Dear Greens - *Some of you have forwarded our Stop 14 emails to your local list, pressing for letters to the editor. Thank you!. We need to amp up these efforts _in the last 2 weeks_ before June 8th. Letters to the Editor are the quickest way to get a message to the most people. Current polls indicate that 60% of voters support Prop 14. *_We must act fast. _* It is absolutely critical that we get letters to the editor published NOW. The yes-on-14 crowd has lots of money and connections; their ads are all over TV and radio. Letters are an important counter-effort against this. Our goal is to send 1,000 letters in the next week. We suggest 4 to 10 Greens send in a letter each to the smaller papers, and 15 to 70 Greens send in a letter each to the larger papers. Are there Greens in your county that you can call*, right away*, to find out if they have submitted letters, or encourage them to do so? If you do not have time, then we are willing to make some calls. Email me their names, email addresses, and phone #s. How many newspapers are in your county? Can you commit to making sure that each newspaper (small and large) gets a NO ON 14 letter this week? What a great organizing tool to get your local involved! There is also a great "tag-team" method. One Greens sends a letter, IF it gets published, then another Green sends an "in support of letter A" 24 hours after its published. This is how we get 2 letters in to the same paper. **sample letters at the end of this email. Letter writing has been made very easy: http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1488/t/338/letter/?letter_KEY=3D632 ) I personally went to this link, typed in my zip, got 4 major newspapers, did a click and copy of what I liked best from the "sample" info, and sent to all 4. This took me 5 minutes. I also did my own search, (knowing there are more than 4 papers in Ventura_..local community papers!) using the same 2 paragraphs and sent to 7 other papers. The whole thing took me a =BD hour. If I'm published in just the 4 majors, I may reach *1,500,000 readers -- for 1/2 hour worth of time.* We NEED 100 Greens to do the same !!. **DO NOT SEND MORE THAN 2 PARAGRAPHS. THERE ARE SIZE LIMITS AND THEY WON'T PRINT YOUR LETTER IF ITS TOO LONG** We should do outreach outside of the Green Party too - can you and fellow Greens post Stop 14 messages on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and any other networks available?. What other organizations do you work with? Please spend some time on this - _the future of our Party is literally at stake!_ Please reply email as to what efforts are being made in your County to get this letter writing or other outreach done. We need to make sure lots of Greens are sending in letters. We can help! -------------- TAG-TEAM LETTERS Sample Letter 1: From what I've learned about Prop 14, it's based on a weak theory that was disproved by a couple states that tried it. Let's stop nibbling around the edges and make the real reforms our ailing elections system needs. We could solve the Prop 14 problem with a similar electoral reform solution that Britain is considering after their troubled 3-way Prime Minister race. We don't convert to a parliamentary system, but we use "ranked choice voting" to attain proportional representation rather than winner-take-all elections. This would allow the creation of three main parties: Left - Center - Right. Then voters could choose candidates whom they really support. And candidates wouldn't have to pander to constituents with whom they don't agree. [120 words] Sample letter 2: I agree with [name]'s letter on [date] about Prop 14 not being a solution and the need for election reforms. I've heard complaints about our election system for years. Isn't it time for a change? I recently learned about Instant Runoff Voting. It uses a ballot where voters get to rank all candidates instead of voting for just one, which sounds like what [name]'s letter described. This seems like a fair system and it solves a lot of problems that people complain about. I'd rather try that than Prop 14's idea about doing away with parties in the primary and limiting the general election to just two candidates. [108 words] Prop 14 Resources: http://www.stoptoptwo.org/ http://cagreens.org/erwg/Prop14/ http://noonproposition14.com/