Selecting The Nominee By E-Mail, Phone, Or Letter

DALLAS (AllPolitics, June 27) -- Forget the packed convention halls, decked with bunting and balloons. The Reform Party's nominating convention, a two-part televised town meeting, will make the expensive and often chaotic conventions of the Democrats and Republicans look archaic.

It's all being explained in a mailing going out to Reform Party members in the next week that explains the voting procedures. "A lot of people will be able to sit in their living room," said Reform Party national coordinator Russ Verney. "Our national convention is not expected to draw people from across the country to attend in person."

Here's how it will work: Anyone who signed a Reform Party petition will be able to help select the party's nominee via computer linkups, the phone or mail. Each member will receive a personal identification number (PIN) for vote-tallying purposes. Candidates seeking the party's nomination will speak at a convention August 11 in Long Beach, Calif. Party members will have the next week to vote, and the nominee will be announced at a separate Valley Forge, Penn., meeting August 18.

So, while major party delegates are packing their bags for Chicago and San Diego, members of the Reform Party will be participating in the democratic process by clicking their TV remotes to C-SPAN, the public affairs network that has agreed to televise both meetings.

Critics aren't sure it's such a good idea. They say replacing flag-waving delegates and gimmicky buttons with cable hook-ups detracts from the enthusiasm of the political process.

"You sacrifice the human aspects of coming together at the polls and conventions," Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, told the Associated Press. "The question of politics through electronics rather than through people is not a good development for our society."

Reform Party organizers argue that holding interactive televised conventions opens the political process to all of the party's 1.3 million members, not just those with the time and money to attend an out-of-town conference.

And this way the party's voters can get what they want, said Jack Essenberg, a member of the New York Independence Party which recently teamed up with the Reform Party. Democrats and Republicans vote for delegates who are unpredictable at the conventions, he said. Reform Party members, however, will vote directly for the candidate they want.

Selecting The Nominee By E-Mail, Phone, Or Letter

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