Reply to Director of OLMS, DoL, regarding ASC election challenge

December 31, 2010

John Lund, Director
Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS)
Department of Labor

Dear Mr. Lund:

On the one hand, I am pleased to report that you have prevailed upon AAUP to reimburse Dr. George Pieczenik the $300 owed to him.

On the other hand, I am taken aback by your unwillingness to even RECEIVE from me a response to Ms. Fox's decision regarding my election challenge for the AAUP ASC Chair election. Therefore, you are uninformed.

Further, you claim that "Additionally, you offer no support for your claim that the OLMS Washington District Office and the election contractor, TrueBallot, treated candidates unequally or showed bias to particular candidates".

Yet, NO ONE in the Department of Labor, Ms. Fox included, ever asked me for any documentation whatsoever pursuant to my filing of the election challenge. Surely, a proper investigation requires examination of any and all evidence.

I have sent to you one important documentation in a separate email. That message is attached in this message as "Fwd RE Candidate Statement". It clearly provides evidence of unequal treatment of candidate in that the email distribution for the preferred candidate of the AAUP leadership was sent from election@aaup.org against mine which was sent from trueballot@electionadmin.com and lost to 2500 to 3000 voters, as reported to me by Nick Koumoutseas of TrueBallot.

I await your response,

Paul Zarembka

Attachment:

Dear Mr. Lund:

Below is the message I received from TrueBallot in the evening of June 24, 2010.

When my candidacy message went out on June 1, 2010, it went from the trueballot@electionadmin.com domain. Therefore, by TrueBallot's own testimony below, 2500 to 3000 voters never received that June 1 statement of my candidacy for Chair of the ASC due to spam and other filtering. Most spam and many filters delete relevant messages, which is why TrueBallot mentions "lose" (contrary to AAUP claim). No replacement of my candidate message was ever sent from the election@aaup.org domain.

The preferred candidate of the AAUP leadership, however, did have her June 3, 2010 message sent from election@aaup.org and thus her candidate statement was received by those 2500 to 3000 voters who had not received mine. You can note that June 3 was the approximate date voters received their ballots.

Please note that I did not approve of the use of the @aaup.org domain by any candidate, myself included.

This change in use of the domain for distribution of candidate statements was demonstrable unequal treatment of candidates, by any measure.

Paul Zarembka


-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	RE: Candidate Statement
Date:	Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:39:33 -0400
From:	Nick Koumoutseas
Reply-To:	v
To:	'Paul Zarembka'

I will make that change and resend.

as far as the "from" line:
1) Kathleen should make that decision
2) You will lose 2500 to 3000 deliveries using trueballot@electionadmin.com
 due to spam and other filtering