ORP Election debacle of the “missing ballot”

Regarding the vote on the NCW race.

I am 100% opposed to it. The vote itself.

Last Saturday night, the ORP Executive Committee held a closed Executive Session meeting with less than 2 hours' notice. The ORP has not released any pertinent information regarding the "missing ballot" other than to say it was for Hellen Heller

The decisions made to assume the ballot cast and declare Tracy Honl the winner at the March SCC meeting are now null and void.  Given that one ballot was tampered with (if unintentionally) there is ZERO confidence that is true for every ballot.

A completely new in person election is the only solution at this point.

The missing ballot was declared an Abstention at the SCC meeting. Something that never should have happened. Now having found this "missing ballot" it is changed to a vote for Helen.  The EC made this decision I assume? Yet only the body can overrule a decision by the Chair.  The "missing ballot" is still an abstention by ruling of the Chair.  There is no way to correct this mistake after the meeting is ended. The "missing ballot" is still an abstention.  The only way for this to be corrected is for a new election to be held.  Which is what should have happened in March.

Under RRO 46:50 (c) Contesting an Election " If the votes of the nonmembers or absentees affect the result action has been taken in violation of the fundamental principle of parliamentary law that the right to vote is limited to the members of the organization who are actually present at the time vote was taken."

The declaration by the Chair to declare the "missing ballot" an abstention abrogated the rights of the delegate who cast the ballot.

The vote to let the election stand vs let the election stand and have pro-forma run off is not a real decision. It doesn't matter which way I vote.

I am not condoning this tainted election by voting.

It's a mess and I sympathize. I faced similar issues last year and had an election with a missing ballot (for a few minutes) in January. Had it gone missing longer I would have held a new election. We knew exactly where the ballot was the whole time it was not in the counting room.

There are many outstanding questions that need to be answered.

Why did the audit take this long (6 weeks) after the election?

Who conducted the audit?

Who observed the audit?

Where was the ballot?

Who found it?

What was its condition?

Who had access to the area where the ballot was found prior to it being found?

Where were the ballots stored?

Were the ballots moved?

What was the chain of Custody?