Westbrook Memorial Post 197 of the American Legion will hold a special election on Tuesday, Sept. 13, at the post home at 300 Conant St. to decide whether the post will continue to allow smoking in the building.
Voting will be between noon and 7:30 p.m., and only legionnaires are allowed to vote.
“This vote is required by state law and applies to all private clubs,” said David F. Martin, commander of Post 197. “We must hold the election and forward the results to the state no later than Saturday, Sept. 17.”
Martin said it’s a controversial issue and the Post 197 would have to live with the outcome of the election for three years. “It’s my understanding that the membership will be required to vote on this issue every three years,” Martin said.
“What most members don’t know – I didn’t know until last week – is that to retain the right to smoke in our facility, we must get 51 percent of the votes of the (entire) membership – not just the members who vote -which is the norm for most organizations. Personally, I think this provision is grossly unfair,” Martin said.
The post has members who live as far away as Florida, Arizona, California and Hawaii. Martin said the post by-laws make no provision for absentee ballots, which means that all the members who live out of state and those vacationing, hospitalized or otherwise unable to vote at the post will, willingly or unwillingly, be considered as wanting to ban smoking at the post even though that may not be their wish, Martin said.
He said every reference to voting in the post by-laws states that a majority of those voting rule. “I think this is the standard for all elections. And yet, in this situation, past practice and standard operating procedure are being cast aside and a whole new set of rules have been laid down for this particular vote on this one particular issue,” Martin said.
“I can’t help but wonder how many of our elected officials would have been elected had they had to get 51 percent of the vote of all registered voters in their district, not just those registered in their party, but registered in their district.”
“That’s just about what they are making us do. They have mandated a process that guarantees the desired end result,” Martin said. “It’s not the issue I have a problem with. It’s the fact that they intentionally made it all but impossible for the other side to win. That’s not the ‘freedom of choice’ I joined the military to protect.”
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