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posted by Peter Butterfield |
March 12, 2019read morePublished Nominations for the nine elected positions on the 2019-2021 Executive Committee (ExCom) of Democrats Abroad Switzerland, and for the three elected DPCA Voting Representative positions, closed on Sunday March 3. Listed below are the nominated candidates. All offices will be elected on Sunday April 7 at the DA Switzerland Annual General Meeting. At that meeting, additional nominations will be allowed from the floor. All candidates will be given time for a brief statement to the members.
Candidates below are listed according to office, in the same order the offices will be elected at the AGM. Within each office, candidates appear alphabetically by last name, showing their city of residence and their statements. In the interest of readability, we display here only the candidates' names. Click the office title to see their full statements on the pages that follow.
Nominated Candidates
Office: Chair (1)
- Kelli Brouillet (Basel)
- Farid ben Amor (Geneva)
- Vance A. White (Buus, Basel region)
- Elizabeth Voss (Basel)
- Meli Hughes (Basel)
Office: Counsel
- (No Nominations)
Office: Member-at-Large – Communications and Media (1)
- Lyndsay Obbarius Grieder (Basel)
Office: Member-at-Large – undesignated (3 positions)
- (No Nominations)
Office: Voting Representative to the DPCA (3 positions)
- (No Nominations)
Voting Method
Americans who are DA members as of Friday April 5th may vote. Please register at the online form here to indicate your attendance at the AGM. You may vote in one of the following ways:
-
In-person voting: Printed ballots will be distributed at the meeting.
If you cannot participate in person, a second possibility is available: - Vote by proxy: Request a proxy form from elections@democrats.ch. Send a copy of your completed and signed proxy form to us by April 5th, and give it to your chosen attending proxy member before the AGM. Any voter at the meeting may hold at most two proxies.
Election Process
At the meeting, the twelve offices will be elected one by one, in the order shown above. Nominations for office may be made from the floor, as write-in candidates. This includes listed candidates who did not win their announced race. All candidates will be given two minutes to address the members. Voting by advance ballot will not be available.
This election process aligns with that used at DA international meetings. Voters will be able to meet and hear the candidates in person, before choosing.
Office: Chair
posted by Peter Butterfield |
March 12, 2019read moreThe Candidates
Kelli Brouillet (Basel)
BIO: I’m a Washington State voter that grew up in Maine and has lived in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Texas. My husband and I have spent 3 to 5 months in places like China, Thailand, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and India, where I voted from in the last primary. I have been in Basel for almost 3 years, most of that heavily involved with Democrats Abroad.
My original degree is in Public Administration and in my 40’s I went back to school to become an RN. I worked in hospitals in Emergency, Telemetry, Critical Care and Neuro units in WA and TX. This background has honed my communication and prioritization skills. I spent many years coaching creative problem solving teams with children grades 3 through high school, which taught me much about teamwork. This was invaluable in my nursing career as well.
STATEMENT: I have spent the last 2 years as Chair in Basel. We are very proud in Basel of our creative team that has built a broad member base, registered many voters for mid-term and special elections and hosted a large number of varied events to enhance socio-political knowledge and foster a sense of community in our group and with our fellow members of Democrats Abroad.
My passion and strength is teamwork. I’d like to bring those skills to help all members in Switzerland work together for the benefit of all. There are so many strengths within our local memberships. I’d like to see skills, ideas, events and expertise shared so all chapters and members can duplicate them and benefit accordingly. Attending the Regional DA Meeting in 2018 made me realize there are many resources to use as a jumping off point.
My priorities are often directed by the team. Whether the task is to register voters, hold our primaries, encourage new memberships and chapters or help Americans gather for support and friendship, if we work together to accomplish those goals, we can do much.
I feel I have the time, skills and drive to help create a strong national team within which all chapters can be as successful. I look forward to it.
Upcoming Events
Basel Chapter Annual General Meeting
The Basel chapter of Democrats Abroad Switzerland is pleased to announce our upcoming elections. We hope that you will attend to meet and/or reconnect with local Dems Abroad, show your support for the nominees and vote for the candidates of your choice. We need to have a quorum for the elections to be official, so please come, or vote by proxy if you can't attend (more information below).
Agenda
3:15 to 3:30 Registration
3:30 to 3:45 Brief presentations from outgoing leaders
3:45 to 4:30 Elections
4:30 to 5:30 Call to action brainstorming and discussion with new leaders
DA Switzerland is made up of volunteers working together to keep Americans living abroad informed and connected with the political process and to make it easier to vote from abroad. We invite you to become involved in Basel chapter activities and political activism. We are expecting a very exciting and busy next term, resisting the Republican administration in 2019 and voting in primaries and elections in 2020. Come help us elect Democrats!
We thank those that have come forward to present themselves as candidates. To see more on each candidate, please see here.
