The DFL endorsement for mayor of Minneapolis never seemed as significant as when the people making the case for its meaninglessness are ready to fight, fight, fight to reverse the result.
Some have argued that moving with urgency at the “literal eleventh hour” of the July 19 Minneapolis DFL Convention was illegitimate (note: the author of the linked post is a recent former candidate for the state legislature who amended the rules at his DFL convention to advantage himself — gasp).
Amending the rules to use a potentially faster method of voting — in this case, a show of badges — is the kind of tactic the clear delegate leader will sometimes use. The catch is, to change the rules your side has to be in a strong enough position to win a vote that requires a 2/3 majority of delegates. The anti-Frey contingent remaining in the arena — made up of Fateh, Davis, and Hampton delegates — were enough to change the rules.
What if you’re behind? Attempting parliamentary delay tactics is what a campaign will do when they want to run out the clock. We saw that from the Frey side at this convention.
These tactics, promoting urgency or delay, can be frustrating and upsetting to the losing side. But none of them are new or nefarious. It’s what you sign up for at a political convention run according to parliamentary rules.
Immediately after the convention ended — that night and the next morning — challenges to the result were focused on lack of quorum. The Frey campaign had pulled their supporters from the arena in an attempt to deny quorum. It would soon become clear, based on the photo, video, and paper ballot evidence (from the final vote of the night: park board at-large), that the room maintained quorum until the very end.
An attempt to deny quorum is a risky tactic and will often fall flat. It backfired so hard for Frey on Saturday that it helped speed the convention through a series of park board endorsements at the very end. Campaigns allied with Frey paid a price. He evacuated their delegates from the room! But the fact that things moved fast at the end of a long day isn’t evidence of unfairness. It shows Frey was in a weak position and couldn’t shut the convention down by flipping the game board over. Events snowballed against him from there.
If it had gone the other way — if Frey’s campaign had successfully denied quorum by pulling his delegates from the convention floor, would Frey fans humor any cries of illegitimacy? I think they’d argue this is how conventions work. It’d be hard to disagree.
It’s also important to note that delays caused by the time it took to resolve the electronic vote count, were a serious harm to the Fateh campaign. As the clear delegate leader, his campaign wanted to speed to more rounds of voting, not less.
The Frey challenge now hinges on technical problems with the Minneapolis DFL’s electronic balloting system used for the first ballot. But, when those problems were raised during the convention, delegates voted against a motion to redo the first ballot. Delegates wanted to move to a second mayoral ballot.
This is how conventions are run! Winning and losing key procedural votes can be decisive. Having enough delegates to win these votes is an advantage.
The Frey side now has the opportunity to challenge the result. I’m genuinely curious for more information to come out regarding what happened with the electronic voting system. We may learn, as I’ve been assured by volunteers with the Minneapolis DFL, that all ballots cast were received, and the technical problems did not result in any candidates being denied a spot on that second and final mayoral ballot.