UFT Election Update: Where the ballots are - My Conversation with GES President When I voted In person

I mailed in a ballot last week but before the RTC meeting on Tuesday,  as a member of the UFT election committee, I decided to vote in person to get an understanding of the process. I was thinking of doing the same again to test if their system is working until I heard Unity got hysterical when someone in ABC tried to do the same. The in-person vote will invalidate the mailed ballot and I thought if you try it again that would invalidate the last time you voted but when I saw how things works it made sense why we can't vote twice in person. I wanted to know... Exactly how this process works.

The voting took place in an empty space on the corner of Exchange Pl. and New St. Three ladies were behind a desk and all I had to do was show them my UFT ID. No picture ID to show it was really me. 

I asked the woman in charge a number of questions which she answered very openly. She is the President of Global Election Services. Ahhh, I wanted to know  --- the chain of custody of the ballots and she filled me in.

I asked if she could tell me if my ballot had been received and she had a lengthy explanation why she couldn't. In other words, GES does not scan the ballots as they come in like AAA did daily. She claims this is a more secure system. So how does this work?

Ballots currently reside in a post office locker until the morning of May 28 - the day before the count - when GES has a truck pick them up and deliver them to Shanker Hall at 52 Broadway. What? The ballot will be sitting at 52 overnight until the count begins at 9 AM on May 29? (They hire security - Look for Mulgrew and Ellie Engler in security uniforms.)

At 9 AM on the morning of Thursday May 29, the outside envelopes will be scanned, which should take hours. Then run through machines that slit the envelopes open - more hours. The fact they used an open sleeve inside saves some time - in the past the second envelope had to be run through slitters to open it. But in reality, the actual count won't begin until afternoon - maybe late afternoon.

I asked about how many scanners and she said 3. I said AAA had 4 and they jammed often. She said they were brand new. And also said we would be free to roam as observers and see the machines work unlike in recent elections.

I asked about the chain of custody for in person ballots. She said they were all in locked boxes and stored on Long Island. She said these ballots -- all in booklets even if only a slate vote -- would be counted first.

She said the entire process was open for observers - Can I ride on the pickup truck? No. she said. I did intend to go to the post office to see the loading process and then onto 52 but now have a dental emergency for next Wednesday but will go in right after.

Booklets will slow up the count

They handed me the ballot book and there were voting booths behind a curtain. A word of warning was to not tear off the front page even if voting for a slate -- which you can do if voting by mail. I asked why and she said they had to maintain the integrity of the entire ballot and not have the rest of the booklets floating around. I don't quite get that point -- they could just shred the rest of the booklet. I warned her that all these booklets will delay the count because even if no marks on them, they still had to be scanned. She responded that in the last election only 10% of the voters sent in the booklet. I told her this time there will be a lot more booklets and by having the in-person booklets even if voting slate, we may be at the count over the weekend of May 31.

Some ABC people may be voting for their friends on the other slates. For instance, both ARISE and ABC are only running 550-560 AFT/NYSUT candidates and Unity is running 750, so they are voting ABC slate on the first page and then going into the booklet to vote for about 150 in ARISE and some in Unity they know.

UFT Update: Internal Wars - Engler and Schoor

Engler is still employed and makes $215,447 a year... NY Post - UFT director sends scathing emails with typo to secretary

Engler is the power behind the throne at UFT & Mulgrew defers to her .... anonymous

The NY Post has a story about emails from a year ago from Ellie Engler complaining about Howie Schoor's comments to Bronx staffers.

“I had a disturbing meeting with the Bronx folks about what you said to them,” Engler wrote last August in an e-mail to Schoor that was copied to UFT boss Michael Mulgrew and other top personnel. “They reported that you said, everyone hates Ellie and I am getting in your way to do the work you want to do.” 

A year ago I reported:

Mulgrew Removes Brooklyn Borough Rep Debbie Poulos - Was She too aggressive on certain abusive principals?

Insiders blamed Engler and some of her cohorts for Poulos' removal. Howie Schoor was Poulos' mentor and supporter.

Engler was a Randi implant and is viewed as her agent within the UFT. Note this comment on that blog post:

AnonymousThursday, July 21, 2016 at 12:56:00 AM EDT

Of course Engler is her agent. She is not even a UFT member and was made one of the Direcor's of Staff because she was Randi's roomate in college. You can't imagine how hated she is by UFT staff.

Did Howie Schoor, who is now the union secretary and former Brooklyn and Bronx borough leaders -- and makes an equivalent salary as Ellie Engler --  leak these emails or did he forward them to someone who did? Little birdies in Unity Caucus have been chirping. Funny how much the Post puts emphasis on a typo clearly due to a computer error. What idiots at the Post.

My report last year

There is speculation that Poulos had stepped on some toes in the UFT hierarchy who have especially close relationships with officials in the Farina's DOE administration who are unhappy with UFT officials who are considered too aggressive. There are rumored names of those in the UFT hierarchy who had it in for Debbie but at this point that info is not confirmed...

As I said, Howie was Debbie's mentor and boss at the Brooklyn office before being moved to the Bronx to clean up a major mess there. (Note that Amy Arundell is replacing the retiring Rona Freiser at the Queens office -- where there was also a bit of a mess).

You might note that with the pressure MORE and New Action has been putting on the UFT leadership -- they seem to have been more aggressive with abusive principals and superintendents. Howie and Debbie were known to be advocates of that policy.

I reported a  year ago--

There is speculation that Poulos had stepped on some toes in the UFT hierarchy who have especially close relationships with officials in the Farina's DOE administration who are unhappy with UFT officials who are considered too aggressive. There are rumored names of those in the UFT hierarchy who had it in for Debbie but at this point that info is not confirmed 

Insiders told me that Engler forms a troika of sorts in the hierarchy- I forget with whom - I think these emails possibly confirm that Engler did play a role in Poulos' removal.

By the way -- Engler's claims -- she was never a teacher -- she has devoted her life to the union pales in comparison to Howie's career -- he has been in the UFT since the Civil War.

Read my post of a year ago here.
Below is the full NY Post article.