U. S. Sues to Void Teamsters Election : Union: The Labor Department alleges that local failed to properly notify dozens of voters in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Charging that dozens of voters were not properly notified, the U. S. Department of Labor has filed suit to void last year’s Teamsters Union local election in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and force new balloting.

In a related development, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ruled this week that the union’s Ventura local refused to count 36 valid ballots during September’s election. He asked that the ballots now be counted.

The top post in Teamsters Local 186 was decided by just 33 votes--with incumbent Dennis Shaw of Oak View edging Martin Fry of Ojai for the $52,000-a-year secretary-treasurer position.

If the Labor Department prevails in its lawsuit, filed April 25 in federal court in Los Angeles, the local union would hold a new election later this year.

That would mark the third time since 1990 that federal officials have forced new balloting because of election irregularities by the Teamsters local.

“We have a saying around here that we’ll keep doing them until we get them right,” Shaw said Tuesday. “We’ve done our best to run honest elections, but we’ve had them overturned on technicalities.”

A new election would cost $23,000, he said.

But Shaw said the local will prevail in court this time because federal investigators have mistakenly concluded that 91 seasonal workers at the Nabisco plant in Oxnard were not notified by mail of the election.

“We did our own investigations and they did in fact get notice,” he said. “In reality, those people chose not to vote.”

Fry, who ran the 2,000-member local until he was sent to prison for embezzlement in 1985, said the new Labor Department challenge and Monday’s ruling by Teamsters President Ron Carey show that Shaw cannot run a sound election.

Fry’s complaints of irregularities led to both the federal lawsuit and Carey’s ruling. The Labor Department entered the case in January after regional Teamster officials failed to resolve contested issues within three months.

Of about two dozen allegations by Fry, apparently only one had enough merit to be cited in the Labor Department complaint.

“Once we find sufficient cause to overturn the election, we would cite all relevant violations properly raised,” said Jeffrey Gitomer, district director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards.

Labor officials seek to overturn all seven contested positions because the number of eligible voters not properly notified exceeded the winning margin in all races.

What will happen to the 36 ballots that Carey ruled valid remains uncertain, Gitomer said.

Labor investigators seized the contested ballots as evidence. But Gitomer said he sees no purpose in counting them now unless the government loses its bid for a new election.