A lesson in how to suppress votes….union style.

As a union member, would you find it odd that you were being asked to vote for your union’s officers while waiting for your Venti Caramel Machiatto and Vegetable & Fontiago Breakfast Sandwich at the local Starbucks?

If you answered ‘yes,’ and do think voting for union officers at a Starbucks does sound a bit odd, you wouldn’t be alone.

Apparently, in San Diego County, when SEIU County Chapter 221 members were told by their union bosses to vote for new union bosses by showing up at several local Starbucks locations, it didn’t appeal to them either because the vast majority of them never voted in last December’s officer election.

When it came time to hold officer elections for the 5,000+ member SEIU chapter, entrenched union bosses apparently did all they could to ensure few members actually voted, including refusing to send out mail ballots and making members go to several area Starbucks to vote, according to the Reform 221 website:

POLLING STATIONS:

The County Chapter will be holding an election for new officers on Monday, December 9, 2013.
Voting will take place at the following polling locations:

NORTH COUNTY

11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Starbucks – 126 Knoll Road, San Marcos

EAST COUNTY

11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Starbucks – 124 W. Main Street, El Cajon

SOUTH COUNTY

11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Starbucks – 595 H Street, Chula Vista

CENTRAL

7 a.m. – 6 p.m.

SEIU Local 221 – 4004 Kearny Mesa Road, San Diego

Not surprisingly, the blog Stern Burger With Fries reports, only 41 of the SEIU’s 5,000+ members cast ballots.

After the SEIU international ordered a rerun election (which was held last week and of which the results are still unknown), SEIU bosses continued with their election shenanigans.

Prior to the votes even being counted, the Reform 221 group declared on its website that it is also protesting the re-run election:

Win or lose, we want to go on record as officially protesting this election. It is yet another proof of SEIU officials’ unwillingness to take seriously even the most minimal safeguards of fair elections. We demand a new election. We demand a complete do-over of the CountyChapter elections of December 2013 and April 2014.

We are filing this Election Protest before any ballots are counted tomorrow. We want to make it crystal clear that the protest is not about how many votes we got; not about making moves to undo any unfavorable vote tally. This is about basic rights of union members (here and everywhere).

In this election we have seen the censorship of candidate’s statements, the absence of published election rules, the refusal (again) to use mail ballots, and the disparate impact of placing polling stations at only 22 work sites out of more than 200 County work sites. [Emphasis added.]

• Read the litany of allegations about the SEIU’s misconduct here.

With the SEIU running its internal elections in this manner, as well as other elections, it is little wonder why the public-at-large is suspicious when the SEIU is responsible for voting machines in standard elections.
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“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com.