Caroline Fleury Tribal Council Statement
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QUESTIONS ON THE DECEMBER 11, 2004 ELECTION
There are a lot of things in this election that were not done in a good manner
1. Nominations were never announced or opened at any meeting once the Election committee decided on when the election was to be held.
Therefore, I would like to have some input from the other council people and a solution to take care of all the questions on the election that I have. This needs to be done in a timely manner as the swearing in ceremony is in a week.
2. The election committee extended the nominations after the announced date. They said it was due to not enough nominations. This was only put out on the Little Shell web page by mark landrie. A lot of our people do not have this access and did not know this.
3. The absentee ballots did not get mailed out in a timely manner as there was a complaint filed by one of the nominees. So, this held the whole election process up. Carol Hofeldt did not have any help to get all the paper work done by herself. She did all of this and there were at least 5 people on this committee. Our Enrollment officer verified the ballot requests for her. The Absentee ballots did not go out till the week of the election and people did not receive them till too late to mail them in, as the date put in the newsletter was extended, but our people did not get any notification of this. There was a limite on who could receive an absentee ballot as they had to live 100 miles from a polling site to get one according to the rules drawn up by the election committee. A lot of our elderly people do not get out who live in the area so were unable to get an sbsentee ballot so their votes would count.
4. Polling stations were supposed to be held in Spokane and Tacoma, WA. which had never been done before. Then the people in those areas had to call for ballots in Tacoma and the polling station in Spokane was never opened fo the people to vote so they were able to fax their ballots in without their signatures being verified. We had five or six calls into the office on the Spokane polling site not being open.
5. John Sinclair's aunt, Perl Chilton ran the polling site in Havre, John Sinclair, his wife Cindy and Pearl brought the ballot box to Great Falls. This should never have been allowed either as John lives in Havre.
6. Only a little over 200 of our people voted. In past elections there were between 600 and 800 people who voted. I feel this was because alot of our people did not know about it.
7. None of the candidates were able to campaign. This was a big issue due to previous problems with lists and the committee should not have been allowed to put this restriction on the candidates, as in all City, County, State and National elections, candidates are allowed to campaign.
8. The election committee allowed Jihn Sinclair and his daughter, Jesse Fuduezy to run on the same ballot. In 1998 my son wanted to run and we were told by the Council that Mother and Son could not run on the same ticket as it is nepotism so my son did not run. I informed the committee of this info, but it was ignored. John Sinclair had stated to the committee that if she won she would drop out, but she has not done that.
9. The conflict of james Parker Shield has come up as it has in the past 10 years, and a complaint was filed on this. The committee did not find anything on his background check even tho they checked with 3 different places and under his biological name. This matter should be put to rest once and for all. Some kind of ruling should be made so this is clearly defined. Even if he verbally admitted to wrong doing there is nothing in his background check to say he ever was or is a felon.
10. The committee did not go through the council to put on the ballot the splitting of the Secretary/Treasurer position.
Caroline Fleury