The 2003 USAT Board of Directors election was illegal and must be invalidated. New elections must be called in January. The facts supporting this follow. Candidates Jim Girand, Valerie Gattis, and Diane Travis pressed the Nominations Committee for the release of the PDF version of the ballot earlier than the official Ballot would have been sent to the membership. This allowed them to copy such ballot and go out collecting votes prior to the official beginning of the election. This was illegal wrong for several reasons. First, The Bylaws state: ARTICLE VII. Section 4. f “…In addition, any member may become a candidate by submitting to the Nominating Committee at least twenty (20) days prior to the mailing of the written ballot a petition with the signature of thirty (30) members nominating such member to the Board of Directors…” Since our deadline for petitions was 31 June, we would violate this bylaw if the election began before at least 20 July. Article VII Section 4. b. "The Board of Directors shall be directly elected by the members of USA Triathlon by written ballot, however, only members of USA Triathlon’s Elite Pool (as defined in Article VI, Section 2 above) may cast a ballot for the Athlete Directors. The written ballot shall be mailed to the membership no later than October 1 of each year, which ballot shall set forth the proposed action and provide a reasonable time within which to return the ballot to USA Triathlon in order to be counted. " This requires the ballot to be mailed to the membership. This is the beginning of the election and is achieved by including the ballot in the Triathlon Times newsletter which is mailed to every USAT member. That newsletter included the personal statements and platforms of all candidates running. That issue of Triathlon Times came out in August, which is when many candidates expected the election to start. Finally, the procedures manual has the resolution: Voting 10/25-26/91 Be it resolved that members be allowed to vote only for the candidates in their region and the athletes representatives; and that henceforth only original ballots will be accepted as valid. This is clear. So, the aforementioned incumbents pressed to obtain a copy of the ballot from USAT and make copies. They then collected votes, starting the election before the prescribed time and without adequate notification to all those candidates who are running. To wit, some of these candidates were not even in the country and were expecting to start getting votes in August when the election usually started. Incumbent candidates were also able to collect votes before the slates and platforms had been published to the membership. Anyone who thinks this is a fair and honest way to run an election is operating with a different set of values. The Nominations Committee attempted to run a fair and honest election and met with resistance from the board at every turn. A fair and honest election starts on the same day for everyone, all candidates, and all voting members. The Nominations Committee is a standing committee and is supposed to be above meddling from the board and incumbent candidates. Its charter is to see that a fair and honest election could be achieved. The board of directors voted illegally to set aside the aforementioned bylaws and resolutions and go ahead with an unfair election. They allowed themselves to hand out ballots and then COLLECT THEM from voters. This allowed them to pre screen votes. The opportunity to discard votes for their competitors is obvious. After the board meeting, the Nominations Committee put this problem to the legal committee for an opinion. We received a legal opinion from our legal committee regarding my statements and it agreed to a large extent with what was said above. That document went out to the board on Friday at 9:27 AM Eastern. The President (an incumbent candidate) gave the board until 6 PM to respond, or if they chose to ignore it, the board’s previous decision on election practices would stand. Karen Buxton and Ray Plotecia responded as being in favor of changing our practices to conform with the advice given by our lawyer. Brad Davison (who works all day) missed the deadline and responded shortly thereafter, also in favor of changing the practice.
Valerie Gattis, board president, stated that, “If the Board wishes to revisit the ballot distribution and collection by candidates issue, I request that this be done BY 6 PM Eastern today, Friday, June 18th, otherwise, the process will stand as it is. The deadline for the publication of our election platforms, the ballots and accepted election and campaign procedures is over due.” Only Plotecia, Davison, and Buxton responded, saying that the board should follow the advice of USAT legal counsel. The rest of the board did not respond. By ignoring the legal opinion, they allowed it to stand. This was set up by the president to ensure her success. Incumbent candidates must recuse from a vote of this nature. By saying that if there are no comments, the vote stands is tantamount to saying that recusals will be counted in favor of ignoring out legal counsel.
Our legal Counsel said, in part: “I urge the Board to resolve that only USAT may distribute ballots. Restricting distribution to USAT will ensure that no ballots are distributed without complete candidate profiles accompanying the ballots and will avoid other concerns inherent in having candidates distribute ballots or present them to members for signature.” The full text of this ruling is available. To have candidates handing Xeroxed copies of ballots to individuals and collecting them again is not only an unfair election practice, it is in violation of USAT Bylaws and Procedures. It also runs contrary to the opinions of USAT Legal Counsel. I am urging the losing candidates, and the membership to press for invalidation of this election and hold new and fair elections at the beginning of the new year.