In the last election, we had loads of people who did not get their ballots in the mail and when they requested another ballot, they were told by the AAA that the deadline passed, but they could vote in person. Tough commute from Florida or if you have a disability.
With the UFT election committee meeting (I''m a member again) coming up on November 26, a push is being made to institute electronic voting as we did before the 2022 UFT election, which I review below.
First, Arthur hits the current attempt by gaining support with a petition.
Voting by Mail Is for Dinosaurs
UFT Unity adores it, but it's time for a change.
Please sign this petition. It asks that we use electronic voting, and/ or in-school voting (I very much prefer the former) for the next UFT election, so as to maximize participation. After you sign, please share it with friends, and post it to whatever social media you favor.
Why?
Mailboxes are all but obsolete. Yet UFT bosses insist on using them for elections. For at least as far back as I can recall, this has not worked well. A small minority has regularly chosen UFT leadership. If democracy isour goal, that’s less than ideal.
For years, voting participation in the UFT has been abysmal. In the last election, 75% of us could not be bothered to vote. Voting is too cumbersome or inconvenient for the overwhelming majority of our membership. That’s unacceptable.
UFT Unity resists efforts to improve this. In 2021, a proposal to use electronic voting was rejected by every Unity member of the Executive Board. Unity members vote in a bloc, as instructed. They sign an oath to do so. Oath or no oath, it’s absurd to point to mail-in voting as successful for our union.
We (UFC) went in with the idea to avoid the ghost of UFT elections past of
The ghost of UFT elections
embarrassingly low turnout where the highest turnout is from retirees by expanding opportunities to vote through electronic voting. We don't even think electronic voting would automatically help us more than Unity. After all, they are so popular in the schools.A Unity reso was made to disallow electronic sigs on petitions -- I misunderstood and thought they were banning electronic voting and objected but was told it was about petitioning -- one of them said he likes to see a wet signature on a petition. Weird but I guess I can live with wet signatures -- ich! I think we should allow non-wet signatures on petitions but that was not the hill I was there to die on.
But then came the fun part. We were asked to vote on the election posting which stated that ballots would be mailed out, and we did vote to accept that unanimouslybut they then said that meant there would be no electronic voting. Whoa - I withdrew my support and asked for this to be added after - Ballots will be mailed out - "and electronic voting will be allowed."
We made strong comments. We pointed to PSC voting electronically -- backroom Unity comments are this 30K union is small. We raised the point that the AFL-CIO has endorsed electronic voting. And with Adams and Banks coming in, a low turnout was a signal to them that we are weak.
Wow! To Unity vote suppressors trying to increased turnout is a nuke. They looked desperate to kill it. So every one of them spoke against electronic voting with some weird arguments in support of low turnout -- like why do anything different when we've been "successful". The weirdest was claiming to protect teachers from using school computers to vote --- like no one has a a phone. The final vote was --- SPOILER ALERT -- 8-5.
Do Mulgrew and company really believe that dues-paying members would have voted down an electronic voting option that would increase our union participation and give members increased access?... Mulgrew’s caucus-laden executive board used arguments against our members’ further enfranchisement that were reminiscent of those seeking to suppress and obstruct increased voting rights and voting access in our national and statewide elections. ..... EONYCIf you went to any school in the city and took a poll on electronic voting would 99% oppose it? This is a true indication of how the UFT EB represents the 1% union bureaucrats, not the 99% membership.
Arthur Goldstein reported at that time- I'm not including the lame Unity arguments -- you can read them at NYC Educator--
Michael Shulman--(Election Committee member; Head of New Action, not on Executive Board)Thanks LeRoy Barr for invitation. Thanks Carl Cambria for chairing. Wants to discuss balloting. Favors voting electronically due to low voter turnout. That is key. Not a caucus issue. Big issue is getting membership to participate. Important to be proud of union democracy. We are not moving with the times. About 25% of our membership vote. That is unacceptable. There have been proposals to GOTV, but we are lagging.
Since pandemic, our union uses secure electronic voting for DA, for CL, for SBOs. Not a radical new proposal. Other public sector unions doing this. We have capability, not as sole source. We could use both. If someone votes both, we could distinguish which came first and that would take precedence. I come from older generation. I believe many younger teachers use electronic voting. Snail mail alien to them.
I put Shulman's entire comments down below, followed by the 13 points.
Mike Schirtzer (Independent)--Agrees with Shulman. PSC (Professional Staff Congress-CUNY union) has option of online voting. We are in a battle to enfranchise folks who lost right to vote. Eric Adams is looking to union bust. Need to show we are strongest and best union. DA and Town Hall numbers are staggering. We trust AAA to get it right. Teachers under 30 don't know where mailboxes are. Need to open options.
Mike
was elected on the Unity line in 2019 but has remained independent and
it showed here. Mike has been nominated to run on the UFC slate for Ex
Bd. I trust Mike's political instincts and actually would support Mike
if he decided to run on the Unity line, which would make sense for Unity
to be able to claim they have one independent voice on their slate
Here is Shulman's comments to the Ex Bd:
A Missed Opportunity! Unity Votes Down Electronic Voting
By Michael Shulman, Chair, New Action Caucus
The UFT Executive Board had an opportunity to strengthen union democracy at last night’s (Dec. 13) meeting. Instead they clung to time-worn arguments that there was no evidence electronic voting would increase voter turn-out. My request to speak at the Exec. Bd. was agreed to, as I had fully expected. Unity would not leave itself vulnerable to the charge of being undemocratic. After 51 years of union activism, I was certain publicizing a negative reply would only embarrass Unity. They frankly would never allow it. And as an appointed member of the UFT Election Committee, I was in a unique position to make a presentation to the Board.
My arguments were pretty straightforward: Electronic voting would increase voter participation.
In city-wide UFT elections around 25% of the membership usually vote. I stated that this was not a caucus issue (of course, I suspected otherwise) since it was in everyone’s interest to want higher voter participation. I pointed out that since the pandemic our union was utilizing secure electronic voting at delegate assemblies, voting for chapter leaders and delegates, and for school based options. I pointed to the fact that other public sector unions, such as the Professional Staff Congress, are now using this method for their general elections. I concluded with the reality that the younger generation of educators are using electronics on a daily basis. Why couldn’t we use both – electronic voting and mail-in ballots.
Here are some of the responses from our Unity colleagues:
1) Nothing indicates electronic voting would increase turnout.
2) There are a couple examples of voting in functional chapters that did not produce more voting.
3) Members will use DOE email and cause problems.
4) Voting on SBO’s has not been a success. We’re not there yet.
5) The voting in one district is poor and did not increase voter participation
6) There isn’t time to institute. It is questionable whether it would work. It is an untried idea.
7) The head of the Retiree Chapter stated it is not certain it would work. We must campaign like Hell. We must do better outreach. The retiree chapter election produced greater turnout.
Only one member of the UFT Executive Board spoke in favor of my proposal. With one exception the motion was denied. Another victory for union democracy?? VOTE UNITED for CHANGE in the spring election. Run with us!
Daniel
Alicea of Educators of NYC, a UFC coalition member, came up with the
case for electronic voting. He may nail the 13 points to the door of 52.
