11/15/2018

Response to Protest regarding the Northern Vice President Election To the members of the Elections Committee,

This is a protest regarding the general election for Northern Vice-President. I am filing a protest under Article V, Section 4 of the AFSCME Local 2620 Constitution. (I have copied this Article below for your reference.) As shown below, this article states that any representative designated as “northern” (in my case, the Northern Vice-President) must have a work address above the line stated, whereas all representatives designated as “southern” shall have a work address south of this line. During this election, ballots for Northern Vice-President were sent to members whose work addresses are south of this line. Historically, members who work south of the designated line did not vote for the Northern Vice-President because those members work outside of the region listed. As the Northern Vice-President is NOT an at-large position, members whose work addresses are south of this line should only have been able to vote for Southern Vice-President.

The Election Committee has considered this protest and our decision is as follows:

The request for the election of the Northern Vice-President be re-run is denied based on the answers below.

The specified Article that you have referenced pertains to “all elected representatives,” and the Duly Elected Northern and Southern Vice President “have a work address which is north of an east-west line drawn across California, which intersects the cities of Owenyo and Avila Beach, and the “southern” representative shall have a work address south of this line.” In addition, nowhere in the Article you referenced does it stipulate that members only be allowed to vote according to the Northern/Southern boundary lines, as you can see below.

For the purpose of this constitution, all elected representatives designated as “northern” shall have a work address which is north of an east-west line drawn across California, which intersects the cities of Owenyo and Avila Beach, and the “southern” representative shall have a work address south of this line (Constitution for AFSCME Local Union 2620, page 3).

In addition, the runoff election is a continuation of the General Election and the office of Northern and Southern Vice Presidents were on the General Ballot with the same rules for candidacy and were sent to the membership at large. At the time of the initial election, there were no issues raised about the appropriateness of the entire membership voting on these positions.

 

In Unity,

Election Committee Chair

/s/: Lenaea Sanders

Election Committee

/s/: Cathy Sapata

/s/: Foresteen Forbes

/s/: Rene Eller