Friday, June 26, 2009

No Vote for Me

I'm a Peter Morales supporter in the election for the next President of the Unitarian Universalist Association. But I won't be voting for him. I won't be voting for his opponent, Laurel Hallman, either.

It turns out that on-site voting will only be allowed between noon and 5 PM, tomorrow, Saturday. I'm taking a plane home tomorrow because I need to be at my congregation to preach on Sunday. My plane is at 10:20 AM, travel arrangements I made months ago.

I could have voted absentee, many people have, but it's too late for that now, absentee ballots had to be in the mail weeks ago. And, of course, I never thought about absentee voting because I knew I was going to be here. I didn't discover until I got here that voting would only be allowed during a specific window. I imagined that there would simply be a ballot box set up somewhere where I could drop my ballot at any time.

What frustrates me is that I don't understand why I can't just hand in my ballot before I leave. It's not like there's a particular discussion on an issue involved that I need to be present for. Why can't someone just collect my ballot ahead of time and then process it with the others on Saturday? But I've talked to everyone I can here and the answer is always no. I don't mind rules, but rues with no rational basis anger me. So I give up. I just hope Peter Morales doesn't lose by one vote.

6 comments:

Robin Edgar said...

Looks like you are learning about U*U "democracy" the hard way Rick.

On-site voting will only be allowed between noon and 5 PM on one single day? What a joke. . . Once again the UUA proves that its voting practices don't even come close to democracy at the municipal, state, and national level of secular politics. If I was you I would look into what the UUA's official bylaws say about this. Even I, jaded as I am with U*U "democracy", am rather surprised that there is only one five hour "window of opportunity" for delegates to cast their votes in an important presidential election UUA GA. AFAIAC on-site voting should go from 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning to 8 or 9 o'clock at night at minimum. At least 12 hours should be available for casting ballots on-site.

Robin Edgar said...

It occurs to me also that you and other concerned U*Us may want to enter into a free and responsible search for the truth and meaning that lies behind this comparatively narrow "window of opportunity" for on-site voting by not only examining UUA bylaws but also looking into how much time was allowed for voting in past UUA presidential elections. Even if it turns out that this is pretty much normal practice for UUA presidential elections, which may not be the case, 5 hours seems to be an unnecessarily short time frame for on-site voting and the UUA bylaws should be revised to provide more time for voting on-site and other options for last minute absentee voting, possibly by "electronic communications", for people who are unexpectedly unable to vote on-site for one reason or another. OTOH Perhaps the voting practices need to be completely overhauled to allow for genuine one person one vote democracy in the UUA.

Joseph Santos-Lyons said...

I totally agree, I ran into the same situation. Time to review and update our voting practices and proceedures.

Robin Edgar said...

It's always a pleasure to hear a U*U minister totally agree with me Joseph. I feel so validated! :-)

It is also a pleasure have civil and mutually respectful debates with Rev. Ricky and other U*U ministers like Rev. Cynthia Landrum even when we do not totally agree on things.

Best Regards to all of you,

Robin Edgar

Robin Edgar said...

Check out the Plenary V video starting at the 49 minute mark up to the 56 minute mark. You might want to share your concerns with Denny Davidoff and the Fifth Principle Task Force (PDF file). Gotta love this quote at the 52:52 mark or so -

. . .about what a governance of the association by the member congregations might look like *if* it was *truly* democratic. . .

I dare say the Denny Davidoff has indirectly validated my concerns of the fact that the UUA and no shortage of U*U congregations are not in fact *truly* democratic. Far from it in some cases. . .

Robin Edgar said...

Congratulations Ricky and Joseph.* Your favored candidate, UUA President-elect Peter Morales managed to win the UUA presidency decisively with 59 percent of all votes.




* As a rule I am not big on exclamation marks but have a think for asterisks for some reason. :-)