On Tuesday, July 11, 2006, a committee of three OPEDA members met at the OPEDA national office at 2:30 p.m. to count the ballots received for the 2006 election of the OPEDA National President and National Council members. The committee was chaired by James H. Bradley, Deputy Administrator, ARS. The other committee members were Mark Benedict, JD, FSIS, former President of the Association of People with Disabilities in Agriculture (APDA), and Dawn Tucker, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
The committee received 210 sealed envelopes from Bruce Marti, OPEDA Membership Secretary. These sealed envelopes had been in the custody of Bruce Marti from the time of their pickup at the OPEDA mailbox, until they were given to the committee at 2:30 p.m. on July 11, 2006. Upon receipt of each sealed envelope, Bruce Marti entered the date of receipt and his initials on the front of the envelope. He also maintained a separate log showing the total number of envelopes received each day. The ballot envelopes and log were kept in a locked secure place and only Bruce Marti had the key.
The committee reported the following results of its count of election ballots included in the 210 envelopes:
VOTES FOR OPEDA NATIONAL PRESIDENT:
M. Farook Sait
136 Votes
George A. Pavelis
53 Votes
The ballots applicable to the above 189 votes cast for President included a vote for National President, as well as a vote for a National Council Member. There were also 2 ballots cast for President that only included a vote for President; both of those votes were for M. Farook Sait. Thus, Mr. Sait received a total of 138 (136 plus 2) votes.
A total of 192 ballots were cast for National President, of which M. Farook Sait received a total of 138 votes; George A. Pavelis received 53 votes; and one ballot for President was disqualified, as it included a vote for both Presidential candidates.
VOTES FOR OPEDA NATIONAL COUNCIL MEMBERS:
Except for Region 12, all candidates for National Council were elected unanimously. Two ballots included a write-in vote for Region 12. The name of Jack Cronhardt was entered on one ballot and the name of Dale Hagerman was entered on the other ballot. Neither Mr. Cronhardt, nor Mr. Hagerman are members of OPEDA. Thus, Region 12 does not have an elected National Council Member. There were a total of 196 ballots casting a vote for a National Council Member. Of those 196 ballots, 6 ballots had a vote for a National Council Member but did not include a vote for National President. The 210 envelopes received in OPEDA and given by Bruce Marti to the committee included 3 envelopes that were postmarked on July 1, 2006; 1 envelope that was postmarked July 5, 2006; and 1 envelope that was postmarked July 6, 2006. The committee disqualified these envelopes because the instructions on the bottom of the ballots stated that ballots must be postmarked by June 30, 2006, or they will not be counted.
A summary of the 210 envelopes received by the committee follows:
189
ballots voting for President and Council Members
2
ballots voting for President only
1
disqualified ballot voting for President
6
ballots voting for Council members and not for President
5
envelopes postmarked subsequent to June 30, 2006
7
envelopes contained general correspondence and no ballots
At the conclusion of the vote count, the committee returned the 210 envelopes and their contents to the custody of Bruce Marti, along with a signed report of the results of their count. The ballots applicable to the OPEDA 2006 Election of National President and National Council Members and signed report of the committee members are now in the custody of Bruce Marti and being kept in a secure locked place.
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
The election is over and you have voted that I serve another three years. Thank you for the confidence shown in my leadership. I promise to work hard for the benefit of OPEDA and I look forward to the opportunity to interact with as many of our members as possible. As you can see, there were just a little more than 200 ballots cast – a rather low percentage of our membership. I hope that in the future we can have a greater interest in running for office and a higher percentage of members participating in the election. Once again, thank you for your vote of confidence.
