Re: Recount Ruling at KPFK
Terry Goodman
>My question is, and I think Melinda will support me on it, but why
>had the local elections supervisor qualified him in the first place?
>In Houston you have to fill out forms proving your eligibility?
>
>This would not have happened in Houston.
Mr. Makalini was a write-in candidate because he did not qualify for
nomination by the nomination deadline. The bylaws require membership
for nomination but do not require nomination or membership for
election as a delegate. The National Election Supervisor did not have
a legal opinion supporting disqualification in the election tally on
the basis of non-membership, so he did not disqualify Makalini in the
election. If an unofficial candidate in Houston obtained STV
threshold with write-in votes, the NES would have ruled him or her
elected just the same as at KPFK; and if it was then discovered via
challenge that the individual elected was not a member of the
Foundation, the NES would have used the same arguments in attempting
to persuade that individual to withdraw.
If Pacifica obtains a valid legal opinion that membership is required
for election as a delegate, then a future NES can be prepared to check
this qualification and handle such write-in votes differently during
the tally. Perhaps Pacifica now has such an opinion and is retallying
at KPFK in part for this reason. Membership is required for election
in the opinion of the judge in the KPFK litigation, but he cited the
bylaws rather than case law for his authority, and the bylaws alone
are inadequate support for this preliminary opinion of law. If the
judge has good clerks then the final opinion will include relevant
citations, but Pacifica can't wait for that final opinion if it hopes
to avoid election nullification by presenting an alternative to the
judge that all parties in the suit, at least, find acceptable.
The judge would bring back delegates like myself who thought we were
free of the madness for awhile and unseat all those newly elected --
which includes the KPFK LSB Chair, Vice-Chair, and Treasurer. Then
we'd have to figure out whether it is the list of candidates from the
recent election or the unelected candidates from the long-ago previous
election that constitute the replacement candidate pool under our
bylaws and the language of the judge's ruling, or if there is no pool.
If the voided election still counts for pool purposes (which requires
certified rankings to determine the proper sequence of automatic
replacements) then we're pretty much at the delegate constitution
where we are or where we'd be with the new tally results (provided all
the re-seated delegates agree to resign), except that all seats would
be up for re-election next time under the judge's formula,
re-empowering then (for a shortened term, I suppose) the marginal
constituencies represesented by low-ranked candidates that hobbled
local governance in its first year. If the recent pool is ruled void
and without tally or all re-seated delegates don't resign, then the
final composition of local governance after resignations will be
different than the expressed will of the membership in the recent
election -- sufficiently different, I suspect, to warrant rescinding
and re-voting the election of local area Directors mid-term.
I think that either tally is better than no tally. If the Judge is
correct that Makalini was not qualified for election, then I think the
Plaintiffs are correct in arguing that his votes should have been
redistributed during the preference vote tally. If the law allows a
non-member to represent members in a corporate membership election,
however, then I think that the related NES rulings (except on the
automatic first-place ranking of write-in votes) were correct and that
his initial certification of the Listener-Sponsor Delegate elections
at KPFK (and that tally) should stand, because that's what the
Corporate bylaws require. As to the incidents around the election
that the judge cites in support of nullification, I think he's wrong
and should defer to the judgement of the independent National
Elections Supervisor, Casey Peters, who researched, considered, and
dealt with these various other issues as they arose with integrity and
good faith.
--Terry Goodman
Former Chair, PNB Elections Committee
Jan Goodman
Jan Goodman
lrad...@radiojustice.net
I'd like to focus on possible policy solutions. In this case, Casey knew there was a write-in candidate b/c he ran w/ a slate. It's foreseeable that a write-in could run without being noticed by election officials. Can something be done about it?
--Leslie.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T