The Board has addressed all procedural errors which have been brought to our attention regarding the 2008 TRMA election.  The issues raised have been adequately and expeditiously addressed and the integrity of the election and confidentiality of the tabulation of the ballots has been maintained.  Accordingly, as of this date, no issue has been presented to the Board which will prevent the Board from ratifying the election once the Independent Vote Counter delivers the final election results to the Secretary for ratification by the Board at the July Board meeting.

 

Return address on Vote Portion of Ballot:  This error was pointed out to us within a week of the ballots being mailed. We resolved this issue by instructing the IVC to clip the return address from the Voter Portion of all ballots so that privacy was maintained. An announcement was posted on www.poatri.org to that effect.

 

Incorrect second name on ballot mailing address:  This computer error affected approximately 400 owner ballots, each of whom was mailed a letter from the POATRI office explaining the error. In all cases, the correct primary contact and the correct mailing address was on the mailing label. This error affected the mailing label only. The integrity of the individual ballots and the Voters List was not affected.

 

Closure of P. O. Box 1046, Alpine, TX:  This occurred because the box rental that was due March 31, 2008 was not timely paid. The notices for payment were put into Box 1046, which is normal procedure for the post office, although we had requested, in 2007, that the box rental notice for P. O. Box 1046 be sent to P. O. Box 638, Terlingua, TX. [The PO Box utilized by POATRI for usual and customary business mail.] Prior to the April Board meeting, the Alpine Post Office stated the post office box was good.  Nothing was said about the fee being overdue.  POATRI was first notified of the closure by a phone call on Wednesday, June 11, 2008. We were informed that they had returned mail due to the closure and that they were holding mail received June 9, 10 and 11. The box rent was paid Thursday morning, June 12. We were told at that time that mail received prior to June 9th had been returned to sender. We asked about dead letter mail where there was no return address. Several employees of the post office were consulted and no one had any memory of any of the mail going to dead letter. They felt that all that was received was returned to sender. They did not have a count of the returns, nor could they estimate. A notice was posted on www.poatri.org on Thursday, June 12th asking owners to re-mail any returned ballots to the same postal address. The same instructions have been given to all owners calling the office. Four ballots that were mailed by the owners to the POATRI office were forwarded to the IVC with instructions to validate them. The Terlingua postmaster forwarded directly to Alpine any ballots received at the Terlingua post office.

 

Replacement Ballots:  All owners who have contacted the Board or POATRI’s office regarding non-receipt, misplacement or loss of their ballots have been issued replacement ballots under the current Election Procedures. As of July 10th 27 such replacement ballots have been issued.

 

Canvassing of the Election:  At the completion of the election a list of the Owner names on all ballots received and processed by the IVC will be posted on www.poatri.org per current Election Procedures. Owners who wish to canvass the tabulation of the votes may do so under current Election Procedures.

 

 

 

 

Property Owners Association of Terlingua Ranch, Inc.