We have nominations for all offices except secretary, and if you are interested in running for this or any other position, you still can. We will entertain nominations from the floor. If you would like to run, please let the Nominations Committee know at basel-elections@democrats.ch
For further information about elections or the officer roles, contact any committee member (or email basel-elections@democrats.ch)
- Kelli Brouillet, Outgoing Basel Chapter Chair and Nominations Committee Chair, dach.basel@gmail.com
- Jamie Donahoe, Active Member, jamiedonahoe@gmail.com
- RJ Chaplin, Active Member, Rjc4shpk@aol.com
Voting Method
Americans who are Democrats Abroad members by Saturday, March 30, may vote. Please register to attend by March 31 at https://goo.gl/forms/ToLwSB2Kjrtj8Hy22
There are two ways to vote:
In person voting: Printed ballots will be distributed at the meeting.
Vote by proxy: Request a proxy form via the registration form at https://goo.gl/forms/ToLwSB2Kjrtj8Hy22. Proxies must be in writing, but the giver may sign, scan and email it to the proxy holder, who should then bring a printed copy to the meeting. Any voter at the meeting may hold at most two proxies.
Election Process
At the meeting, the four offices will be elected one by one, in the order shown above. Nominations may be made from the floor or as write-in candidates. Candidates who are not elected in their chosen position may nominate themselves for other positions. All candidates will be given two to three minutes to address the members. Up to three questions from the audience will be allowed (per candidate).
Tuesday, April 02, 2019 at 06:30 PM
American International Women's Club in Geneva, SwitzerlandGeneva Book Group
Come along and join in a future discussion of the Geneva Book Group. Meetings are usually held on the first Tuesday of each month. Whether you read the book or not, it's always a lively discussion. For more information, send an email to gvabooks@democrats.ch.
The next book for discussion is Maid by Stephen Land on Tuesday, April 2, 2019.
- Nominal start time is 18:30; if you arrive after 19:00 you'll need the door code, so be sure to email gvabooks@democrats.ch.
- The group is currently meeting at the American International Women's Club, 4th floor, 11 rte. de Chêne, Geneva.
- by TPG: Convenient to the tram #12, stop "Amandolier"
- by car: No easy parking in the vicinity. Use Villerouge parking garage (about a 10 minute walk) rather than Coop 2000, which gets locked early and you might have to wait until Wednesday to retrieve your car.
Not required, but appreciated is if you can bring some food and/or drink to share and Fr. 5.- to help with the room rent.
Save the future book group dates:
- May 7, 2019 | June 4, 2019 | July 2, 2019 | Aug. 6, 2019 | Sept. 3, 2019 | Oct. 1, 2019 | Nov. 5, 2019 | Dec. 3, 2019
Possible future titles:
Here's a look at what's coming up in future months. But nothing is definite—the future books are decided at the end of each meeting.
- American Like Me by America Ferrera
- Collection of first-person accounts of growing up in cross-cultural settings.
- Conditions of Liberty, Civil Society and its Rivals by Ernest Gellner
- [published 1994] NYTimes review: A witty, elegant and sharply pointed essay on the prospects for liberal democracy in the late 20th c...
- The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right by Max Root
- (from review) An elite Republican has had enough, and turns on the party of Trump, urging people to vote a straight Democratic ticket.
- The Forgotten Americans by Isabelle Sawhill
- (from review) One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them.
- How democracies die by Steven Levitsky
- (Amazon 4 stars) Collection of information on how different autocrats took over various countries. Chilling in its analogies to what has started in the US.
- It's even worse than it looks by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein
- column by T. Friedman 2018-10-03 Sub-title: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism
- Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank
- (from review) Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Frank demonstrates, cogently and at times acidly, how the party lost the allegiance of blue-collar Americans.
- Maid by Stephen Land
- Observations of the problems faced by poor, working single parents, written by a woman who has been there.
- Minds make societies by Pascal Boyer
- (from review) (Amazon 4.5 stars) Integrating recent insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and other fields, Boyer offers precise models of why humans engage in social behaviors such as forming families, tribes, and nations, or creating gender roles.
- The once and future worker by Oren Cass
- (from review) core principle?a culture of respect for work of all kinds?can help close the gap dividing the two Americas….
- The soul of America by John Mitcham
- subtitle: The battle for our better angels.
- Them: Why we hate each other—and how to heal by Ben Sasse
- (from review) The Republican Senator from Nebraska preaches his solution—more community. But does he practice what he preaches?
Historical Record
- Mar 05, 2019: Becoming by Michelle Obama
- Feb 05, 2019: Fear by Bob Woodward
- Jan 08, 2019: Donut Economics by Kate Raworth
- Dec 04, 2018: Temp by Louis Hyman
- Nov 06, 2018: The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
- Oct 02, 2018: Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deenen
- Sep 04, 2018: Political Tribes by Amy Chua
- Aug 07, 2018: This Fight Is Our Fight by Elizabeth Warren
- July 03, 2018: Dark Money by Jane Mayer
- Jun 05, 2018: Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
- Feb 27, 2018: Conscience of a conservative by Jeff Flake
- Jan 30, 2018: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Nov 28, 2017: Giant of the Senate by Al Franken
- Oct 17, 2017: What Happened by Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution by Bernie Sanders