ELECTION APPEALS MASTER
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IN RE: PATRICK NICHOLS AND HOFFA-HALL
Protestor.
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11 Elec. App. 55 (KC)
ORDER
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This matter raises appeals from the Election Administrator's decision 2011 ESD 306 issued on August 16, 2011. Hearings were requested by Robert M. Colone on behalf of the Gegare Campaign and Britt W. Sowle on behalf of Teamsters local 50.
A consolidated hearing was held before me on August 15, 2011. The following persons were heard by way of teleconference: Jeffrey J. Ellison, Esq., for the Election Administrator's Office; Scott Soldon, Esq. for the Gegare Campaign; Britt W. Sowle, Esq. for Local 50; David J. Hoffa, Esq. for the Hoffa-Hall Campaign; Mark Archer and Scott Alexander.
Neither appeal challenges the substantive findings of the Election Supervisor, that major violations of the Elections Rules were committed.
Complaint is made that the remedy imposed, in various respects, is too severe. There is also a belated argument that the original protests were untimely and therefore should be dismissed.
As has been noted many times during the more than twenty years of Rules enforcement, time deadlines are prudential and not jurisdictional. This case involves far too serious a series of violations, and no excessive fault in the filing delay. Accordingly, the case will not be reversed and dismissed.
The penalties imposed here, which need not again be enumerated, are indeed broad, multi-faceted and severe. They are not, in the face of the admitted Rules violations, excessive.
In any case, it is well settled that the Election Supervisors' discretion in the selection and imposition of remedy will not be disturbed in the absence of an abuse of that discretion. Here there is none.
Accordingly, the decision of the Election Supervisor is in all respects affirmed.
SO ORDERED:
__s/Kenneth Conboy_____________
Kenneth Conboy
Election Appeals Master
Dated: July 16, 2011