Embattled Shelby County Election Commission administrator Richard Holden gets to keep his job.
This comes after a brutal attack from Democratic commissioners who repeatedly questioned Holden's leadership over his staff. The commission's three Republicans voted to keep Holden.
Last August, my interest was piqued when I had questions about the Primary. Upon further investigations, I discovered several irregularities in the filing of the candidates petitions to be on the Primary ballot for the TN-9 Congressional seat. Here are more details on what I found. I personally met with Ms. Lester on 9/11/2012 at the Shelby County Election Commission offices and we discovered that two of the voter signatures that Holden approved on George Flinn's petition were invalid. Ms. Lester excused them as "mistakes" without any investigation into whether Mr. Holden actually did his job and checked George Flinn's nominating petition or just signed his name to it
After the events of today, I wonder if Ms. Lester and Mr. Monger really want to get rid of Mr. Holden or whether they want to keep him on so that they can blame the Republicans for the continual mess-ups in the Shelby County Elections.
Well, Ms. Lester and Mr. Monger; enquiringly minds want to know. Why didn't you launch an investigation on Mr. Holden's actions back in April 2012? I handed you evidence of wrong doing on Mr. Holden's part, but you did nothing with it
Don't think that I'm excusing the Republican on the Commission. They were in CYA mode about the whole thing. They are a microcosm of what is wrong with the establishment of the Republican Party; they don't want to do what is right, just what will give them power. The interaction that I had with Dee Nollner and Robert Meyers left much to be desired They weren't interested in finding out the truth either, in fact, Ms. Nollner was more interested in smearing me than in answering my questions.
Elections are vital to our Republic; we need to hold our election officials accountable. The Shelby County Election Commission needs an overhaul.
Update #1: I was looking for the Commission Minutes from the September 19, 2012 meeting where they put Holden on probation. Couldn't find them.
Update #2: The Shelby County Election Commission Meeting minutes from their September 19, 2012 meetings were finally approved and posted after five months. The regular minutes are there where they admit that I was right, but that they didn't care, but the Minutes from the meeting where they put Holden on probation haven't been posted. According to this tweet from Commissioner Monger, the September 19, 2012 minutes were held up because Commissioner Nollner wanted Commissioner Lester to falsify the minutes.
@tnwahm were held up for 5 months b/c comm Lester as secretary was not willing to falsify the minutes as your republican commissioner wanted
— George Monger (@georgemonger) February 22, 2013
I sat through several committee and general meetings last summer and the one thing that stood out to me is how partisan the entire Election commission is from the clerks to the commissioners. There is no cooperation so nothing gets done. I sat through a committee meeting where one employee of the Election Commission flatly refused to answer questions from a Commissioner who was trying to get to the bottom of what caused the ballot mixups in the past two elections. That employee is still there.
ReplyDeleteWhere is True the Vote on this? A member of a nonpartisan Citizen's Committee for Honest Elections should be in attendance for every public committee and general meeting of the Shelby County Election Commission monitoring what is going on.