Using the CD9 District map (here), it is possible to build a network and share information by adding information from other data sets. An example is the “NYS Voter Enrollment by Election District, Party Affiliation, and Status for Voters Registered as of November 1, 2017.” (This document is available from the NYS Board of Elections as a PDF and easily converted to a spreadsheet for analysis).
An Example: Election District 77 straddles one block east and west of Flatbush Avenue south from Caton Ave and north of Albemarle Road. The next step is to get the number of votes cast in 2016 and get that same number for a mid-term 2018 goal. Working in this area will reach a thousand people a day.
Here is the really good part: Pictured left and taken from the map below, my ED77 has 1,195 registered voters of which 948 are Democrats, 41 are Republican, 4 are Conservative, 3 are Green Party, 2 Working Family, 4 Independents. There are 178 under the heading “blank.”
Tasks for the Ninth Congressional District
- Find Election Districts you can work and get your data (ask for BoE pdf).
- Share that information using the form below and work the district for voters.
- Find and motivate more people. The average in EDs is around 800 Dems.
- Get voters to promise you they will vote on June 26, 2018, and if that fails, April 28, 2020
- Pick a candidate for this primary and convince voters to accept your choice.
Have a look at your location using the NYC Data Map. Find your ELECTION DISTRICT HERE
Select a location and complete the form below. With contact, it is possible to share resources and ideas about the community and its development. If you found that map disappointing, so did I. In response, I worked up a map of my one and managed to edit a d-base of polling sites to just “most of those” in CD9. That effort can be found (here)
Like all information online, ED lines and data will not be 100% accurate but useful enough to organize a 2018 and a 2020 canvas project for votes from the neighborhoods of the 9th District. Your vote and canvassing for a candidate is your business.
I examined the 2018 vote by the Election Districts (ED) around the local offices of the challenger Adem and the incumbent, Yvette. At first glance, the location of Adem’s office appears to be opportunistic and Yvette’s strategic. I was hoping you could have a look here, and I updated it for 2020 a bit.
Your Choices
On June 26, 2018, the residents of the Ninth Congressional District had an opportunity to test leadership in Congress on criteria established by voters. Clarke won by a slim margin. Challenged again in 2020 she won again big time. Adem Bunkedekko was the closest rival, capturing 17% of the vote among four other bird-dogging candidates – all democrats.
The discussion of political leadership has gone to hell. New York leaders are only useful when they respond to an urgent condition on a single issue. There is no outright fear for democracy, because better than most, they know it is practically gone. None of that is occurring. The only live-die-repeat is incumbency and the dead ones are the challengers.
Step One
Have a good long look at the candidates and their “watchers.” (See examples: Inside Elections, Sabato’s Crystal Ball.) Ballotpedia’s fine details are here. Money equals victory. A national watch group, Open Secrets has the data to prove it, including the outliers that illustrate exceptions. The deep end of the data pool is with reports at the New York State Board of Elections.
Leaders with skills in critical thinking, creativity, responsiveness, and obedience will do well. Proof of unselfish giving is through service that includes a record of judgments publicly specified with grace and dignity. After reviewing the public expressions of our federal leaders, are challenges within the party positive and optimistic? Does the officeholder or the challenger have a bias toward getting results? Finally, good leaders know how the practice of listening to be heard gets their constituents to help themselves do the hard stuff.
Adem Bunkeddeko
Drop the candidate a line at in**@ad*************.com and if you want to know more before you do that, visit Adem’s Website and extensive Facebook and Twitter accounts. He also has Instagram, and Snapchat if you must. If snail mail is your thing you can write them to this mailing address: Friends of Adem, P.O. Box 130-427, Brooklyn, NY 11213.
Yvette Clarke
Drop the candidate a line on the federal website. She has Facebook Twitter and YouTube accounts. To write via snail mail the local address, 222 Lenox Road, Suites 1 & 2 Brooklyn, NY 11226 and a D.C. address, 2351 Rayburn HOB, Washington D.C. 20515.
Step Two
The national Campaign Finance Institute confirms the long-term success of this legislation in its testimony to the NYC Campaign Finance Board in 2017. (The Act). After thirty years, the NYC CFB has protected voters. Perhaps the best example is NYC representatives sustain the “F” rating from the NRA in their demand for stringent legislation regarding the use and purchase of weapons for war. That is where the feds (your representatives in Congres) come into the picture to confront and confirm national policy.
In NYC the Campaign Finance Act has kept the local government on the side of working New Yorkers for the last three decades. A $6-to-$1 match of small donations turns a $100 donation into $700. The law has strict contribution limits and an outright ban on all corporate money and an excellent enforcement record.
Political Action Committees
The Political Action Committees (PAC) come into the picture today as a permanent part of federal election campaigns. They represent almost 40 percent of an elected candidate’s campaign funding. A challenger is far less likely to be supported by a PAC. The PAC phenomenon began in the 1950s, but since then their corrosive influences over Congressional Representatives reflect the concentration of wealth in the U.S. and the rule that corporations have a right to political speech as people, and that money is speech.
Unlike people, wealthy corporations can live forever. Corporate outfits such as the NRA and the Koch brothers have a large bag of political tricks designed by well-paid political operatives to protect specific interests, not including the bot/troll issues that confuse voters further. It was a sign of real trouble when New York’s Senator Chuck Schumer asked his constituents to help fight against Koch Brother attack ads against a fellow Senator, Joe Donnelly (D) from Indiana with a help him Keep His Seat! email blast.
Representative Government, Election Waves, and Money
Three Republican Congressmembers (Faso, Tenney, Katco) in NYS may have “toss-up” elections in 2018. To keep things in perspective Faso’s 2016 spending was: $2,904,089, Tenney’s was $885,895, and Katco’s was $2,384,152. These races could contribute to a wave-election referendum on the chaos in the Executive Branch and the House of Representatives and shift as many as 25 seats to Democrats. (See NY Mag summary here). The 2018 mid-term election might have a single issue. Here is the main candidate:
The 9th Congressional District’s Money
In comparison, the spending projected for 2018 in the 9th Congressional District primary will be less than $1 million. Clarke reported just $715,000 spent on her 2016 re-election, her opponents Joel Azumah (Ind) reported $0 spent on his election effort, and the Conservative third-party candidate, Alan Bellone also spent very little, yet pulled 17,500 votes of the 232,000-total votes produced in November 2016. How Clarke’s campaign funds stack up against the latest challenger Aden Bunkeddeko.