“if those 6 are allowed to vote now why not some of the other 15,000+ that didn’t vote either?”

My answer is: Because they didn’t attempt to vote and have their vote messed up by Cvent and subsequently deleted.

I sat in the meeting the other night, and have read through the documents provided by RA Counsel. Honestly it doesn’t appear that the By-Laws cover this instance, the only section I see that applies is the Appeal process which states that if a candidate is aggrieved by a decision of the election committee or Secretary or Assistant Secretary, they may appeal the decision within 10 days of the decision. Mr Greenberg has made such an appeal. The By-laws state that an appeals panel made up of all directors who are not candidates in the election in question, shall promptly consider the appeal, and a majority of the panel shall constitute a quorum.

I think the problem arises out of the state statutes. Here is the section of the code that the RA legal counsel provided at the meeting:

The code says that no ballot, proxies or votes, nor any revocations thereof or changes thereto shall be accepted by the inspectors after the closing of the polls unless the circuit court of the city or county shall determine otherwise.

Similar to the hanging chads in Florida, the court is going to have to say “go back and get those 6 votes” before it is actually going to happen.

It’s just a shame how poorly mismanaged this process was handled. These 24 households that experienced the glitch should have been directly contacted in a verifiable manor and the elections staff should have made sure that the votes they did cast for the at-large position counted, and that they had the opportunity to specifically vote or not vote in the Northpoint election that they were entitled to vote in but were not given the option when they placed their online votes.

Since they were not effectively contacted during the election process and RA is bound by the law not to accept new ballots after the election without the court saying so, the issue is closed until a civil case is filed.

—

“24 North Point residents (who were owner/occupants) attempted to vote online and were only allowed to vote for the at-large candidate, they should also have been allowed to vote for the North Point representative. After RA discovered the error the deleted the initial 24 votes so that the people could revote in both races. They reassured the candidates that they would personally get in touch with all affected voters and make sure that they votes. Come to find out all they did was send a single email. Now after much prodding they admit that just 18 of the 24 revoted. That means 6 had their initial votes erased and did not revote. The question is after RA’s online voting system malfunctioned and RA deleted their votes is sending a single email sufficient follow-up. In my opinion no, every attempt should have been made to reach these people including phone calls. When you send an email you have no idea if it ever reaches the person. To me this is a prime example of voter disenfranchisement.”

—

“Given that Collins margin of victory was 2 votes (1 owner/occupant household) this calls into question the results of the election. If RA’s online voting system hadn’t malfunctioned the results might have been different. Doesn’t RA owe it to the voters involved to make sure that their votes are counted?”

—

“Given the board’s past treatment of Greenberg they should have known that a 2 vote victory for their (Chew) hand picked canidate would raise some eyebrows. They should have been out ahead of this one, particularly since the rest of the SBC canidates won their seats.

Unless there is more to this story? Get it together folks…”

—

“Just call the actual affected 6 households. A win-win for everyone involved with this “glitch”. Collins and Greenberg agree to the tally and not to pursue further – we’re done.”

—

“This issue is the one that will get me to comment when almost nothing else did.

An election process speaks to the credibility of the organization. If the process is flawed the organization is flawed and needs to be fixed. There has to be complete faith that a cast vote is a sacred vote otherwise what is the point of voting and what sort of candidate will be inspired to spend six weeks of time, money and energy in a non-election??

I would like to hear an explanation of how votes were deleted. By who and at one point? It took a lot to get me to post but this is the issue that did it.”

—

“Precedent was set to reach out to the six affected households again, when someone at RA had to directly contact the affected households, during the election, due to a “glitch” in the online system.”

—

“First RA did not volunteer the information about what happened. The squirmed and avoided direct answers until it was dragged out of them. This is not right and those involved should answer for their behavior.

Second Milton kept his mouth shut and let others shoulder the blame. Most conspicuous was Kate – who had a hand in the decision to delete the votes, took on following up and told people that it would be done right and then simply sent a single email that she did not know was ever received. She should not have shouldered or had the responsibility for these decisions. Milton Matthews as CEO the buck stops with you. How can you let one of your people stand out there alone? Shame on you,

Mistakes are made. Acknowledge them, put them right and learn from them. That’s a learning organization that can be trusted. Unfortunately that is not RA led by Mr. Matthews.”

—

“Mike Collins – keep your mouth shut and hope this blows over.

Every time you say that you understand voter rights but nothing can be done about it in this case you look bad.

I didn’t vote for you but I also don’t want to be embarrassed by you.

Please just keep quiet.”

—

“RA should have documented they reached the affected 24 households, documented the outcome, and validated the votes counted.

Any household that was not reached, should have raised a red flag, and all candidates as well as BDO notified.”

