Labor Department Investigating Disputed SAG National Election

The Labor Department is investigating last year’s national election of the Screen Actors Guild to determine whether alleged ballot irregularities influenced the outcome of the vote, various sources said Wednesday.

Last week, five SAG members asked the Labor Department to intervene after the union’s elections committee in January scrapped the results of the November election of SAG President Melissa Gilbert and two other nationally elected officers.

In their petition to the Labor Department, SAG members argued that the elections committee lacked the authority to overturn the election and that they were biased toward Valerie Harper, who lost the presidential race to Gilbert by 1,588 votes out of about 28,000 votes cast.

The elections committee voted to scrap the election results because New York members had two extra days to vote and the company that printed the East Coast ballots failed to include a signature line similar to ballots sent to members on the West Coast.

Although the five SAG members hoped their Labor Department petition would derail the new election, it will go as planned because the government’s investigation could last up to 60 days. Ballots will be mailed to SAG members Monday and are due by March 8, when the votes will be tabulated.

Harper issued a statement Wednesday saying the November election was “badly bungled” and that she was confident the Labor Department would protect union members’ “right to a fair and honest election.”

Amy Aquino, a SAG board member who is a Gilbert supporter, said some “Harper supporters took two benign procedural mishaps and they’re trying to turn these into violations.”

In the most extreme case, the government could call for a SAG election that would be supervised by the Labor Department.