Part 3: What would you call it?

 

 SheboyganGops PassionatePachyderm Hqts on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 10:51pm · 

One of the biggest problems effecting elections across the nation is election fraud/ tampering.  All of the Republicans we’ve met,  and spoken with regarding the topic,  tell us the same thing, “election fraud/ election tampering is a huge concern and problem,  when a fraudulent vote is cast,  it negates legitimate votes,  and weakens not only the integrity of the city, state, and/ or organization holding the vote/election, but weakening the integrity of leaders at every level, each time someone does it and gets away with it. Think about it, REAL leaders don’t need to resort to tactics like, getting people to register and vote in dead people’s names, bringing in people not eligible to vote,  and/or lying about the fact that they are ineligible, voting more than once in an election, stuffing ballot boxes, bribery, intimidation,  manipulation, or using false,  misleading, often frightening statements to scam/scare people into voting for them. Real leaders LEAD BY EXAMPLE.  

There is specific eligibility criteria for voting in local, state and national elections, likewise, typically there is specific criteria for eligibility to vote on anything of importance in organizations. The general minimum requirement for most organizations,  is a valid membership in that organization. For example, if I were to attend a meeting of a local Lions Club, but was not a valid member in good standing of that club,  I wouldn’t expect to be granted voting privileges  at their meeting. It’s really quite simple.

In the Sheboygan County GOP’s  constitution, it clearly states, an individual must be a member in good standing as defined  within their constitution to be eligible to vote at their yearly Caucus.  A member in good standing, is defined in the SCRP constitution as either;  1. Anyone who has paid membership dues and joined the party no fewer than 10 days prior to the date of the caucus. Or  2. Anyone who was a dues paying member in good standing in the year immediately preceding the current membership year, who pays the current years membership dues and renews their membership at any time prior to caucus, or the day of caucus.

 

 This requirement is pretty simple and straight forward, a member the year before who renews or someone who joins no less than 10 days prior to the Caucus date.

During the January 2012  SCRP Caucus, the question of who was eligible to vote was raised..  One of the “Elite Chosen Ones,” once again,  took it upon herself  to assume control of the caucus without having been recognized by the Chair, a requirement for speaking, specifically spelled out on the Rules and agenda page handed out to each member prior to the beginning of the meeting.

She claimed, that the membership records were in such disarray when they received them after the  Jan 2011 caucus,  that they could not determine who was a member, who wasn’t a member, who was interested in getting information, and informed of events but was not a current member, who had paid their dues, when they had  last paid and how much they paid, who had been a member in past years, but had not renewed etc. She told the membership they had not gotten accurate addresses, phone numbers or email addresses, and  again reiterated what a “mess it all was” and how “impossible to figure out” it all was.

Now interestingly enough, the former membership chairperson happens to be a Passionate Pachyderm who was present at the caucus to hear this being said.  We spoke to the former membership chair who stated that meticulous membership records were maintained from May 2009 to Febuary 1, 2011. At that point, the following was printed and handed over:

(1) 84 page Complete Membership Roster containing  2,571 entries. Each entry looked like this:

Doe, Jane

1000 address parkway

Anytown,  WI.  56333

H: 222-661-5555

E: janedoe@anycarrier.com

Status: Family/Individual

**(Other status indicators were: unpaid member, potential, free fair trial, Young Republican, elected official, candidate,(folks giving higher donation amounts were indicated by the following membership statuses) sustaining, patron, or  gold)

(1)  57 page compact membership list, with 2,571 entries, each looked like this:

Doe, Jane   Family/Individual   222-661-5555    membership expires 12/31/2010

(1) 26 page list of “donations by date”  total records 506  Beginning date 3/7/2009  ending  2/1/2011

It is difficult to imagine more detailed, clear records than those described above which were given to the current board representative in  early February 2011.

The current board had the lists for the entire year! Many questions come to mind, one being, how could the board have the list for a year and not be able to determine  who was a member and who wasn’t ? I mean this seems fairly fool proof to me!

Second the “Elite” “Chosen One” further claimed that,  she,  herself  “had no idea when her membership ended” so she” understood the confusion.”  The only problem with this statement is, that she was the one who insisted upon changing the membership term from, July 1st each year  to  January 1st each year  when working with the board on the new constitution! This was the same constitution ratified in January 2011.

 

 

 So let’s recap, the board had  membership lists for a year, but,  had no clue who was a member.  One of them, had herself  insisted upon changing the dates of the membership year to January 1 every year, yet couldn’t remember having done it, and couldn’t be bothered to read her copy of the constitution she helped write to find the membership year dates.  and lastly, this oh so special chosen one was permitted to take over leading the membership caucus, without having been recognized by the chairman as required.

By now I am sure you can guess, because they did not read the constitution and apparently have no use for “governing rules of law” or little things like,  constitutions, the individual (not the chair) waived all applicable membership requirements for the SECOND year running, allowing everyone present  to vote, even those who according to the constitution, were ineligible to do so.

The person who had raised the question of eligibility  to vote,  admitted he just joined the night of the Caucus. The “Elite” “Chosen” one proudly proclaimed, “everyone can vote tonight.”

So not only did people who joined the night of the Caucus vote, they did not even ask non members not to vote, let alone check anyone to see if they were a member!

Call it whatever you like, but   Passionate Pachyderms knows, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and acts like a duck, .. Chances are pretty good, it’s a duck. and not an elephant.

Why bother with having rules that won’t be followed, or  having a board charged with ensuring those rules are followed,  who consistently  ignores them?  Guess rules are only enforced when they serve your personal purpose if your an SCRP board member,……. or President Obama.  Seems to work quite well for both of them.