Q: I see that on the last page, tucked at the bottom of the page, it states that, “Once a ballot is cast, it cannot be changed.” Can you address why? I don’t recall this ever happening on other contract/TA votes. I flown with several flight attendants that were not aware of this change. Is it being brought up in the roadshows? And does it state this in the voting material that is being mailed out?
A: The Department of Labor instituted a change to voting procedures to ensure that all voters must be de-identified from their votes. This ensures that no one can then go in and determine how any one person voted. A consequence of this “de-identification” is that a voter may then never go back and change his/her vote. Think of it as “dropping your vote” in a ballot box.
In order to comply with the DOL’s mandate, AFA’s voting system is unable to attach personal information to track a Flight Attendant’s vote; therefore it isn’t possible to retrieve your vote and change it. The JNC has been stressing this information in all the roadshows (with a slide devoted to it), and it is posted on the Merger TA Voting Info page as well as included in the mailed ballot information.