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DEL.ICIO.USFulco GOP to hash things out Friday night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Recently, you’ll recall, we asked for a report from anyone who attended last months Fulton County GOP Convention, which we had heard was a highly contentious affair.
We heard from Mark Irle, the outgoing first vice chair of the county party, who described a tumultuous affair in which the voting for chairman was marked by a number of irregularities including a shortage of ballots and considerable confusion over the final vote count in the chairman’s race, in which incumbent Mike Dvorscak was declared the winner over challenger Shawn Hanley.
Irle was a Hanley supporter, but he passed along a letter from John Fredricks, a self-described Dvorscak supporter, who also deplored what he described as “Machiavellian floor tactics” and “miscalculated ballots.”
Anyone who has ever been involved in a local convention fight like this will deduce we’re considerably shortening the description to get to the point.
There was enough protest over the election that the party has scheduled a special executive committee meeting for 7 p.m. Friday at the Roswell City Hall to go over what happened.
Irle questioned the timing of the meeting, which he said was designed to suppress turnout for what he describes as more of a fiasco than a convention.
We called Dvorscak, and he said Friday night was the only time when there wasn’t a conflict with local city council meetings. He said there was also a concern the legislature could be meeting into the evening on other nights of the week, which would keep those executive committee members who are legislators from attending.
Dvorscak declined to comment on the charges made about the handling of the convention.
“These types of intra-party things are normally settled in-house without bringing in the press, and in that spirit, there’s not a lot I want to say about it,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean others can’t get in touch.
Comments
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By Ability
April 10, 2007 8:53 AM | Link to this
The only thing I would add to Irle’s assessment is that Friday night at 7:00 pm is obviously meant to supress turnout, Saturday morning is the generally agreed upon time for this type of stuff. You can’t make everyone happy, but at least you don’t have to fight rush hour traffic.. It’s when they have the GOP breakfasts, the GOP precinct meetings, the GOP County Convention, the GOP District convention, and the GOP State Convention.
The strategy is obvious: suppress turnout, quietly collect proxy votes from people who can’t make it and hide the Executive Committee list from the public so other’s cannot collect proxy votes that could be used against you.
By eddie
April 10, 2007 9:20 AM | Link to this
I think the Fulton GOP leadership is scared of letting a real vote take place. I was there and it was a fiasco. I voted for Mike…..both times, but I am embarassed at what happened and is continuing to happen. Mike needs to call another vote to put this behind him. If that doesn’t happen he’s got two years with a cloud over him, and the rest of the leadership by association.