Things like giving a registration status to a foal who's sire was a registered paint in Violation of the Breeding rule "No paint or pinto breeding" and the issue of allowing a person suspended from two other associations for abuse become an ApHC member and ride in the the World show. Those may seem like some pretty major issues but both were just swept under the rug. Now they have one more seriously major issue that also violates their own bylaws. Last fall, The ApHC held an election for the Board of Directors. The election process was completely ILLEGAL yet complaints from membership were also ignored.
Some of the complaints include the following:
1. First of all the election was held 100% electronically in violation of the rules in the hand book that state each member must be MAILED a ballot. We were supposed to vote in the bylaw change with this vote, but as written, the bylaw still said a paper ballot must be mailed.
2. The election was supposed to be conducted and results compiled by a third party. The ApHC contends that the software program used to calculates the votes counts as a third party. All the Data and results were pulled out by members of the ApHC staff instead of being handed over from a third party company.
3. Individuals were supposed to be notified by e-mail and regular mail on how to vote. Problem is that some people didn't even get that information until AFTER the vote was closed.
4. The rules for the vote stated that the voting would end at midnight on October 20th. They also stated 12AM. Problem is they didn't specify WHICH midnight/ 12 AM. So what happened is that the ApHC closed the vote at 00:00 am on the morning of October 20th while a large number of people were trying to vote because they thought it was supposed to be midnight 24:00 at the end of the day on the 20th. The ApHC refused to disclose which "midnight" they were referring to and they used ambiguous language that confused many of their own members.
http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/times.cfm
Is midnight the end of a day or the beginning of a day?
When someone refers to “midnight tonight” or “midnight last night” the reference of time is obvious. However, if a date/time is referred to as “at midnight on Friday, October 20th” the intention could be either midnight the beginning of the day or midnight at the end of the day.
To avoid ambiguity, specification of an event as occurring on a particular day at 11:59 p.m. or 12:01 a.m. is a good idea, especially legal documents such as contracts and insurance policies. Another option would be to use 24-hour clock, using the designation of 0000 to refer to midnight at the beginning of a given day (or date) and 2400 to designate the end of a given day (or date).
One interesting thing to note is that the ApHC had more than 15,000 total members at the time of the vote. The total votes cast were less than 1000 in number. The most sickening thing of all is that some of the members actually think that the vote is legal and that anyone who didn't vote was at fault. Individuals couldn't vote because they didn't get the information through no fault of their own. Individuals couldn't vote because the ApHC didn't appropriate disclose what time the vote was supposed to close.
I decided to not renew my membership with the ApHC over this because I cannot support a club who is so unethical that they can't follow their own bylaws.
