother’s surname and another might not — account for part of the problem. And it’s also likely that more bilingual ballot information would help those who have a weak command of English. Smith, the UF professor, has found some cultural aspects in play, too. For example, he discovered names that include hyphens or apostrophes were more likely to be rejected.

The statistical disparities across groups greatly trouble Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida ACLU, who says your vote “shouldn’t depend on your zip code or your county.” Getting this right is partly up to the individual voter, but it’s also up to the entire state to adopt the kind of thinking that Pinellas uses to make vote by mail a success.

The Legislature allows voters to fix or “cure” a ballot that lacks a signature or has one that is mismatched, but neither the Legislature nor the secretary of state has adopted detailed protocols that should be uniform in all counties.

What does Pinellas do right? First, its ballot is easy to use and direct. In a big red bilingual box, it says “voter must sign” and warns that if you don’t sign it, your vote won’t count. Then, when the ballot arrives at the elections office, workers use a multi-pass system to verify signatures. On the first run, a line worker looks at a computer monitor to compare the signature on the ballot envelope with other signatures on file — past votes cast in person, etc. — to look for a match. Even if there isn’t one, that worker cannot reject the signature but rather escalates to a manager for a second pass. It is clear from experience when signatures match, and this is key. For example, one signature might include a middle initial and another might not, and that’s okay. Pinellas maintains the integrity of the system and guards against voter fraud, but not at the expense of rejecting legitimately cast votes. If there still is no match, the office sends a letter to the voter to let them certify a new signature. The office will also try emailing or calling, using all means possible to reach the voter in time to fix the ballot by 5 p.m. the day before the election.

This education and outreach is what makes Pinellas different, and it is a model the secretary of state should specify and the Legislature should adopt going forward. In the meantime, voters should ensure that they have a current signature on file and that they are careful to date and sign the envelope before sending back their ballots. They’ll be in the mail in just over a week.

Editorial By The Tampa Bay Times
Published: September 21, 2018

First and foremost, I want to thank you for being a registered Democrat in Polk County. My name is Kathie Sutherland. I work with the Polk County Democratic Party and serve as the chair of the Membership and Precinct Organizing Committee. Our goals are:
1) to get Democratic candidates elected at the mid-term elections in November and
2) to get Democratic voters to register for Vote-by-Mail.

Check out the video on Voting-by-Mail on the Home Page! It…
– saves time and convenience
– allows research on candidates and ballot issues (There are up to 13 Constitutional Amendments on this Fall’s ballot!)
– avoids last minute emergencies that may prevent voting
– substantially increases turnout.

If you already vote by mail, then “Thank You” for that. If not, take action now to be the be the best voter you can be! Call the Supervisor of Elections at 863-534-5888 or request your ballot online. They will verify your name and date of birth, and you can get mail-in ballots for all elections through 2020.

Across the nation, since 2016, Democrats are taking action and they are voting in unprecedented numbers. We have already flipped 41 state elections from Republican to Democrat.

If you feel as strongly as I do about the need to get Democrats elected, then help build the Blue Wave. Share this email with your friends and family. If you have any suggestions or questions, or if you would like to volunteer, please email me or call the Polk County Democratic headquarters at 863-668-7199. Learn more about us at polkdemocrats.org.

Best,
Kathie Sutherland, MD
Chair of the Membership and Precinct Organizing Committee, Polk DEC
650-305-0139

More than 250 Solivita Residents stopped by during our Candidate Rally on July 14 in Freedom Park.

Highlighting the event were guests former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Congressman Darren Soro (D-FL).

The President’s Letter:

Martha Cusimano needs your help. She has stepped forward to train voter registrars in Poinciana, especially in Solivita. However, there is a the problem of a Power Point training presentation to assist in performing this task, but its whereabouts are currently unknown. We are appealing to the Polk County DEC, Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards, and current, past members, and officers of this club to help us locate the training material. Martha also needs volunteers to successfully complete the project, and we ask that you please help. Martha’s email address is marthacus@aol.com.

It saddens me to say that one of our members, Pat Hill who is also the wife of our club Vice President Ron Hill, broke both of her wrists as a result of a fall while playing Pickle Ball. The challenge for the two of them is that Ron has never had the role of caregiver before the injury. We can only imagine the challenges that the two of them are experiencing. Their contact information appears below; please join us in wishing Pat well and a speedy recovery.

Pat and Ronald Hill
454 Villa Park Rd
Kissimmee, FL 34759
Ronhill454@gmail.com

Please mark Saturday July 14, 2018 on your calendar for our Voter Registration Rally. It has been proposed that our club invite CDD members, all of the Polk Co. Democratic clubs, and caucuses. The CDD members will not speak, but will be recognized from the stage. The event is currently in the planning stages, and all indications are that it will be from 11 AM to 2 PM and in lieu of our monthly members meeting. Food will be free with an option to donate to the Solivita Democratic Club.

Don’t forget that our next regularly scheduled Solivita Democratic Club meeting is Wednesday April 11, 2018 at 7 PM in the Ballroom. Doors open at 6:30 PM. Our topic and theme of the meeting is “How to Bridge Today’s Great Social Divide”.

Regards,
Stanley P. Dillard, Sr. President
Solivita Democratic Club
863-427- 4480