Americans have become a bit weary of election fraud claims.
After multiple years of former President Donald Trump making charges that there was massive fraud in the election he lost to President Joe Biden, people have generally made up their minds, In that case, it doesn't matter that Trump's claims have no basis in fact, his followers will believe whatever he says, even when there's no evidence.
But, not all elections are safeguarded like U.S. presidential elections. Federal elections must follow very specific procedures designed to safeguard the process. That's expensive, requires a lot of volunteers, and it's not always practical outside of government-run elections.
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But, even then, it takes some pretty nefarious actions to mess with a vote that decides the working fate of thousands of people. It's a situation that seems unthinkable in any meaningful election process, but TWU Local 556 Board of Election, the election board of the union that represents Southwest Airlines (LUV) -) pilots, believes its recent vote to reject the airline's latest contract offer may have been compromised.
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Southwest's pilots closer to a deal
Southwest Airlines and its pilots appear to be headed toward reaching a deal with the airline. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) shared that news with its members in a recent post on its website.
"After a full week of negotiations, we can report that we have the makings of a deal within reach, but we are still not across the finish line," SWAPA posted. "...Just a few definitions remain open to fine-tune. We have been diligently writing language as we have gone, but because we have achieved our goal of a completely rewritten CBA, we still have a lot of proofing, validating, and cross-checking to do. That cleanup will take time to get right. In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do on implementation and member education products."
Once a deal is reached, the union's members would have to vote on it.
Southwest's flight attendants reached the vote stage on their latest contract offer from the airline and 64% of members voted against it with only 34% being in favor of accepting the deal. Now, the union has shared that the process may have been compromised and the flight attendants will vote again.
Southwest Airlines flight attendants will vote again
TWU Local 556's Board of Election shared a message to its members sharing its doubts about the integrity of the voting process.
"Throughout the recent Ratification Vote, we worked to achieve the fairest possible election so that the will of the Members would be heard. Throughout the days when votes were being cast, there were numerous complaints," the union shared.
Those complaints included:
- When members logged onto the voting site and entered their PIN, a blank screen appeared with no option to choose a vote.
- The system showed a member voted, but no ballot was cast.
- The site froze while attempting to cast a ballot without a selection.
- Inoperative hyperlink to take them to the voting site.
TrueBallot, the company which managed the election technology maintained that nothing was wrong with its equipment. The union also shared that members watching the livestream feed of the vote ratification expressed concerns about time lags between the end of voting and when the results were reported.
"When TrueBallot arrived, there was further delay caused by an unplanned computer update on his computer. When the vote totals were revealed, some noticed a discrepancy between the total number of Yes and No votes and the total number of ballots cast,
After discussions with TrueBallot, the union's election board decided that it could not certify the results.
"The Board of Election informed the Executive Board that it will be conducting a re-vote of the Tentative Agreement. We will begin that process in the near future. We will inform you once the details of the re-vote are finalized," the union told members.
