ELECTION APPEALS MASTER
IN RE:
VIRTUE-DILEO SLATE, Protestor.
06 Elec. App. 077 (KC)
This matter is an appeal from the Election Supervisor's decision 2006 ESD 372 issued October 16, 2006.
A hearing was held before me on November 2, 2006. The following persons were heard by way of teleconference: Jeffrey J. Ellison, Esq. and Steven R. Newmark, Esq. on behalf of the Election Supervisor, Bradley Raymond, Esq., General Counsel for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, David Hoffa, Esq. on behalf of the Hoffa 2006 Slate, Kevin Cicak and Dan Virtue on behalf of the Virtue-DiLeo Slate.
This protest complains about convention coverage and a get out the vote message containing a picture of General President James Hoffa in the September, 2006 edition of The Teamster Leader. The Election Supervisor applied the timing, tone and content analysis required under the Election Rules and found no violation.
On appeal the protester argues that the mailing of the IBT financed newsletter coming three months after the Convention and simultaneously with the mailing of ballots in the International election, and juxtaposition of General President Hoffa's picture with the need to vote message, fails the timing and content tests.
The text however is the crucial and decisive component in the analysis. The convention report and the vote message are entirely bi-partisan, campaign neutral and politically innocuous. As the Election Supervisor correctly points out, in every election cycle since the federal consent decree was entered into, this type of content has been found not to offend the Election Rules.
Accordingly, the Election Supervisor's decision is affirmed.
SO ORDERED:
_/s/_______________________
Kenneth Conboy
Election Appeals Master
Dated: November 3, 2006