UAW presidential race hinges on challenged ballots

UAW President Ray Curry is narrowly trailing reform candidate Shawn Fain in his bid for reelection after most votes have been counted, and the race now depends on about 1,600 challenged ballots.

Fain leads Curry by 645 votes in the runoff election, according to the federally appointed monitor overseeing the voting process.

The race will determine who will lead the union through high-stakes contract negotiations with the Detroit 3 this fall. Already, six reform-minded challengers have won leadership spots on the union's 14-member International Executive Board.

The monitor's office said in a statement that it was working closely with the UAW and the election vendor to review the challenged ballots and verify the eligibility of the members who cast them.

"Once the eligibility status of enough challenged ballots has been resolved (subject to further observer challenge), the vote count will continue at a time and place to be determined," the monitor said. "Barring unforeseen delays in clearing enough challenged ballots, we expect to reconvene with the observers on March 9, 2023, at a place to be determined in the Detroit metropolitan area."

The vote count had been taking place in Dayton, Ohio.

The monitor's office received 141,548 total ballots in the runoff, up roughly 33 percent from the first round of voting, after none of the original five presidential candidates received a majority. Fain, a 54-year-old member of the UAW International staff in the Stellantis department, currently has 69,118 votes to Curry's 68,473, the monitor said.

According to the unofficial results, Fain led Curry in seven of the union's nine regions. The exceptions are Region 1A, which includes much of the Detroit area, and Region 8, which is Curry's home region and includes most of the southern U.S.

Curry did particularly well at major Ford Motor Co. plants in Louisville, Ky., Dearborn, Mich., and Wayne, Mich., earning 72 percent of those workers' votes. Fain did well with several large Stellantis plants, winning 64 percent from Local 12 in Toledo, Ohio, and 86 percent at two big locals in Kokomo, Ind. Fain also earned 71 percent of the vote in Belvidere, Ill., where workers face an uncertain future after Stellantis recently idled production.

It was unclear what regions the unresolved challenged ballots were from.

In separate runoffs, incumbent Chuck Browning had an insurmountable lead over challenger Tim Bressler in the race for the final vice president slot. Browning, currently in charge of the UAW's Ford department, led Bressler 81,154 to 46,218.

Last week, challenger Daniel Vicente from the Unite All Workers for Democracy reform caucus declared victory in the race for Region 9 director.

"I look forward to working together and leading our region into a new era," Vicente said in a statement. "This election has shown that our members demand change — a union that places the working women and men at the forefront, that sheds the business management style union we have become, and returns us to the fighting working class UAW of our past."