Union officials are working in concert with their allies in the Obama Administration to implement an electronic version of “card check” that would jeopardize voter confidentiality and open the way for coercive anti-democratic tactics, according to free market groups.
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Although the concept of electronic voting remains in its embryonic stages, there some precedent and similarity where mail voting is concerned. The Right to Work Foundation raises this point in a letter it sent to the NLRB as follows:
“By permitting mail balloting only “where circumstances tend to make it difficult for eligible employees to vote in a manual election or where a manual election, though possible, is impractical or not easily done,” the Board’s Casehandling Manual, § 11301.2, implicitly acknowledges that mail balloting is less reliable than secret balloting at polling places monitored by Board agents and the parties’ observers. In 1994, the Board considered amending its Casehandling Manual to use mail ballots in a broader range of situations. However, Regional officers filed comments against the expansion, at least one of which pointed out the risk of coercion or intimidation that exists with mail ballots: “The presence of a Board agent at an election gives employees a greater sense of security . . . . [T]he potential for interference by any party in a mail ballot situation [outweighs] . . .any cost savings which might result.” Daily Lab. Rep. (BNA) No. 145, at AA2-3 (Aug. 1, 1994). Academic studies confirm our intuitive and experience-based conclusion that remote electronic voting, like mail balloting, will not provide the “secret ballot” elections Section 9 of the Act mandates.”
While we agree with the regional officers’ position in 1994, we can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a bit of job security worries going on at the National Labor Relations Board Union right now. After all, electronic ballots means there is less need for board agents.
Read the rest @ The American Spectator.