—

And the comments go on and on, as of the time that I am posting this, there are 56 comments up in arms over how the Reston Association has handled the election  glitch that caused them to then manually delete 24 ballots from the system.

1. A malfunction in the setup of the online voting system, setup with CVent, caused a problem with the initial electronic ballots.  24 home owner voters in the Northpoint area (and maybe some in other areas) were only presented with the At-Large position vote and never presented with the Northpoint candidates.
2. After the glitch was corrected, these 24 ballots were DELETED from the system, “to avoid duplicates”, and the home owners who’s votes were deleted were sent an email notifying them of the problem and giving them a new code they could use to vote online.
3. Of the 24 deleted ballots, all but 6 of the households re-voted, leaving 6 ballots (or 12 votes) unaccounted for.
4. In the election, 166 ballots were declared invalid for one reason or another, and 109 were declared partially invalid.
5. In the contested Northpoint Board of Director position, Mike Collins won by 1 ballot (2 votes).
6. Peter Greenberg, who lost by 1 ballot (2 votes) for the Northpoint seat, has formally asked the RA board and the elections committee to make sure that these highly motivated voters (as evidenced by their immediate participation in the election) be contacted to identify their voting intentions to insure that their votes are counted in the election.

So that is the situation.  Due to an election malfunction, 24 Ballots (48 votes) were DELETED, and very little follow-up was done explain the situation and make sure that these residents were able to cast their ballots.  As a result 6 of these home owners have been disenfranchised in the election.

The elections committee discussed the issue in the meeting, and decided that they would allow Mr. Greenberg and others inspect the invalidated ballots, they would allow BDO, the accounting firm responsible for counting the ballots, to provide Mr. Greenberg with more detailed information surrounding the 24 deleted ballots and the 17 re-votes.

The elections committee refused to take the further step, requested by Mr. Greenberg, of contacting the potentially disenfranchised voters, to clarify their intentions to make sure their proper votes were counted in the election.

Ken Chadwick, General Counsel for the board, advised the election committee and Mr. Greenberg that a Civil case would need to be filed and a court order would need to be rendered for any further steps to be taken in the election.

“Win or lose, I’m not out to change the election, I just want to make sure none of my neighbors were disenfranchised” said Peter Greenberg.  “Issues like these go to the heart of why I ran, as neighbors we have to treat each other very well and not see the association as something separate from it’s members, the members are the association.”

“I really know a thing about voter protection and voter rights, it’s kind of become a hobby of mine” said Mike Collins, “The worse thing an entity can do is make up new procedures after the votes have been counted.”

After campaigning hard, “…knocking on over 2,000 doors”, I think Mr. Collins feels the results speak for themselves, and that he deserves the Northpoint seat on the board.

It sounds like our local voting drama has some more twists and turns to come, stay tuned!

Al this and the untold number of other “kicked out’ votes for one reason or another, further call in to question the results of the Northpoint director race where Mr. Greeneberg lost by (1 ballot / 2 votes) while the rest of the brown’s chapel slate won by landslides.

As more and more information about the election comes to light, it appears worse and worse for the organizational abilities of the Reston Association and the legitimacy of the non-certified election results.

The Reston community deserves fair and impartial elections and to have the third party CPA firm certify the election results.

In the Northpoint Race, Peter Greenberg, lost to Mike Collins by just 2 votes!  I asked Mr. Greenberg if there was any kind of re-count process.  Apparently there were approximately 25 online votes that didn’t get processed due to a computer glitch, and these people were notified by mail that their vote wasn’t counted.  He is unsure how many of those people had a chance to re-vote.  There may have been other counting issues, but Mr. Greenberg has been told that if he would like a re-count he will need to pay for it himself.

All of the Save Brown’s Chapel slate was elected, other than Mr. Greenberg, and 2 votes seem like a pretty slim margin for error, especially when you already have acknowledged issues with some of the votes.

I wasn’t able to find any “official process” in the by-laws for this.  Does anyone know if this kind of issue has come up in the past, and if so how it was handled?

It would seem that an official re-count should be performed and not at the expense of the candidate.  With all the money the RA board has thrown around on architectural plans for projects that may or may not move forward, surely they can afford to have a re-counting of the 2,425 votes that they have reported as being cast in the election of the North Point Director.

I am sure both candidates would make the time to be available to oversee the process and help with the counting.

None of us thought the situation could get any worse, but Reston politics has hit a new low. As if the actions of the RA board members and RCC board members surrounding the current election weren’t unprofessional enough, now we have Jim Elder, President of RYBL (Reston Youth Basketball League).  The children of Reston arrived at their tournament this past weekend (held in our area public school gymnasiums) to find a letter from Jim taped to the door endorsing a slate of candidates.  It was printed on RYBL stationary and came complete with candidate bios.

