Teamsters Voting Results Challenged

Two losing slates of Teamsters Union candidates have challenged the results of last week’s election.

Complaints filed with union officials in Los Angeles on Tuesday included allegations of mishandling ballots and disenfranchising voters.

“I don’t see anything of merit” in the complaints, said Dennis Shaw, newly elected leader of Teamsters Local 186.

Shaw’s slate swept all but one of seven leadership positions in the union, which has 2,800 members in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. In the most significant race, Shaw won the top job by 101 votes, ousting incumbent Greg Boverson.

On Tuesday, a member of Boverson’s slate, Juan O’Campo, challenged the union’s election procedures, including the elimination of ballots that were not signed by union members or had other irregularities.

Election referees eliminated 194 of 1,407 ballots for various reasons.

In another complaint from Boverson’s slate, candidate David Morrison said it was not fair for Mary Romero Blanchard to run for reelection as a board member when she was preparing to retire immediately.

Under the rules, Shaw and the board appoint her successor. “It was smart politics, but it wasn’t right,” Morrison said.

Shaw said Blanchard’s reelection was completely proper. “She was eligible to run and she did,” Shaw said. “They brought it up as a campaign issue and she got more votes than anyone else.”

Shaw declined to say who he would appoint in her place.

A second challenge came from Gil Trejo’s slate of candidates, who said 250 Teamsters never received their ballots. Ray Gonzales, the slate’s campaign manager, said duplicate ballots for the 250 members were not mailed until the day before they were to be counted.

Shaw acknowledged that some ballots arrived late but said he knew of requests for only about 70 duplicate ballots.