Electronic voting means more attacks on worker privacy

In yet another installment of the quixotic crusade against the secret ballot in union organizing elections, congressional Democrats have inserted language to the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill. They are seeking to give the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) at least $1 million to create a system and procedures for electronic voting in union elections.

A new report from the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace raises concerns about the push toward electronic voting in union elections. The coalition says it “is the latest attempt in a two decade long effort … to force workers to cast their vote for or against union representation in front of union organizers and coworkers that support the union.”

The report warns, “This online voting would not only deprive workers of privacy and invite bullying, harassment and coercion, but it would also substantially increase the risk of fraud and cyber-attacks in representation elections.”

For years, one of the top wish list items for union organizers has been to eliminate the secret ballot and replace it through a process called card check. The coalition calls the push for electronic voting “card check on a mobile device.”

During a card check campaign, if unions can collect signatures from a majority of employees, they can try to have the employer recognize them and start bargaining. But an employer is free to request that the NLRB conduct a secret-ballot election.

Most employers do request an election because cards are notoriously unreliable, as shown by studies, congressional testimony, and even admissions from union organizers. Too often, workers are deceived or intimidated into signing cards. At other times, workers who don’t want a union will sign a card just to get the organizer to go away.

The NLRB has failed to protect employees who have been threatened during a card-check campaign. In one case, the NLRB held that because an employee soliciting signatures was not working directly for a union it was all right that the “card solicitor allegedly stated that the employee had better sign a card because if she did not, the union would come and get her children and it would also slash her car tires.”

At a congressional committee hearing, a former organizer testified that his union wanted him to tell hesitant migrant workers they would be reported to immigration authorities if they did not sign an authorization card.

Threats of intimidation aside, electronic voting is vulnerable to hacking.

Before Washington, D.C., implemented an electronic voting system in 2010, it invited hackers to find vulnerabilities in the system. A student did, causing it to play “Hail to the Victors,” his university fight song. The D.C. Board of Elections did not use the system in the general election that year, as it had hoped.

In their report, “The Ballot is Busted Before the Blockchain,” MIT experts found several concerns with a mobile phone app aimed primarily at “overseas military and other absentee voters” for “federal, state and municipal elections in West Virginia, Denver, Oregon and Utah.”

The experts concluded, “It remains unclear if any electronic-only mobile or internet voting system can practically overcome the stringent security requirements on election systems. Indeed, this work adds to the litany of serious flaws discovered in electronic-only approaches.”

Finally, consider the National Mediation Board, which conducts union elections for railroad and airline workers. Because of the dispersed nature of railroad and airline workers, the NMB allows for remote voting in elections that otherwise resemble NLRB elections.

The NMB’s attempt at electronic voting has been stalled since 2021 because the federal contractor could not meet federal cybersecurity retirements. The agency received no other bids to build the system, and it is conducting mail-in voting, while trying to build an electronic voting system in house.

Electronic voting has the potential to do more harm than good, from enabling intimidation to exposing confidential information to hackers. Worse yet, it is another example of an effort to trample on worker freedom and privacy, all to make union organizing easier.

F. Vincent Vernuccio is president of the Institute for the American Worker and a senior labor policy adviser for Workers for Opportunity. Follow him on Twitter @vinnievernuccio.