COUNTDOWN: Chicago Teachers Union officials broke the rules on May 21 in many ways... How many CTU field reps picked up ballot boxes at the schools?
One of the things that supposedly maintains the integrity of the Chicago Teachers Unon elections is that the ballots and ballot boxes are dropped off and picked up at the schools by employees of a neutral third party, at the present time, the American Arbitration Association (AAA), which also handles the vote count. Then why were CTU employees going around town picking up election materials on May 21, 2010 — and how many of them were deployed doing that? A week after the controversial election of May 21, 2010, Substance is still learning about election violations by members of Marilyn Stewart's United Progressive Caucus (UPC) and the union's highly paid staff. It took a week after the election and the beginning of the "long count" for Substance reporters to begin hearing that some of the ballot boxes used in the schools on May 21 were picked up by people working for Stewart, and not by the couriers hired by the American Arbitration Association. How much more was done to undermine the integrity of the election by Marilyn Stewart's staff and supporters is still being sorted out by the various groups in Stewart's opposition.
Comments:
By: George N. Schmidt
Where was Bogan's box dropped off?
The question is whether your person dropped off the ballot box at AAA (225 N. Michigan) or at the Local 399 dropoff point (the Engineers' Union Hall where the House of Delegates meetings take place). Also, who took possession of the ballot box from your person.
I'm asking because it's beginning to seem like some ballot boxes were "shaved" at some point along the way and some had the sign in sheets purloined. "Shaving" would reduce the total number of votes at a school. Purloining would result in a complete loss of the school's votes, since once the sign in sheet is not with the ballots, the Canvassing Committee (which was chaired all weekend by one of the UPC candidates for citywide office, Karen Kreinik) would vote not to have that school counted.
People are going to have to request the story on each school that disappeared, and further information on each school that is showing a smaller vote count than voters.
This is why I requested a copy of the complete report that AAA turned over to CTU officials (Mark Ochoa) when the long count ended on the night of Monday, May 24, 2010. But the "Canvassing Committee" voted 4-3 to reject a motion to provide each canvassing committee member and observer with a copy of the results that were completed by AAA by then. The tie-breaking vote was cast by Canvassing Committee chairman Karen Kreinik, who, as I said, is a candidate for Trustee on the UPC slate.
Once we walked out of 225 N. Michigan without a copy of the complete results, we all had to wait for the Chicago Teachers Union to post the "results" at www.ctunet.com. As you know, those "results" were not posted there until more than a half day later. They went up at around 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 --
but without the PRVP results.
Those are the facts as of now. As more teachers and others get a look at the "results" from their schools, they will hopefully complain both to CTU and to CORE. I'm proud to be the observer for CORE and will be back on the job with CORE's two canvassing committee members on June 11, 2010, for the runoff count. But there is nothing we can do about what is happening to the ballots between the schools and 225 N. Michigan.
By: bob
I will find out
I do not know but will find out
Tuesday.
By: Michael Miguest
SEA
Once again TWO of the FOUR schools @ South Shore are not even on the List. School of Tech and School of Entrepreneurship.
By: kugler
Send Notices to..
I have been documenting my concerns and complaints to the following people. most of the time without response. National and local labor law mandates that union members exhaust all internal remedies before going to an outside agency to investigate corruptive practices or election fraud of a union.
CTU
Marc Ochoa
markochoa@ctulocal1.com
IFT
Ed Geppert
EGeppert@ift-aft.org
AFT
Randi Weingarten
rweingar@aft.org
Gerard Friesz
Acting Regional Director
AFT Organization and Field Services Department
gfriesz@aft.org
David Strom, Legal
dstrom@aft.org
Bcc: me at
kuglerjohn@comcast.net
By: Bob
update
Update
Our ballot box sat on the office counter until 5pm.Our delegate then called the union
and was told to take it to the local 399 hall. Arriving about 6pm it was handed off to a 0fficial of AAA.
By: Bob
The Bogan Results
The Bogan results
I am wondering aloud what happened to some of the ballots .According to the official
Results from the CTU web site the Bogan tally for officers broke down so:
President 42 votes reported, Vice President 40 votes cast , Finance Sec. 40 votes cast
Secretary 40 votes cast. The rub is that over 70 people voted!
The election was clean the ballot box driven down town by our delegate, who I trust,
around 4 PM because nobody picked it up at school. Did a lot of staff mess up the ballot?
Or were some of them not counted? Does anyone have the number of spoiled ballots?