Vote at Sikh Temple challenged

The president of a Sikh temple in Yuba City is challenging election results of a September vote for directors that one of the winners calls the first democratic voting since the temple's founding in 1969.

Tejinder Dosanjh, one of 73 directors elected in voting on Sept. 6-7 at the Sikh Temple on Tierra Buena Road, said the election was fair.

"There was no dispute," said Dosanjh. "There was no problem."

But the attorney for temple president Didar Bains cites accounts filed with Sutter County Superior Court raising issues — including more than one person present in a voting booth — about how the election was conducted.

"I hear reports of two people in the voting booth, my ears go up," said Mark Steidlmayer, "It bothers me as a citizen of Sutter County."

Declarations by some temple members raise other election issues, including food and drink used to try to sway voters.

"The results cannot stand," Steidlmayer said in a court filing last week that described the election as, "neither free nor fair."

Dosanjh said it was both. Elderly voters were allowed assistance from a family member or friend, he said, and said water was provided to the long line of voters during 95-degree heat in early September.

Dosanjh said Bains lost the control of the temple he had for decades and so is challenging the election results that will bring new directors in January.

"It won't be one-man control," Dosanjh said. "It will be board-of-directors control."

Attorneys for Bains and Dosanjh are expected to be in court Monday.

Michael Barrette, representing Dosanjh, said the legal challenge to the election stems from Bains' disappointment at the outcome.

"The two words that come to my mind are 'sour grapes,'" Barrette said. "The election process will be vindicated."

The attorney said he plans to question Bains' authority to file the legal challenge to the election because the temple's board of directors has to approve such an effort and did not do so.

Bains' attorney disputed that the election results spurred the legal challenge.

The temple president didn't seek a director post in the election, Steidlmayer said. The challenge to the election stems from how it was conducted, the attorney added.

"Who loses when there's two people in the voting booth?" he asked. "Doesn't everybody?"

More than 3,000 people voted in the temple election that Dosanjh said cost the temple about $125,000. Expenses included security, an accounting firm and the work of TrueBallot of Merced.

TrueBallot, in a September letter to the accounting firm, stated that, "Ballots were properly counted and rigid safeguards were maintained to protect the secrecy of the ballot."

Dosanjh said of the Sikh temple that, "This is a place of God, of worship."

The election dispute should be resolved through cooperation, he suggested, saying "somebody's got to bend."

Steidlmayer said the legal challenge began because of concerns raised about the election.

"If this is not done," the attorney said of seeking the court review, "you're going to have strife at the temple."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appeal-democrat.com.