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On
August 14, 2011, an emergency meeting was held to address the impasse
in the Atlantic Region. Representatives of five of the Atlantic
Region's seven leagues - Garden State Cricket League, Cricket League of
NJ, ICUSA, Washington Cricket League and Millennium Cricket League -
attended the meeting. Two leagues - the NJCA and WMCB - abstained.
The five leagues that were present in the meeting were united in
their call for restoration of democratic governance in the Atlantic
Region. The leagues resolved through a 5-0 vote that an "Interim Board
comprising the league presidents or their delegates will manage the
region's affairs until a new regional administration is seated."
The five leagues reiterated their demand for the immediate release of
the election results. The leagues also vowed to consider other steps
as may be necessary for democratic functioning of the region and
democratic representation of the region's leagues at the regional and
national level.
Blockage of Election Results
The Atlantic Region held its elections on July 26, 2011, but in a
shocking turn of events, Sheldon Mollineau, the former Secretary who was
a transitional overseer of the Atlantic Region Cricket Board, blocked
the release of results in an act of non-conformance with the democratic
election guideline adopted by the region. This blockage by Mr.
Mollineau, at the behest of USACA President Gladstone Dainty, was in
defiance of the wishes of the majority of the leagues that comprise the
region.
As part of the election process, the regional administration was
dissolved effective midnight on July 25th, twenty four hours preceding
the election. Once the regional administration was dissolved, Sheldon
Mollineau (erstwhile Secretary) and Shelton Glasgow (erstwhile Interim
Chairman), as per the election guideline, became the transitional
overseers with 'no decision making authority' as their role was 'to
simply maintain an office until the newly elected board is seated.'
After the completion of voting, in an email communication
received on July 27th, Sheldon Ellis (Esq.), who served as the Returning
Officer, noted that he had 'tallied the results and compiled a
spreadsheet with the results/winners.' However, Mr. Ellis wrote that
the President of USACA, Mr. Gladstone Dainty, had called him and
instructed him not to disseminate the results.
Terming it an 'obfuscation', Mr. Ellis wrote: "If this matter is not
resolved within the next few days, I will send the ballots/results of
the elections to the Secretary of the Region."
Following this incident, on July 29th, five of the region's seven
leagues wrote to Mr. Ellis requesting him to release the results to the
transitional secretary as per the regional election guideline so that
the results can be immediately disseminated to the leagues. Upon
receiving the emails from the leagues, Mr. Ellis released the results to
Mr. Mollineau on August 3rd. However, the results were not
disseminated to the leagues by Mr. Mollineau as required by the election
guideline.
A meeting was held on August 4th in which four league representatives
requested Mr. Mollineau to immediately release the results. In the
meeting, Mr. Mollineau declined to release the results, referring to Mr.
Dainty's ambiguous letter of July 28th. In the letter, Mr. Dainty
wrote: "Within the next few days an independent accounting or law firm
will be engaged with the expectation that all USACA leagues and
officials will cooperate to the fullest including a stay of all
elections until this process is completed." It is ironic that voting
in the region had already been completed and the election results were
about to be released when Mr. Dainty intervened personally.
In effect, Mr. Dainty's call of July 27th and his letter of July 28th
insisted on applying an unspecified future league eligibility
requirement to an already completed election. This is akin to a
president of a country redrawing an electoral constituency after an
election is held and the counting of the ballots is complete.
Consequently, the new Regional Administration could not be seated as
envisioned by the election guideline leaving the region in the hands of
the transitional overseers devoid of decision making authority.
According
to the election guideline, 'within seven (7) days of being elected as
officers of the Regional Administration, the Regional Administration
shall vote to elect a Regional Representative to sit on the USACA
Board.' As a further consequence of this stalemate, a new Regional
Representative could not be elected to represent the region's interests
nationally.
Curiously, Mr. Glasgow was a candidate for
Regional Representative and Mr. Mollineau was a candidate for the role
of Regional Chairman. It was widely expected that both Mr. Glasgow and
Mr. Mollineau were going to be ousted in this election.
Voter Eligibility Process
Since 'league compliance' was the stated reason for the blockage of
the results, here are the facts surrounding the voter eligibility
process for the regional election.
The region followed the 'USACA Elections Guideline and Process' which
was drafted by Shelton Glasgow, who was the USACA Compliance Officer at
the time of the election. This process was approved by the leagues
comprising the region on June 6, 2011 and again on June 28, 2011.
In accordance with this process, the leagues completed a survey and
submitted the required verifiable information to the Secretary. Upon
review of submissions, Mr. Glasgow affirmed on July 12th in a meeting of
the region that all seven leagues were eligible to vote. This was a
matter of record.
Nominations were accepted from the leagues that were deemed to be
eligible to vote. A list of nominations was reviewed and circulated by
Mr. Glasgow and Mr. Mollineau in draft form. On July 19, the final list
of nominations and voting delegates was circulated by Mr. Mollineau in
his role as Secretary.
Following that, in accordance with the election guideline, Mr. Ellis
was appointed as the Returning Officer for the election. In an email
dated July 24, 2011, Mr. Ellis informed the leagues of the official
voting leagues and official voting delegates in his cover letter
accompanying the ballots. The ballots, one for each voting league,
contained the list of candidates. Completed ballots were sent to the
Returning Officer and the election was completed on July 26th and the
announcement of results was awaited with great anticipation when Mr.
Dainty interfered.
[Disclosure: Venu Palaparthi, co-founder of DreamCricket.com, was CLNJ's representative in the ARCB before it was dissolved. Mr. Palaparthi was also CLNJ's candidate for Regional Representative.]