By New Trier GOP member Irwin Myers -
On Saturday, 5/7, I attended the New Trier GOP candidate endorsement session. I was excited to participate in my first endorsement session for reasons – getting to meet and hear different candidates in person, getting involved with a Republican organization right in my hometown, but more than anything else, I was looking forward to meeting other Republicans in New Trier who want to stop the madness of the ‘woke’ agenda in Illinois.
However, I feel that some things could have been handled better to achieve these goals. Below are some suggestions for a more successful event in the future.
First, out of thousands of Republican voters in New Trier, only about twenty people were present. An endorsement by so few people cannot be a true representation of the township GOP. In this political climate, the New Trier GOP should have had a packed room. I know there is a website I could have visited to learn about this meeting, but they could have sent an email to everyone who registered as a Republican, inviting them to attend this important session.
Secondly, I was very disappointed by the lack of transparency in the voting process. The rules for the endorsement session were not laid out on the New Trier GOP website or anywhere else, including the deadline to sign up to be a voting member. As a result, I and about six others were not allowed to join the organization and vote that day. When it came time for the vote, the six of us were told to leave the room and were not allowed to observe or otherwise participate. While six may not sound like a very large number, six out of twenty is significant and could have influenced the endorsements. The process, including deadlines to become a voting member, could have been communicated more clearly on the website, on social media, and in an initial outreach email to have higher participation.
Third, as everyone’s mind is on election integrity, the New Trier GOP can improve its organizational success by showcasing how an election should be handled through its endorsement session. A more transparent and methodical voter participation and ballot-counting process can achieve this goal. After the endorsement votes were cast, the ballots were taken to a closed room by the deputy committeeman and were counted only by the committeeman and her “board” without any independent observers present. New Trier GOP does not list any board members on its website, so I’m not sure who these people were.
The results of the vote were not released until seven hours later, even though there were few ballots to count. When the results were announced, there was no vote tally. When some of us inquired about the vote tally, all we were told was it will not be disclosed. This made many of those who participated feel very uncomfortable and suspicious of the process and the organization. A lack of transparency by Republicans is particularly inappropriate in light of the 2020 election when the Democrats counted the ballots behind closed doors without any Republican observers.
I want to see our Republican organization have a strong presence in New Trier. I want to replace the school board with common sense people who won’t sexualize students and are leading the charge for sane change.
I would like to see a more inclusive GOP that brings common sense people together to stop the depraved agenda currently being forced upon students. We need an activist leadership that will help turn this state into a net gainer rather than a net loser of population and values.
The results of the New Trier GOP endorsement session are HERE.
