Umatilla Tribal elected candidates will not be sworn-in over Absentee Ballot fiasco

This is news coming out of Pendleton, Oregon on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The tribal elections are not over yet. Several of the Absentee Voting Ballots were returned to tribal members by the Pendleton U.S. post office. The reason is, the tribal election committee "P.O. Box" was said to have been expired. So, Absentee Ballots were returned to tribal members who live off the Reservation. The election committee offered to pay for postage if tribal members would send back their returned ballots by Nov. 17, 2015. That was election day. 

Before the expiration date at the post office. Several Absentee Ballots were counted & that included mine. Ellen Taylor was running for a Board of Trustee At-Large Member. She came in 6th place with complete votes where only 4 members could be elected. She filed a complaint after the election results because of those returned or not returned Absentee Ballots. The tribal candidates who were just elected were supposed to be sworn in on Wednesday Dec. 2, 2015. That did not happen because of Taylor's complaint. 

The Board of Trustees will now have to follow election committee protocol. It all depends on the number of Absentee Ballots that did return, but weren't counted in time on Nov. 17. Ellen Taylor needs 35 votes to beat Armand Minthorn who was re-elected. It depends on how many Voters "checked" her name on those ballots & also on Armand's name. He may get more votes too. Some tribal members just didn't return their ballots. So..., 

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