Mr. Elder, you should be ashamed of yourself.  As a citizen of Reston, endorse whom ever you want.  But at the President of RYBL have respect for your position and the children you serve.  My heart breaks for the children of the candidates you DIDN’T endorse who showed up to play in the tournament only to be greeted by your inappropriate display.  Your actions were certainly an abuse of power, but the bottom line is that they were misplaced and hurtful.  What has this community come to?

I hope that the people of Reston will look past manipulating tactics, educate themselves on the issues, and decide for themselves who will best represent them for the future of Reston.

We would love to hear your thoughts!

All,

We’re sending out this letter to publicly, and without hesitation, support our close friend Peter Greenberg for the North Point seat on the RA board.  The election begins Saturday when you receive your ballot in the mail from RA.  Please vote for Peter by either mailing in the ballot, or voting online (instructions are on the mailed ballot).

We’ve been friends with Peter and Edy for years. Peter has a deep knowledge of Real Estate Development and the financial issues facing our community; and his experience as a successful entrepreneur and business leader make him uniquely qualified to sit on the RA Board and defend our interests as homeowners.

We know that Peter will insist upon full transparency and fiscal responsibility; he will protect home values and help to maintain the service we expect from the RA.  He is a man of unquestionable integrity, and we are grateful that he has stepped forward to represent the North Point district.

We are trying to help spread the word and make sure that Peter wins.  As a personal favor to us, could you please pass this email to your friends and neighbors that live in North Reston?

Also, it would help a lot if you become a fan on his facebook page, Pete Greenberg for Reston Association.

Best,

Sara and Adam Viener

P.S. Here is a PDF fact sheet about Peter Greenberg:  Vote for Pete

North Point District Director

If you live in the north point area, the choice is clear.  Peter Greenberg is a good friend of mine, and I know he would make an excellent member of the board.  He is running for the North Point District Director.  Peter brings the exact professionalism, financial acumen and communication skills we need to to insure that the Reston tax monies are being spent wisely and that land owned by the Reston residents is not given away.  Here is what Peter had to say in his candidacy filing:

We face significant challenges in the coming years. Financial management, the threat of development of common-area lands and staggering increased density in and around Reston Association are the most pressing.

My approach to dealing with these issues is simple, focus on the Association’s mission statement: “To preserve and enhance the Reston community through outstanding leadership, service and stewardship of our resources.” I’ll emphasize the following: Financial management, and in particular, keeping dues in check. Customer service within the organization and outward toward the members. Preserving our common-area lands in perpetuity. Smart participation in the Fairfax County Master Planning process. It is not open season on Reston development.

The other two candidates are Michael Collins and Rengin Morro.  I have not met them.  If you have any comments about them, please add them here.

The Lake Anne/Tall Oaks District Director

I had the opportunity to meet and hear Ken Knueven speak last night, and I have to say, I was impressed.  Ken is a good speaker, has corporate executive experience and, like Peter Greenberg, has a good grasp of the challenges facing Reston.  Here is what Ken had to say in his Candidacy notes:

Reston is one of the largest community associations in the country. Yet it is vitally important to remember that we, the residents, remain the stakeholders. We are the stewards of Reston’s future. The Lake Anne/Tall Oaks District faces significant challenges. Among them are open spaces, revitalization efforts, pool closures and the aging Lake Anne RELAC system.

For over 30 years I have been instrumental in the development, growth and leadership of global organizations, gaining a thorough understanding of how citizens, industry and governments can co-exist. I will focus on our community’s real needs, offering creative, viable and sustainable solutions.

Other candidates running for the position include Kevin Danaher and Guy Rando

The At-Large Seat

If you don’t live in the North Point or Lake Anne districts, then your only vote this year will be for the At-Large seat.  There are four candidates running for the at-large seat, including incumbent Joe Leighton, as well as Rod Koozmin, David Robinson and Patrick Shipp.  While I don’t know a lot about these candidates yet, I do know that Joe Leighton was one of the only board members to stand up against tearing down brown’s chapel park.  Joe certainly isn’t a yes man.  I am holding off judgment on who to vote for at this point though.  Although Joe is a good guy and has been a good RA board memember, I am not convinced that the rest of the board takes him seriously and am a little concerned with his communications style and it’s effectiveness.  Rod Koozmin appears to be an interesting candidate as well.

Other candidates include: David Robinson and Patrick Shipp

It will be interesting to see how the board changes over the next few years.  I would like to make an open invitation to any candidates as well as passionate Reston citizens.  If you are interested in becoming an editor on GoReston.com, register for an account and let me know and I will upgrade you to editor status so you can post your thoughts!