Telugu Association of North America TANA’s organizational election process,to elect the 2021-2023 Executive Committee and 2021-2025 Board of Directors, came to a halt amid voter fraud. TANA, the oldest and biggest Indo-American organization in North America, has more than 37,000 eligible members to cast votes in this election.
As per the 2021 Election schedule, ballots are supposedly sent by Thursday, April 15th but was stopped. After a week of squandering within the leadership, on Apr 22nd TANA’s official Nominations and Election (N/E) committee emailed all the TANA members about a temporary halt in the election process.
Telugu360 research finds that startling voter fraud attempts, caught by the N/E committee, apparently led to this election process halt. As reliably learned, a member of the current TANA executive committee, a contestant for the ongoing election, led this voter address fraud attempt.
After an internal vetting ( which itself was a controversy) process, the master voter address database was sent to an authorized third party company for printing & mailing of ballot papers. This third party, before mailing the ballots, performs a National Change of Address ( NCOA) check which cleans up the addresses according to USPS standards and also covers change of address requests.
At this juncture, in disguise of helping the third party with NCOA check, the said executive committee member of TANA , has replaced TANA approved list with the addition of fake voters. Allegedly, dummy spouse names have been added to unmarried members who’re identified in favor of the manipulator, few votes are redirected to wrong addresses. After receiving the updated list, the third party company noticed discrepancies and also noticed the increased number of total voters compared to TANA’s original approved list. The third party had alerted the TANA elections committee , in turn TANA EC has questioned the interfered executive committee member and concluded the fraud.
After a few days of deliberation, the election committee in association with some board of directors decided to remove the newly altered fraud voter records. For further discussion on the course of action, TANA emergency board meeting has been scheduled for April 25th 2021. All of the contestants and TANA members are demanding serious action on the voter list manipulators.Instead of the actual conspirator, his well-wishers in the board are trying to find a scapegoat for the ongoing thing.
The two contesting panels have their own line of arguments about this alleged voter fraud. The “ Change Panel “ is trying to pay little attention to the issue , and trying to sweep under the rugs.This panel members we spoke with say the delay is only about regional ballot papers misaligned. On the other hand , the “ Inclusive panel “ is shouting their lungs out.
Voter fraud is unacceptable, is a federal crime if proven and mainly it is important to protect the integrity of the TANA. All TANA members and well-wishers we spoke with are looking forward to the board’s unbiased and stern action on the voter fraudsters.
Now, all eyes are on how TANA board’s inquiry and disciplinary action goes !
Next report on Telugu360 :
How TANA’s 37,000 members’ confidential personal data has been abused by ALL of the contestants !
