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I have been involved in a 6 year long fight to bring democracy back to a small membership owned organization. I am totally burned out. Last year I agreed to be on the election committee for this organization because while just the fact that they would let me be on it is huge progress, the actual procedures are still very suspect. None of my concerns have been addressed and the staff involvement which was the biggest issue is the same if not worse. I had planned to resign in a public statement during a board meeting months ago, but due to other circumstances didn't make several meetings. The other two committee members seem like nice people but they seem to have no clue as to the history, and I am pretty sure one was recruited just to help institute an electronic voting procedure. Something that makes me very paranoid since it appears the only other person connected to the website is the very staff person who tried to influence several previous elections in VERY unprofessional and unethical ways.
Now, as a member of this committee I have been asked to participate in counting ballots, another huge issue I had hoped to help change. I really don't want my name associated with what I am pretty sure will be a deceitful outcome. On the other hand I have to wonder if I could possible observe something and "blow a whistle" on it? What I suspect is going to happen is there will not be a quorum of votes and there will be false claims about the numbers. This seems to be especially likely since the organization has instituted an electronic e-mail voting system for those who choose to use it.
With no competition for the elected positions (4 candidates for 4 positions) and very little publicity or effort to engage the membership I highly doubt there is going to be the legal turnout needed. There hasn't been in than past two elections, although they lied about the one last year and then hid the ballots. They were a few short the year before and violated the Corporation Commission's regulations by accepting the vote anyway.
Part of this whole fight relates back to actions in the 90's where the Board made illegal changes to the Bylaws using the same illegal voting actions. So while the current and last elections are not that big of a deal, it is the PROCESS that is my main concern.
Should I attend the ballot count or resign at the last minute?
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