By my own estimate, some 20% of the Members I have spoken to here in Atlanta say they did not receive a ballot. We are a some 2,700 Member Local and I personally polled approximately 1,000 of these.
Some may have mistaken their ballot as bulk mail advertising and discarded it because this year’s ballots do not appear to me to be predominate identified as APWU ELECTION BALLOT ENCLOSED. But that does not account for the many Stewards and active Members who were expecting and looking for their ballots in the mail who did not receive them.
Of course we will never know how exactly how many ballots were not received by our Members, but there is one point of data that will be known by the AAA running this election and it should be released for public knowledge. And that point of data is exactly how many Members requested a replacement ballot by Local. In this way we can determine what Locals were affected the most with missing ballots.
If we take the number of requested replacement ballots and analyze that number in light of the facts that some did not join the APWU before the deadline to vote and other such circumstances that would explain why they legitimately did not receive a ballot. Then contrast that with the fact that many Members simply did not put out the effort to call or go online to request a replacement ballot, we can draw a better picture of how much or how little missing ballots affected this election in each Local in hopes of improving our future APWU elections.
With that said, the short window this time around from when the ballots should have been received to the length of time needed to request and receive a replacement ballot, then mail it back in to be received before the deadline is simply insufficient. If you have not already requested your replacement ballot, you should still try to do so, but I think it is unlikely that you can get it back in time to be counted at this late date. Ballots not mailed in by Friday September 30th have an exponentially increasing chance of not being received in time to be counted.
Was this all by design or by incompetence?
Who can say.
The point is to learn from these problems and to DEMAND they be corrected before the next election so that we don’t keep repeating them.
First Name: Mike
Last Name: Nodine
Email: apwunodine@gmail.com
Union/Local: APWU – Atlanta Metro Area Local 32
Office held if any: Workroom Floor Steward
Union and NAME of Local/Branch
Atlanta Metro Area Local 32
Office held, if any
Workroom Floor Steward
Brother Kubat,
I have no idea what caused the missing ballots. I am just reporting that too many Atlanta Members are reporting they never received a ballot to be explained by simple things like the Member moving and failing to update their new address.
Sister Albro-Mathieu,
I have not followed up with our Members that said they were going to call the 800 number. But I do know of one Member who requested a replacement ballot with the online alternative to the 800 number this past Sunday night. AAA called this Member back the next morning and explained their Membership was effective in mid-July this year so they had missed the June cutoff date for Membership to qualify to vote. While that answer was disappointing, the explanation was appreciated.
I don’t see any remedy for the issues with the missing ballots in this election, whatever the cause. It is what it is. The point is to make sure it does not happen again in the next and all future elections.
On the other hand, there are other problems in this years election that should addressed such as an incumbent candidate using APWU funds to have their name printed on bottles of water they are giving away. It speaks to a total lack of integrity and a violation of trust when an incumbent candidate thinks it’s okay to use APWU funds to subsidize their own candidacy. If the candidate had purchased the custom labeled water bottles with their own personal money then that would be fine. I don’t think that was the case and the matter should be investigated and if true, charges should be brought to bear and prosecuted to the fullest extent.
If we can’t trust our national officers to not cheat by abusing their office for personal gain and we fail to police such infractions of our trust, then we are ultimately doomed to as a Union to succumb to rampant insider corruption.
Complaining about missing ballots and too short of a window of time to order replacement ballots by comparison, becomes a rather inconsequential issue.
Union and NAME of Local/Branch
Lehigh Valley Area Local
Office held, if any
President
Union and NAME of Local/Branch
Western Connecticut
Office held, if any
APWABA National Director Emeritus