ఇది అండి గత ఎన్నికల చరిత్ర

Syam,

I am quite incensed at some of the messaging that challenges each of the observers and candidates intellect. None of the Nomination Committee members (and you in particular) informed us that all candidates had transferred all their rights to us, what these rights were etc. Therefore, it seems absolutely ridiculous that now you send out messaging that indicates as such, and not copy us on your messaging.

I am also flabbergasted by your 'reasoning', which sounds completely unreasonable. As observers, the only instructions given us were–

a. No talking to anyone in the room, no touching any ballot boxes/papers/etc., and

b. Only observe what is going on and report discrepancies you observe to you or Mr. Nadella, and not even the Election Officers.

How can observers in tight jackets exercise any authority at all, when we were literally in straight-jackets?

I had believed in an election process thought and believed to be a fair process at the surface, and I did not challenge or even second guess any part of the process. An election process as I understand commences from a fair and accurate electoral list agreed upon by each candidate (and EC), the same list shared in common with ALL candidates as soon as the lists are prepared, being used for casting votes fairly by all paid members as of a given cut-off date, and the casting of votes being executed fairly, followed by the counts also being done fairly as well by neutral persons.

Now there seems to be a breach of the entire process almost at every step. This is also evident from your responses I see below, and lack of responsiveness to messages from candidates and others, that I hear.

At the end of the counting process, I signed a paper that was put forth. After we spent 6 hours in a closeted room, we indicated by our signature that the particular step in the process – that of the counting being fair was fair and accurate. That accuracy was limited to the fact that 2 people reported the same number counts at the end of their count. None of the observers were allowed to touch any ballot paper, validate or certify that each candidates votes tally was accurate. None of the persons that counted bundled them together, and sorted them again based on candidates outcome and come up with their count. What almost everyone did was that, they confirmed the previous person's count being accurate without revalidating the stacks for correctness of grouping. It would have taken more time, and everyone wanted to get out quickly. So, they just counted the papers in each bundle., I did NOT certify that each bundle at the end of each sorting operation had only that particular candidates papers. There lies a huge discrepancy.

We signed the paper in good faith that all other steps of the process were done fairly. From your messaging and responses to it, and information I gathered after we left the room, this is not true.

We were never apprised that the voters lists you were using were NOT approved by the EC. We did not even see the lists of voters/ valid members or compare the lists with the EC certified lists (on TAMA website and also was pasted outside the election hall on the walls by TAMA) to be accurate. Here lies another huge discrepancy. If you are now saying that we as observers have certified these lists, you are either deliberately misleading the recipients of your messaging. We have no clue of your intentions in this regard. This is absolutely unacceptable.

The expectation that Surya Duggirala and I had, as did each candidate from Srinivas Cherukumilli's panel, was that the count was going to be electronic. This did not occur, nor did you insist this occur. You are very well aware of the manual errors that could creep in. We did not object, little knowing that most of the election officers were completely biased in favor of TSR's panel. If the Election Officers were all neutral and fair, no one would suspect any wrong doing. Two of the election officers made snide remarks about the candidates, such as "they could not even get these number of votes", on more than one occasion. I did not object to any of these remarks, as they seemed to be silly and immature. These election officers are some of the ones I guarantee were NOT neutral. If your 'process' in selecting neutral election officers was flawless, this should never have happened.

After leaving the room, we learnt that text messages and phone calls were made from inside the room to candidates outside the room providing up to date information on vote counting. There is proof of this. How could you allow this to happen? You would clearly state – you did not know. You should have asked everyone to deposit their cell phones with the NC, and place them on a table away from anyone. That could have prevented the occurrence of messaging while a sensitive count was in progress. I would like to hear how fool-proof your so called 'process' was.

It is a shame that there is a strong perception that you connived with some of the candidates and stooped low to pander to their requests for your personal gains. I would like for you to address this perception by lifting your veil of secrecy by doing the following -

1. Provide the accurate voters list used at the ID check, (which was never established). Understand that the final, official list published by the EC was not used by you. Therefore please immediately circulate the lists used for ID check by you, and which contains original voter signatures, for our verification.

2. Send a list of ALL election officers to this DL with breakup of who were at the Annual Members Desk, the Life Members Desk and at the counting time.

3. State the selection for the election officers. Who selected them, who authorized and certified each of them as neutral officers?

The list of eligible members on table was never certified by any observers, and no one certified the lists of the ballots – who certified them? Why was this not circulated before, to each candidate once their names were announced? Is this EC certified?

The use of pencils was never agreed upon by all candidates. In fact it was communicated to the candidates that ONLY pens would be used. Yet, at the last minute, it was switched to use pencils. Why the sudden unilateral change in heart? Was this approved by the EC?

From eyewitnesses, I have heard that some members voted more than once. These members came into the polling station area repeatedly, and went to different officers, signed papers, collected ballots and voted multiple times. Earlier in the process, student id's which are valid everywhere in the US were not accepted as valid ID's, till there was a protest. We also have an incident that two members were given yellow coupons to pick ballot papers, after they had voted once. These were declined by them in full earnest. There is no guarantee that similar incidents did not occur with others. Many members were seen coming into the voting stations more than once. Voters not in the lists (both your list as well as the EC certified list) were allowed to vote, eg., Chetana Reddy & Padmanabha Reddy– were not allowed to vote initially, then allowed to vote and did vote. About 40 members were turned away citing the reason that they were not on your list. However, they were on the EC certified list. After they left, in the last 5 minutes of voting you opened up for those cases in the face of pressure, but they had left by then. So, 30 votes could not be cast. This is completely unfair practice, and such practices cannot be condoned.

Based on these incidents, there is a serious suspicion, rather we are all quite convinced that you did not do enough to have fair play – you acted openly and shamelessly biased. Where is the sanctity of the so called process you crafted? Or was this crafted to suit your personal agendas? You seem to cloister all facts under a shroud, and all these examples are of your own making.

The stand you seem to have taken, to destroy ballot papers is entirely baseless and reflects your total lack of impartiality and commonsense. Taking sides like this directly hurts your credibility in the entire community. It is a serious matter and has caused a shadow of suspicion on your ill-intentions. If you have any iota of sincerity, honesty and credibility to protect, you should take serious and immediate action to call for a recount, and if even one error is unearthed, completely dissolve the voting and call for another election. Only then would you come clean of these issues.

We now look forward to your response within 8 hours, failing which you would be solely responsible and accountable for the resulting consequenses.

Lanka