Today is supposed to be the first day of voting for the new Rugby Ohio Board, but there is trouble in paradise as the balloting and nomination procedure has been brought into question.
“We’re not happy,” said Mark Weidner, who heads up the group that wanted open elections.
Here’s what they are not happy about:
1. No communication was sent to the broader Rugby Ohio membership about who was on the ballots and who could vote. This meant that a) if a club neglected to select an elector, no one would know; b) if there were discrepancies between who was supposed to be nominated and who is on the ballot, those could not be corrected; c) it seems strange that for a representative Board, the general membership wouldn’t be made aware of who the candidates were.
2. Eight teams were deemed ineligible to vote. The key reason for this was that those teams compete in “a competing youth league.” This, of course, means Rookie Rugby Cleveland, the largest Rookie Rugby organization in the country and a league that Rugby Ohio is not, in actual fact, competing with. Those teams not allowed to vote are: Cap City Wolfpack, Dublin HS Girls, Hilliard HS Boys, Hudson HS Girls, Marysville MS Boys, Mentor HS Boys, Perry MS Boys, Perry MS Girls.
There are other reasons to be dropped off the ballot, such as not having enough players in 2023-24, or not being in good standing. But high school teams being disallowed from voting simply because their youth team plays somewhere else could actually be a Ted Stevens Act violation.
