Pacifica Radio is governed by local and national boards which are elected (directly and indirectly, respectively) by its listener-supporters. Pacifica held its second Local Station Board (LSB) elections in November, with its last votes being tallied today, December 6th. There are five Pacifica stations throughout the United States, each of which held a separate election for its LSB.

This submission is on-location video report on the process of tallying ballots and other election-related issues for Pacifica's Los Angeles radio station KPFK's second Local Station Board (LSB) elections. All KPFK ballots were tallied on 12/4/2004 in Los Angeles at a location known locally as the Peace Center, and this report was recorded at that event.

The report includes interviews with Pacifica National Election Supervisor Kenny Mostern, KPFK's Election Supervisor Mary Rosendale, and volunteers helping to count ballots on-site. It also shows and explains the process of scanning and processing ballots, including an interview with the lead contractor retained to assist Pacifica in that process.

It is recommended that you use the RM link to download the file, as the streaming links do not appear to work on this site. Playing this report requires the RealVideo player, which can be downloaded free from www.real.com if you do not already have it.

Election results were not available at the time this video was made, but have since been reported as follows:

Listener-elected LSB Members:

Kimberly King
Terry Goodman
Bill Gallegos
Lamont Yeakey
Israel Feuer
Reza Pour
Grace Aaron
Lydia Brazon
Arturo Lemus

Staff-elected LSB Members:

Maria Armoudian
Margaret Prescod
Rodrigo Argueta

Note that although the two volunteers interviewed in the video reported seeing very few write-in votes on ballots that they processed, one of the write-in candidates, Arturo Lemus, did receive sufficient votes to be elected, indicating that the ballots processed by these volunteers might not have been typical. It is also possible that if the majority of people voted for only one or two candidates (as reported by the volunteers), and these were largely the same several candidates, that some candidates could have been elected based upon very few actual votes, as many ballots for these favored candidates might have ended up as "surplus" and hence discarded after only a fraction of them was used to elect the candidates in question. We will have a better idea of this once the actual output of the STV tallying process (showing all steps in the computation of the winners) is released.

Allowing in-person voting at the Peace Center one day after others were allowed to vote is absurd. Notice of such an extra day of voting at the Peace Center went out to only as select few listeners. (mainly those where subscribed to certain listservs) Those listeners were inclined to vote for certain specific candidates. Listeners who were inclined to vote for other candidates did not have the extra day to vote. In addition the Peace Center its self is identified (informally) with certain candidates and certain Pacifica factions or "coalitions".
The KPFK elections were a fraud and should be overturned.

As pointed out by National Election Supervisor Kenny Mostern in his interview on this video, 23 people ended up voting at the Peace Center on Saturday. This is approximately one percent of all listener ballots cast. Therefore, although these ballots may have influenced the election slightly, it is not correct to state that they render the entire process a fraud.

The elections were marred by logistical errors that cast our making of the 10 percent quorum in doubt; Allowing voting at the Peace Center on the day that votes were being tallied was an attempt to ensure that the quorum would be met, and was also an attempt to allow people who had legitimate complaints about not receiving ballots one final chance to vote.

Having said that, I agree with Jim DeMaegt that the Peace Center is associated with certain LSB members and certain LSB candidates, some of whom have office space in the building. And I also agree that it is more accessible to some voters than it is to others. But let's keep the problem in perspective; allowing people to vote at the Peace Center does not render the entire election a fraud.

This is Pacifica's second election. There are very few media organizations that allow listeners, or even staff, to participate in their governance. Democratic control of media is an important step on the road to a truly democratic society, in which not only political candidates, but economic, cultural and media institutions are governed at the sufference of those who they serve. Pacifica's elections, however flawed, make it a leader in this area.

WIthout strict process, there is no legitimacy to the power.

I won't compare the KPFK election to the "democratic" election of Hamid Karzai... but look at that election. It wasn't really democracy, but it was something better than simply installing a puppet completely beholden to the oil companies and GW Bush. Still.... he has no moral right to legitimate power, according to the terms of democracy.

This extra day was a surprise to me. I don't even know why they did it.

The people need to improve the system. I think a lot more people would have voted if there were more impartial information about each of the candidates. Maybe the IMC can do this -- a more impartial candidate site.

I would just respond that of course there *was* process, and plenty of it, and so there *was* legitimacy.

It is not a good idea to speak in absolute terms, such as "without process, there is no legitimacy" when what one is talking about is a generally good process that had a few logistical flaws. The quoted phrase implies that there was no process, and therefore no legitimacy, which is completely incorrect. This is our second election, and, as Mary Rosendale says in her on-camera interview "things will only get better."

The main problem that we had with this election was convincing listeners to participate. The second problem that we had was with the timely and correct mailing of ballots. Every other serious problem was a direct or indirect result of those two main problems. We should work on correcting these rather than issuing a blanket condemnation of the present election for its relatively minor flaws.