Cambridge Democratic City Committee

Dear City Committee Members:

As my term concludes I want you to know that it has been an honor to represent the Democratic Party on the Cambridge Election Commission since 1988. Some of the goals I accomplished are as follows:

• Created the Election Commission Policy Book for which I wrote many of the policies. My goal was to establish consistent, written materials for use by current and successive Commissioners and staff.
• Developed a formal program, and written syllabus to provide Election Day poll worker training based on election law and procedures. In the ensuing years, and with the input and collaboration of other Commissioners and staff, the syllabus expanded to a Manual, and the training included technical demonstrations and visual aids.
• When the City Council enacted the Ethics Ordinance and assigned responsibility for its administration and enforcement to the Election Commission, I wrote the policy and letters necessary to implement the law, after extensive research and interaction with the State Ethics Commission and City law department.
• Created a distribution network to fulfill the Motor Voter Law’s mandate to make voter registration forms widely available wherever people, work, visit or otherwise conduct business, including schools, libraries, post offices, and community locations.
• Created a Community Voter Registration program, training and Manual for people interested in conducting voter registration. Over the years, other activities I planned involved topics and organizations including, Concilio Hispano, State Citizenship and Democracy Education Project, the Voting Rights Act, Mass Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, Cambridge Historical Society, Women’s Suffrage, Cambridge Housing Authority, Meals on Wheels, “Women for Social Justice,” and schools and colleges.
• A special memory is the event I created in 1990 when the Commission collaborated with other City departments and organizations to commemorate the 70th anniversary of women’s suffrage. A highlight was the participation of several Cambridge women, whom I located through extensive city research, who voted for the first time in 1920.
• Participated in computerizing elections, including the first computerized Proportional Representation Count, and the implementation of the Help America Vote Act.

Also, I assisted the City Committee in determining the calculation of 20 year members, by conducting election records research going back four decades. I advocated for Election Day Registration at the State House, and remain hopeful we will see it in Massachusetts.  We have to fight against voter suppression. Even in so called liberal Massachusetts, there is still much to do.

Thank you for the privilege of serving as an Election Commissioner, and a guardian of the election process. I have been honored to act on behalf of the Cambridge Democratic City Committee, and the Democratic Party, the Party that still cares about people.

Darleen Bonislawski

Dear CDCC Members and Friends:

Both houses of the state legislature have now passed maps for new Congressional districts, and Cambridge remains split into two seats.  With the support of our city's entire legislative delegation, we mounted an amendment to unite Cambridge, and fought tooth-and-nail for it in both chambers.  We generated more than a hundred comments to the committee, far more than any other community affected by the redistricting process.  I would like especially to thank Rep. Alice Wolf and Sens. Sal DiDomenico and Patricia Jehlen, along with their staff, Kathleen Hornby, Wally DeGuglielmo, and Bob Fitzpatrick, and my predecessor as chair, Avi Green of MassVOTE, for all their dedication and perseverance on Cambridge's behalf.