By Elmer Whittaker
On April 22nd, five days before the scheduled
elections for the state leadership of the Libertarian Party of Nevada (LPN) on
April 27, 2013 the party’s current Executive Committee under chairman Joe
Silvestri, canceled the state elections much to the dismay and outrage of the
LPN’s membership, when it became clear to the reigning Executive Committee that
they would not have enough support and votes to be re-elected.
The pretense given as reason for the cancelation of the election by the Executive Committee was alleged “unethical behavior “ by Brett H. Pojunis, one of the challenging candidates, who rightfully and justifiably utilized his elected position as Libertarian Regional Representative to email the LPN membership simply informing them of the date for the scheduled party elections while encouraging and instructing participation:
Until this point the Executive Committee of the Libertarian
Party of Nevada almost completely failed to notify its membership of the
scheduled elections with the exception of an announcement on the party’s
website. No postal or email notifications were sent to the membership, no phone
calls were made, no announcements were posted on the LPN’s social media outlets
like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Meet-Up group.
As further deterrent to discourage membership attendance and
voter turnout at the scheduled 2013 Libertarian Party of Nevada State
Convention an unprecedented voting and convention fee of $65-$125 had been
charged for any members and delegates to attend the convention in order to vote
in the elections. The prepaid voting and convention fees have been refunded to
the membership after the cancellation.
While the LPN’s Executive Committee almost utterly failed
to notify their membership of the scheduled elections, they did a much better
job cancelling the elections by notifying the membership by US mail, email,
personal phone calls and a multitude of cancellation notices on their social
media outlets:
A petition of an outraged LPN membership for fair and
speedy LPN elections at the upcoming Libertarian National Committee (LNC)
meeting in Las Vegas under the supervision of neutral LNC observers to the
Libertarian National Committee and the Libertarian Party of Nevada Executive
Committee fell upon deaf ears:
With the cancellation of the free and fair election for
party leadership of the Libertarian Party of Nevada the reigning Executive
Committee of the LPN consisting of Chairman Joseph P. Silvestri, Vice Chair
Chris Roberts, Secretary Jared Thomas Lord, Treasurer Kurt Brackob and At Large
Representative Irvin Hopkins the possibly first and only full dictatorship
within the officially recognized political parties of this nation has been established,
unbeknownst to most of the political establishment and the main stream or local
media as well as the various political organizations and activists in this
country.
As of this writing, no remedy or plans to re-establish democracy
and free elections within the Libertarian Party are in sight.
