I am writing because I am very disturbed by the Matanuska Electric Association Board of Director’s recent four to three vote not to contact members when their ballots have been rejected. The idea, put forward by Peter Burchell, was that if a ballot was thrown out, the owner of that ballot should be contacted and asked to submit another. Since most ballots are rejected because the signature doesn’t match the signature card on file, this would give the member the chance to update their signature card as well so it doesn’t happen again. Our telephone co-op Matanuska Telephone Association does this and MEA used to.  

MEA management estimated that 4 percent of the votes cast are thrown out. When we debated local generation last summer, that number was around 5 percent, 9,471 votes counted out of approximately 10,000 votes received, according to Lorali Carter. In last summer’s advisory vote to select a power generation site, the number rejected reached nearly 20 percent.  

For the record, board members Glines, Devilbiss, Dahms and board president Lee Jordan voted against notifying members that their ballots won’t be counted.

We are a member-owned co-op, and when we elect board members or vote on other important issues, we deserve to be heard. If our ballot isn’t going to be counted, don’t we at least deserve to know and be told why so we can keep it from happening again?