The following letter is published with the permission of author Joe Monack, who is Dorr Township Republican Central Committee Chairman. I was originally published in the Northwest Herald on Saturday>
Democrats not so democratic
By now, everybody is familiar with “superdelegates.”
The sign outside the closed Democratic Party meeting when Jim Harrison was slated to run for McHenry County State’s Attorney.
In the presidential election, about 15 percent of the total delegates in the Democratic Party are these unelected “superdelegates” that can vote any way they want, regardless of how their state voted.
The percentage of delegates who are unelected party insiders is more than double the Republican Party.
There are efforts to lower the amount of superdelegates or get rid of them altogether.
The reason is simple: the process undermines democracy.
I contend that this kind of anti-democratic election fixing is not only a problem for Democrats at the national level, but that it has permeated into the Democratic Party at the local level, as well.
Just look right here in McHenry County.
Democrats have 12 candidates slated to run for County Board.
Of them, only five were actually on the ballot for Democratic primary voters.
Their state rep candidate was not on the ballot either. Nor was their County Board chairman candidate or recorder candidate.
Democratic Party Chairman Mike Bisseltt closed the Woodstock Library meeting room door at about 9:15 Saturday morning. Over an hour later John Bartman emerged to talk about his slating for State Representative in place of incumbent Jack Franks.
Apparently, it is the rule, not the exception, of the McHenry County Democratic Party to bypass the primary process. There are a few possible explanations.
One is that they are sloppy and low-energy.
The other is that they want to delay scrutiny.
Their website asks, “Are you tired of ‘insider politics.’ ”
I believe people are tired of insider politics.
Unfortunately, the McHenry County Democratic Party seems to enjoy insider politics.
Jack Franks run opposed and you say that voters need a “choice,” so you support a candidate that was not elected in a primary process.
Democrats do the same thing and you claim it’s insider politics.
Hypocrite.
No, this can not be true!
The DEMOCRATS have their own party “rigged” ?
Haven’t voted in another county for 35 + years,
Guessing that having no opposing party happens
Elsewhere than here.
BUT . . . 7 out of 12 board candidates, county board
Chair, state rep & county recorder not going through
The primaries is pretty appalling to me an independent
Voter.
Thank you Cal for putting this info on the blog &
Bringing it to the attention of voters !
Wish someone would write a letter to the editor
@ the NWH about this so MORE people become
Aware of this disturbing breach in the DEMOCRATIC
Process.
Maybe this laziness to a certain degree, but after the
Fact it just looks like cheating & disregard for the process.
My only problem with the process in which the Democrats slated their candidate was taxpayers still had to pay for the costs of a primary.
Hell, if all parties slated candidates, it would maybe make people more active in the process. I.e. PCM would show up to meetings.
Getting rid of primaries would save taxpayer money that is wasted on private political clubs.
But getting rid of primaries would also cut out the people who don’t want to be Precinct Committeemen, probably over 99% of those who vote.
It seems there needs to be better
Rules for slating candidates.
Also, enforcement needs to happen
Because abuse of a new system will
Happen once groups find the loopholes.
It’s sad to me that this happens, shows
Lack of respect for the process.
No matter what the dems claim about their process, it is not transparent.
It was done behind closed doors in the dark of the night.
I am sure they had some serious room deodorizers working that night to cover the stench of machine politics at work.
Can’t wait to see the whining about these comments.
I can already taste the red herring…
What a strange, unintelligible comment from Moderate.
Jack ran *unopposed* for *state rep*, which he backed out of and they replaced him with Bartmann, who *wasn’t* on the ballot in the primary.
Jack did the switcharoo to County Board Chairman; he was *not* on the ballot for that.
Steve Reick *did* run in the Republican Primary and *did* have an opponent — one of Jack Franks’ buddies.
Sounds like maybe he’s grasping straws with the Tonya Franklin thing that happened four years ago and the GOP didn’t let her run anyway.
That’s supposedly the smoking gun that the GOP are “hypocrites” lol.
Yep Joe, Moderate’s comments can be pretty
Goofy.
ome sort of Monday morning foggy brain thing
Goin on there.
Cal’s facts were pretty straightforward & Moderate
Didn’t come close to twisting the facts or diverting
Attention from the issue as was OBVIOUSLY intended.
Amusing 🙂
You have got to be kidding me.
There was a call out to every member of the Democrats Party.
You not being invited means you are not a Democrat.
It isn’t an open forum- You have no idea who was on the ballot for Dems unless you pulled a Dem ballot.
Let it go.
For goodness sake you just sound dumb.
Actually newspapers print the ballots and you can check the election results on the Clerk’s site and filter it by race.
Who got the invite by the way?
36 elected Precinct Committeemen?
Over 34,000 people voted in the Democratic Primary.
http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/IL/McHenry/59392/163951/Web01/en/summary.html
The 36 that got the ballots were,evidently, the only Dems that count.
They are the super delegates of McHenry County Dems.
This is just a preview of their convention next week.
The other 33,964 dems were not sent the ballots because they were lost onHillary’s home server.
Perhaps they were deleted by Hillary’s attorneys.
Or it could be that the list of Dem voters in McHenry county is now being reviewed by the KGB?
Is that the transparency you dems always brag about?