1700 Piorier v. IEB

While post-election challenges based on voter eligibility will generally be rejected, this does not mean such protests can never be grounds for upsetting the results of an election regardless of the circumstances.  The presumption against post-election challenges is to be applied in the context of an investigation into the protest; the president’s hearing officers should not use the rule as a substitute for an investigation into the merits of the protest.  If no post-election challenge to a voter’s eligibility could ever be considered, a local union would have no means to address serious problems that might arise in connection with voter eligibility, such as deliberate falsification of membership rosters or a deliberate withholding of information about voter eligibility.  The record establishes that the election committee in this case mishandled a ballot cast by a voter whose eligibility was questioned and that this violation of established election procedures may well have affected the outcome of the race for chairperson.  In such cases the appropriate remedy is to rerun the election. We are particularly inclined to affirm that remedy in this case because it was the will of the local union membership, which has the greatest interest in addressing errors in its own electoral processes.