Grace under Siege 73: Secret ballot

"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." (Josef Stalin) 

    The vote went civilly enough. Carl LaBarbera, who recently assumed the leadership of the Executive Board of Elders, presided. A number of guidelines had been put into place to assure that only members voted. 
     In the past, members over 18 just stood to indicate they were authorized to vote and the ushers handed them ballots. This time members had to line up out on the patio to be given their ballot--in an unmarked envelope inside an envelope with their name printed on it--based on a membership list we have never seen and didn't know existed, whose criteria were never divulged to us.

     Only members who were on this list were given ballots and only those given ballots were allowed into the social hall where we were going to vote. By the way, there were two police cars outside, presumably to keep order. (One member asked the policewoman, "Why are you here?" She said, "That's what I'm here to find out.")

     Carl had hired a parliamentarian to help us all stick to Robert's Rules of Order but on the whole attorney John Anderson ("Bear") was the one who kept us on track.

     Bear called a point of order when Carl took a motion to close down the debate after a couple of members had made comments, while a third one was standing at the microphone waiting to speak.

     Bear called a point of order to announce that at least seven members had been told they were not eligible to vote. (We heard of more later.) Carl had elder Ted Moncure, on stage with him, quickly check the (mysterious) list and confirm that indeed they were not members. I knew most of these people and have no idea by what criteria they were excluded. A few had been attending other churches lately but had not removed their membership from Grace. Doris Schilling, a member since 1945, attends regularly but hasn't been able to give much money to the church. Did those things count?Yet the leaders of the Watchmen--and we--were acknowledged to be members.

     Bear then pointed out that members can not be removed from membership unless they themselves request to be removed in writing or unless they have gone through the complete Matthew 18:15-20 disciplinary process, the one which had been begun on himself.
     Carl conferred with the parliamentarian and then agreed--but those members were still excluded from voting, at least at that time.

     At the end of the hour, when the debate, which never became inflamed, was over and the ballots were marked, Carl instructed us to put our ballots back in the unmarked envelopes, and put the unmarked envelopes back into the marked envelopes before turning them in.

     My Jerry took the microphone to challenge the "secrecy" of turning in ballots in envelopes with our names printed on them. Carl assured him that the inner envelope and outer envelope would be separated before the votes were counted. He said they needed the outer, marked envelopes to "know who voted."

     He asked Jerry something like, "Is there something you need to keep secret?"

     Jerry asked, "Do you not understand the term 'secret ballot'?" Carl brushed that off with a comment to the effect that it wasn't important, we're all friends, we all trust each other and "everyone knows what we're up to anyway-" hastily changing that to "what we're doing." 
     I see. That's why we needed to have people who claim to be members checked against a membership list for the first time in the history of our church, why we had to hire a parliamentarian and why there was a police presence. Because we trust each other.

    I wanted to ask why, since the envelopes were already separate, we could not turn them in separately, why the leadership needed to know who voted and why they couldn't determine who voted by checking names on the envelopes which had been picked up against names on the ones which remained. But I didn't have an opportunity.

     I wanted to say, too, that no, frankly we don't trust them, that the Executive Board of Elders has a history of declaring bogus results of their votes and that although I trust each of the five individual men doing the counting, I could think of all kinds of ways of abusing the process between "the cup and the lip."

     But we had no choice so we turned in ballots with our names emblazoned on the outer envelope and left for lunch where I had my first solid food for ten days. When we drove back by the church the two police cars were still there. I felt a little better, hoping that the officers were inside monitoring the count.

     Then we went home where Jerry, always unperturbed, bless him, finished reading Nicholas Nickleby and I lay on the bed with pesto pasta and fudge ice cream competing in my stomach, trying not to throw up. I regretted letting myself getting so caught up emotionally in the day. (continued)