Voting discrepancy

[dedkad]

I am a Committee member for a Scout troop. I happened to be in the room at the end of the meeting where we had our OA elections. The OA rep and the Committee Chair spent a fair amount of time going over the votes, so I'm confident the count was done correctly. After the meeting the OA rep  was discussing the results with the Scoutmaster. I happened to see the results and only two of the three boys nominated were selected. The one who wasn't chosen was the SPL, and this was clearly troubling to the SM and the OA rep. I left while they were still talking about it. Fast forward a week to Camporee where they announce those who were selected to OA. I find out from my son that the SPL got in and one of the other boys (a younger scout) didn't. Somebody basically did a swap. I'm dumbfounded. I see from reading other threads in this forum that the SM has some control over who is on the ballot, but I couldn't find anything that said the SM can override the vote of the scouts. I sent an email to the OA rep asking what happened, but haven't heard back yet. I guess I don't have a problem that the SPL got in even though there may have been a reason why the scouts did not vote for him, but I am particularly upset that one of the other scouts who was voted in, didn't get in. I think they need to make things right by that scout. What should I do?

[qwazse]

It makes no sense that they would "do a swap" just to get the SPL tapped out.  All three boys could be elected as well as just two. So, if they were going to commit fraud, the simplest thing to do was change the vote count.

Did you all have pre-printed or write-in ballots? I ask because one of the mistakes scouts often do is write the first name of one scout and the last name of another on the same line.

I would have gone beyond the OA rep to the lodge advisor.

Anyway, you're not going to have any peace about this until you confront the SM and/or CC and let them know what you observed. To do that before or after the lodge advisor chimes in? Your call.

[SSScout]

"A Scout is Trustworthy".

What Qwarzse  said. 

After the deed is done, you can't undo the Tapout , but you could bring the "other" Scout to the next tapout.

Did this happen in North Carolina?   Just askin'.....

[dedkad]

1 hour ago, SSScout said:

"A Scout is Trustworthy".

What Qwarzse  said. 

After the deed is done, you can't undo the Tapout , but you could bring the "other" Scout to the next tapout.

Did this happen in North Carolina?   Just askin'.....

Not North Carolina.

[dedkad]

I talked to the Committee Chair tonight. Apparently, the paper I saw with the two names on it that they were discussing was not the result of the election. Odd that they would have those names on there when they didn't really represent anything, but I have no reason to doubt him. That will teach me to stick my nose where it doesn't belong! Never hurts to verify, though.

[qwazse]

I always appreciated adults who asked questions. I need to know that if someone sees anything out of place, they'll tell us.

[JosephMD]

When we do elections, the youth arrowmen on the elections team count the votes.  If there is only 1 youth, the adult adviser does a second count.  It gets a little crazy.  We usually have pre-printed ballots with a place to mark y/n.  It is like Florida in the 2000 election some times.  Our standard is, if there is any mark that is not clearly an N or the word No in the box, that is not clearly an unintentional extension of the vote above or below, it counts as a yes.  The unit doesn't know the vote counts.  If I'm the adult adviser for an election, if a scout gets a really low number of votes compared to his peers, I might mention it to the unit leader because it could be a sign of other issues.  But I don't tell them, Johnny got 10 votes and Billy got 11, just the names of the scouts who were elected.