Why many did not receive their TRS Trustee electronic ballots — the DOE’s failed, unlawful election process & a strangely quiet UFT leadership
The NYC DOE conducted the NYCTRS election using a third-party email survey company that some were unsubscribed to already, leading to many not getting their “e-ballots”
On Wednesday, May 8 and Thursday, May 9, the New York City Department of Education sought to conduct a legally mandated election for a vacated seat for teacher-member of the New York City Teacher Retirement System (NYCTRS) using their outsourced email survey platform.
With controversy already swirling over partisan and political machine attempts to stop the election over unfounded and wild accusations that were finally thrown out two weeks ago, the DOE then proceeded to implement an election process that violated the very law that allowed for a contested TRS pension trustee election between multiple candidates in over 35 years.
Their idea was to create a seemingly painless process by conducting an online survey over two days, all in contradiction to the law governing the process, as not to do the work to follow the regulations and not have to “disrupt schools” from having to conduct secure and widely accessible, democratic local school elections for TRS pension members.
Our UFT leadership was already very aware of the various irregularities with the DOE plan for the TRS election and on Friday, May 2, UFT lawyers filed a formal complaint with the DOE stating the process was not in adherence to city administrative code 13-507.
Two days before the election, I sent out an email to our top union leaders, the current TRS trustees and our UFT general counsel asking why no attempts were being made to file an injunction. I received no response.
The Day One Fiasco
When the first day of voting was held, I shot out a second email to the same leaders after reports began pouring in about many not receiving the electronic ballots at the start of the election window, 9 AM, Wednesday.
You see, some of us went the whole work day without receiving the email survey in our inboxes. Some reported a slow trickle of ballot emails received throughout the day, and the DOE then took the extraordinary step to extend their stated election deadline beyond the 5 PM.
Those who contacted the DOE email box for support issues, received this automated response.
But what was more troublesome is that there were just as many reporting by Wednesday evening that NO electronic email had been received at all.
Here is my second email asking our union leadership to take action, especially after the Day One fiasco:
As I wrote you in an earlier email, I still want to know if the UFT general counsel represents all of us. Even more now, especially after today’s disastrous TRS trustee election rollout.
I write you as Ben Morgenroth’s alternate in this TRS election. He is OUR candidate also. Because he’s part of this UFT family. Despite the language being messaged by UFT communications that implies that he isn’t through omission.
We know that our union lawyers filed a formal complaint on Friday citing that the election process the DOE is using to conduct the TRS election is in direct violation to admin code 13-507.
Now, even as the DOE moved forward in their attempt to conduct an illegal election over two days electronically, we see hundreds of TRS members from UFT, CSA and PSC-CUNY who today say they did not receive an electronic ballot on the ONE day that is prescribed by law — the second Wednesday in May.
Those who have received their ballots did not receive them at the hour voting was supposed to begin, either. Some will receive it after 5 PM, when the window closes for today’s voting due to their admitted delays.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of our members are being disenfranchised today, and likely tomorrow, as the DOE once again botches everything it touches.
What is my union doing to make sure our rights are being protected?
Inexplicably, no injunction was sought prior to this fiasco today. And, I hear no public calls from our leaders for the DOE to ensure a fair and legal election is conducted, even as members’ voices are being silenced in an election that affects our pensions.
We expect that as dues-paying members of this union that our general counsel will be taking further legal actions regarding these clear continued violations of law.
I’d hate to think that leadership is not acting decisively in our best interests because it’s waiting for the results of this election. An election you already feel lacks validity as evident by the complaint.
The UFT general counsel responded to me with the following:
The UFT is equally disturbed with how the DOE has run this election and we are exploring our legal options.
Despite this response and sentiment about being “disturbed” over the election, we still witnessed UFT leadership bombarding our emails and phone texts asking us to vote for the preferred, endorsed candidate and never making mention about their objections behind closed doors to the way the election was being run against the law.
Make it make sense.
By Wednesday night, we finally were able to piece together one major reason (no doubt, there are others) as to why so many did not receive their email surveys at all from reports from of those who were not getting their surveys.
It had to do with the third party email survey the DOE uses in a variety of settings — Alchemer, which also uses the url domain, SGizmo. Their system globally unsubscribes users who asked to be unsubscribed in previous email survey interactions. Thus, they would never see their electronic ballot without being notified to re-subscribe.
I wrote this last email to our same union leaders with a description of the issue and more calls for them to act on the failures of the DOE’s election rollout, Thursday night.
The NYC DOE just ran the TRS Pension Board election using their go-to third party email survey platform — Alchemer. They have been using this vendor for years for their internal survey needs. And with interactions with families.
We are hearing that one big reason some TRS members did not receive their electronic ballots during the last 2 days is because if someone unsubscribed from a previous Alchemer/SGizmo campaign then they would not have been able to vote electronically using this platform, unless notified to resubscribe.
This was never clearly communicated to members, beforehand.
Once unsubscribed from the Alchemer system, the person will not receive any more future email campaigns. It’s part of their federally compliant policy. Common with most similar big box platforms.
As you can see, in the attached screenshots, there is an unsubscribe option at the footer of Alchemer survey emails generated for various DOE offices.
This isn’t a way to conduct serious electronic elections. For example, with AAA, when they conduct digital elections, members of the given organization, like PSC-CUNY, get a paper ballot with a unique access code/electronic token that they can then go online with to cast their secure vote.
This trustee election affects the pensions of over 100k city employees and over 100 billion dollars in pension funds. Hundreds, if not thousands, of TRS contributors have been disenfranchised from this process. And city admin code 13-507 was not followed throughout its administration.
This latest development only strengthens legal arguments for this entire election to be re-run.
How and why is the UFT leadership sitting idly by on this matter and waiting for election results that we knowingly know is unlawful and that further limits access to our democratic participation.
This is a serious ethical and legal matter before you. We expect our union leadership to have been more vocal about what transpired in the last two days. And we’ve heard nothing.
We need to know that those we entrust to protect and defend our rights are doing just that.
Source:
I expect no response from those who live by “rules for thee, not for me”! But, hope springs eternal.
Are we going to receive our ballots from another source?
Arlene Tolopko
UFT, Retiree