Article archive / March 1, 2014
Originally published: . Volume 5, No. 7. Source pages: 1, 7.
Ballots for a 5-year position on the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists will have to be sent to the over 650 licensed psychologists in the state for a third time.
According to Dr. John Fanning, President of the Louisiana Psychological Association (LPA), the organization that helps conduct the election, a clerical problem caused some mailings not to contain a cover letter explaining to licensed psychologists exactly why there was a second ballot being sent to them. The cover letter was to help avoid any voters’ confusion.
“Two days ago we learned that some undetermined number of ballot envelopes did not contain the page with the paragraph stating that we were having a re-vote,” Fanning explained.
“I apologize for this, and am very, very unhappy about the fact that in both cases the problems were essentially clerical in nature,” Fanning wrote to members of the psychological association. “This is not at all what we want to be doing as an association.”
Elections for the psychology board are conducted in a cooperative effort between the Louisiana Psychological Association (LPA) and the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychology (LSBEP) according to an agreement that has been in place for many years.
Dr. Fanning also told LPA members and the Times that he had hoped the psychology board would agree to send an email to all the licensed psychologists, making sure everyone understood what was happening. This seemed like a reasonable remedy, he said.
“We asked the board to send an e-mail to all psychologists licensed in the state, but the board declined to do so,” Fanning said.
According to a memo from LSBEP Executive Director Kelly Parker, to Fanning, Parker had polled the psychology board members and they all agreed that LPA should issue new ballots for a third vote.
The first set of ballots were sent to all licensed psychologists at Christmas last year, but were voided due to an error in the color of the ballots. The ballots were printed on plain white paper rather than shaded paper, and some feared that duplicates could be made.
This latest ballot was printed on shaded paper and numbered.
Some in the community feel that tensions surrounding the election may be contributing to the problems, in one way or another. One source told the Times that elections in other years had just as many glitches, but few people cared enough to be concerned.
In January, after the first ballots were recalled, Fanning explained that he did not suspect any misbehavior. “We do not have any evidence of any voting impropriety having taken place,” he said, “but we want the election to be unambiguously above-board.”
The election is considered to be an important one for many in the psychology community, because of conflicts over issues between groups that emerged with Act 251.
Running for the 5-year position are Dr. Robin Chapman, a newcomer to the state and health psychologist, Dr. Joe Comaty, a medical psychologist, and Dr. Connie Patterson, a Tulane professor and school psychologist.
For some in the community, the election is pivotal because of an ongoing tug-a-war between psychologists and medical psychologists for control of the board. Currently, three medical psychologists serve on the state psychology board but represent only about 5 percent of those holding a state psychology license.
Psychologists Dr. Rafael Salcedo (L), Dr. Kim VanGeffen, and Dr. John Fanning, listen to questions at a jointly sponsored presentation by Tulane and the Louisiana Psychological Association last year. Dr. Fanning has apologized twice now for problems with ballots for the state board election. Ballots will be going out for a third time to all licensed psychologists.
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