What kind of democracy do you want in Metro Detroit DSA?

April 9, 2026
Chris Gilmer-Hill

Who gets to vote in DSA?

Do you think every member should be able to vote on key decisions like leadership and campaigns?

Or should you have to meet an attendance policy to vote for the campaigns we take on and the leaders of our organization?

If we want a real chapter democracy, then we need to take questions of access and participation incredibly seriously.

Our goal shouldn’t be trying to “defeat our enemies” by holding votes they can’t attend; instead, we need a real commitment to member-led political decisions in every corner of our organization. Democratic decisions need to be made by our whole membership, not just a self-selecting group of people who attend a meeting every Tuesday evening.

Myself and other members of the Groundwork caucus wrote amendments to resolutions 4, 13 and 16 to expand our inclusive democratic voting process, which is built on the principle of One Member One Vote, to include leadership of labor and political education.

These amendments are part of our commitment to allowing every single member to have a say in how our name is used to further external organizing and our political vision.

But a significant portion of our members – including both the Bread & Roses and Marxist Unity Group caucuses as well as the Detroit Democracy Coalition – strongly oppose the accessible and democratic process provided by One Member, One Vote.

These groups are pushing to restrict voting on political education and labor decisions to only the members who are able to attend specific meetings, some of which are exclusively in person on work days.

It’s a fact that only 10-20 members routinely find time in their busy lives and other organizing work to attend and vote at these meetings. That’s less than 2% of our chapter’s 1,300+ members.

And yet these groups want to bar anyone else from having a say in who leads our political education and labor efforts or the topics presented to you at our general meetings.

I find that alarming, and if you care about keeping our democracy accessible rather than insular, you should too.

What is One Member One Vote, Anyway?

At present, all key votes in Metro Detroit DSA outside of convention happen via a system we refer to as One Member One Vote (also known as OMOV or 1M1V).

As standard practice, 1M1V allows any member to vote online over a 72 hour period on steering committee elections, campaign endorsements, resolutions, and other items brought by members.

1M1V makes voting accessible to every single dues-paying member of Metro Detroit DSA.

Our amendments to R4, R16 and R13 allow every member in good-standing to vote via 1M1V on:

• Which topics to debate at general meetings,

• Which political education topics to cover at general meetings,

• And who will serve as our next political education and labor chairs; adding onto the already existing chapter-wide elections for Electoral Chair, Member Engagement Chair and the co-chairs of the Socialists in Office Committee.

These amendments affirm our commitment to open, inclusive and accessible voting on key chapter decisions like leadership within Metro Detroit DSA.

Though we democratically voted to adopt the 1M1V system over two votes in 2024 by nearly 70%, the groups I mentioned earlier are eager to restrict voting on all topics - not just political education and labor - to those in attendance of specific meetings.

We believe that’s just plain wrong.

As Socialists, We Roundly Condemn Restricted Voting in Every Other Context

One argument against 1M1V is that if you can’t make labor or political education meetings, you’re not committed or educated enough on these topics to have a say.

But should we completely reverse our attitudes on voting access when we talk about democracy within DSA?

As socialists, we rightly support any effort that expands democracy. Mail-in and early voting allow masses of people, many working class, immigrants, and minorities, to vote. And so, we support mail-in and early voting. Conversely, imagine if voters in the United States were required to prove they had watched a presidential debate in order to vote in elections. Or if you had to prove attendance at a town hall to have a say in local politics.

We would rightly condemn it as a right-wing power grab to benefit special interests and the capitalist elite at the expense of the working class.

Besides, to say that people must meet some arbitrary standard of education in order to vote is incredibly infantilizing.

Who are we to decide whether or not someone is educated or committed “enough” to vote?

Restricting Voting Access to Meetings Excludes Many of Our Most Dedicated Comrades

My own caucus, Groundwork, is one of the only caucuses in Metro Detroit DSA that has proudly supported 1M1V.

Not just for labor and political education, but for all key chapter decisions.

Many working class members are excluded from our democracy without 1M1V because they’re simply not available for a specific, narrow and rigid time slot each month or week.

This includes members with incompatible work schedules, chronically ill members, parents and caregivers, those who lack reliable access to transportation or internet…the list goes on.

It’s not just a fringe group of members who would be excluded. Even several chapter leaders that I know personally would be disenfranchised, including a member of our National Political Committee (the national board of directors for DSA).

Our vision for the chapter is a democracy that includes every single member, from parents who can’t find childcare to baristas and retail workers, bartenders and many others.

Are We Building an Organization for the Many, or the Few?

Our organization puts “Democratic” in our name because we’re committed to the idea that important decisions should be made by and for our entire membership. If we’re going to name ourselves after democracy, then I think it’s time to put our money where our mouth is and extend that democracy to our chapter’s political education and labor decisions.

Political education and labor shouldn’t be democracy-free zones. I believe that decisions about our chapter’s political education and labor programs are important - and that means they’re important enough to make them democratically, and to ensure that every member gets a say.

Here in Groundwork, we believe that winning socialism requires building an organization of millions of everyday people. And the only way to do that is to meet people where they are. That means making the work as accessible, understandable and tangible to as many people as possible.

It means not requiring a reading list, a poll test or any other sort of “filter” to determine whether someone is the right type of member to vote on decisions as basic as who leads our collective project.

I urge all members to vote YES on the amendments to R4, R13 and R16.

Vote to expand our democracy, not restrict it.