Political Insider

By Vince

April 3, 2007 9:48 AM | Link to this

My wife and I attended the convention as we have for at least the past 12 years and immediately realized a seemingly random seating of delegates and alternatives…this of course became more clear as many who were present appeared ready to support the current chairman. Regardless, there was poor organization early on with an apparent lack of protocol being used to seat delegates, including Fulton County Commissioner Lynn Riley who was not on the rolls in any capacity. This is very unusual and is not customary. It continued with another seemingly haphazard distribution of the first series of ballots, with the actual number distributed coming up about 40 short of the number of individuals able to vote… Once this first ballot was submitted about 30+ people left for other commitments, obviously satisfied they had done their duty….within about 20 minutes it was decided a recount would be required with much confusion from all the organizing parties…These ballots were basically torn pieces of copy paper and again appeared to be randomly distributed… I have attended many of these and have worked at all levels of the organization and had no idea what happened before, during or after this election. I say at the least a recount is required, if not an investigation. Thanks, Vince

By Jerry Mander

April 3, 2007 1:36 PM | Link to this

I agree with the previous assessment, but would like to add a point or two:

During the first vote, the reason the ballots were about 40 short is people were taking extra ballots with the intent to vote multiple times. There was an exact number of ballots for the exact number of people registered - so there was no reason to be short any ballots.

The second vote was just as loony as the first. Nobody in that room had any idea how many certified Delegates were left and it was basically a free-for-all. Confusing would be an understatement as the vote total kept changing with no regard for who was and who wasn’t supposed to be voting. It was a moving target, with the amount changing by more than Dvorsack’s winning margin of 6 votes. It left the majority of the people in the room, Dvorsack’s supporters included, with a very bad taste in their mouths - it was time to go home and take a shower.

The convetion was the equivalent of conducting a Mayoral election by telling all the voters to show up in a gymnasium at once, take a ballot (only one please) out of one of the designated ballot bowls, then hand it to whoever seemed to look offical at the time, then cross your fingers and hope there are not more ballots cast then registered voters - if there are more ballots than voters keep redoing the process until enough people call it quits and go home.

By Still disgusted

April 4, 2007 10:18 AM | Link to this

The whole thing was a fiasco, travesty, and electoral miscarriage of the highest proportion. Ultimately is was an asinine embarrassment. The Fulco GOP has been, and should be a model and standard for every other County GOP organization in the state, this total breakdown made us look like loony fools, and was apt metaphor for the misleadership of our current County Chairman over the past few years. What I don’t understand is how he pulled half as many votes as he did.

From the disorganization regarding the number of credentialed delegates (a moving number still in dispute nearly two weeks later), to having a perfectly proper motion to allow the Chairman’s candidates address the Convention for three minutes each ruled “out of order” by Convention Chairman State Rep. Wendell Willard, to the absolute failure to have a controlled secret balloting process prepared after the Fulco GOP Operating Committee instructed the Chairman to do so two weeks before the convention, the videotape of this event should be sold under the title “How not to run a convention.”

Probably the worst miscarriage was never being presented with a list of delegates to the District and State GOP conventions, which was done in secret, behind closed doors, never allowed to be adjusted or challenged by the convention delegates, and I do not recall ever being approved by the convention. After seeing that list for the first time over a week after the convention, it became evident that it was an even greater miscarriage of competence and fairness, rewarding the Chairman’s supporters and punishing his challenger’s supporters, and should be completely thrown out. The District and State Conventions should not accept the Fulco GOP delegations because the process was a totally improper and aborted one.

From my conversations with other Republican leaders across the state, the Fulton County GOP has absolutely no credibility with them, even less than none, and I agree with that assessment.

The only way to restore the Fulco GOP’s integrity and credibility is to throw out the the results of the Chairman’s race and have the state GOP reballot the original credentialed delegates (if those can ever really be truly determined) to determine the next Chairman, and have the Fulco GOP Executive Committee reappoint the delegates for the District and State Conventions.