“Welcome all candidates, electors and observers to the EMEA Regional Convention! Thank you for all your hard work in preparation, especially under these unprecedented conditions - our first completely online meeting of this scale ever.”
With those words by Permanent Regional Convention Chair Will Bakker (and Regional Vice Chair for EMEA), the EMEA regional convention kicked off, with over 200 attendees, after some additional time was given to make sure people were able to log on without incident, as we’re doing generally during this COVID-19 era.
The purpose of the regional convention is to elect the 2020-2024 regional representative to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), elect 6 at-large delegates to join the Democrats Abroad delegation representing DA during the Democratic National Convention this year, elect 2 regional members to join the 2020 Global Platform committee, and vote on resolutions that will help inform the Global Platform.
The meeting opened with the reading of an original poem by DA member Elaine Thomas, Poet Laureate of the Black Caucus, entitled Martin & Malcolm, Revisited. It was a beautiful, heartfelt reading which set the stage for the rest of the meeting. The full poem can be found here.
After roll call, the EMEA Credentials & Rules Committee then took the floor, reviewing some of the unique rules of procedure for the meeting.
We also heard a report from the Affirmative Action committee about their global efforts to ensure that Democrats Abroad recruited delegate candidates who represent the diversity of Americans around the world. We’re particularly proud to note the ambitious affirmative action targets that DA has set as guidelines for our delegation election. Anyone interested in learning more about DA’s affirmative action work can find more information here.
With lunchtime looming, there was still time for the first round of voting for the EMEA regional DNC representative. The winner needed an absolute majority of certified electors to win, which could have taken multiple rounds, but in this case, was resolved in the first round, through the election of Katie Solon (Germany), former Global Chair to the position. Find more information about Katie here.
Now, it's time for lunch, with a lot more to come during the Biden & Sanders delegate elections, as well as Platform coverage later.