Boston Globe: "Galvin may face primary battle"

[paineinthearse]

There's a pretty good article in today's Boston Globe about the
Secretary of State race:

"Galvin may face primary battle"

Why does Bill Galvin sound nervous? Maybe it's because he knows, better
than anyone, that he's facing a serious challenge.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/candidates/articles/2006/05/27/galvin_may_face_primary_battle/

Galvin may face primary battle
Tries to link rival to Green Party
By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | May 27, 2006

He's been in office for 11 years, has $1.7 million in his campaign account, and is one of the best known Democrats in the state. But Secretary of State William F. Galvin is battling furiously to avoid a primary fight. Galvin, the only statewide incumbent with a challenger from his own party, is telling delegates to next week's Democratic Party convention that his opponent, voting rights lawyer John C. Bonifaz, should be denied a spot on the September primary because he isn't really a Democrat.

``He has a long history of involvement with the Greens," asserts Galvin, referring to the Green Party, which lost its designation as an official political party in 2004 and is now called the Green-Rainbow party. ``He has failed to support Democratic candidates. Democrats have to scrutinize his candidacy. Is it real or a Green Trojan horse?" But Bonifaz, a nationally known lawyer, says he's in the campaign to win -- as a Democrat. ``I am a Democrat," said the 39-year-old Jamaica Plain resident. ``I am raising basic questions about his record and the state of the democracy in Massachusetts. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with giving voters a choice? The idea there is a broad conspiracy here is funny. It's crazy. This is beginning to sound paranoid. What is he afraid of?"

Bonifaz, executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute, brought suit on behalf of 2004 Green and Libertarian presidential candidates demanding a full recount of votes in Ohio. He also sued George Bush to block the invasion of Iraq and sued Texaco for allegedly polluting the Amazon River.

More recently, Bonifaz has been questioning Galvin's oversight of elections across the state. That task is only one of the secretary of state's responsibilities, which also include managing the state's public records and corporate filings as well as regulating the securities industry. Bonifaz charges that Galvin has stood in the way of electoral reform, by failing to push same-day voter registration. He also says Galvin did not do enough to correct voting problems in four Massachusetts cities: Lawrence, Springfield, Lowell, and Boston. The city of Boston last year entered a consent decree with the US Justice Department to print ballots in multiple languages.

``There are people unfortunately in entrenched power situations who are not interested in advancing electoral reform, because it creates greater competition and brings newer voters to the polls," Bonifaz said in an interview. ``The record of this secretary of state is one that has been, at best, silence in the face of basic voting rights violations and, at worst, resistance to electoral reform," he said.

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