The WBAI Local Station Board (part of Pacifica Radio) wishes to apologize because their database apparently went kerflooey and restored itself to a year-old backup just before mailing labels for ballots were printed. Thus, many ballots were mailed to the wrong people while other eligible people didn’t get them at all.
Even though the election is hotly contested, with one seriously nutcase faction trying to grab control of the station, this ballot kerfuffle should not be construed as anything but yet another terrible and hideous mistake in the continuing downward spiral of ineptness and paranoia that is Pacifica Radio. But fear not, they hired a “database expert” who magically produced the correct mailing list. (They’ll be mailing them out again once they accidentally lose ballots for those who might vote against the nutcase faction.)
Well, I’ve been programming databases for 25 years, so presumably that makes me a “database expert” too, and I can confidently say their “explanation” is horseshit. Because it was no explanation at all and provided no answers.
Who provided the bogus list? How did such an error happen? Did the database magically restore itself to a backup of a year ago just before they printed the mailing list? Who is the database expert, what are his qualifications, and why should he be trusted? Inquiring minds want to know. And apparently no one thought to double-check an important list like that, eh?
Being called incompetent, no matter how embarrassing, is always preferable to being determined as being culpable.
