Executive Director Statement on TLA 2022 Elections

One of TLA’s greatest assets is our delivery of quality member services. Due to a recent series of disappointing circumstances, we regret to inform you that we failed in our process to ensure high-quality elections for our Executive Board and contested Unit Officer positions which participated in the TLA online election.

In recent days, we have discovered that the survey tool, while set up in a way that should have been secure, lacked the ability to eliminate multiple votes made by the same user on different devices. This breakdown in the system compromised the integrity of those elections. Through failure to fully understand the technology platform and its functionality, we put the quality of our election process at risk.

As the Executive Director of TLA, I take full responsibility for this lapse and apologize for any frustration or mistrust this has caused. I informed the Executive Board and they voted to re-run the elections. They discussed many possible scenarios of how to approach this issue and in the end determined that the only fair, balanced, and transparent way to move forward is with a new election.  I agree with their recommendation as an important step in rebuilding the integrity of our elections moving forward and in rebuilding trust in our election process.

I have also shared my personal apologies with the candidates who contributed their time and energies running for office to serve this organization. I extend those same apologies to our members who took the time to participate in the election process.

We are working as quickly as we can to open a new election on a more carefully structured platform and will have details out in the next few days to all members who were eligible to vote as of January 31, 2022.

Moving forward, the Executive Board will work with TLA staff to develop a process to certify election results and ensure a fully transparent process. We are committed to election integrity, and we will do the work to ensure that TLA can rebuild trust in our process.