DETROIT — With greater than half the votes counted, a proposal to offer UAW members a direct position in selecting their management is passing by a large margin.

Greater than 60 p.c of the ballots counted as of late Tuesday had been solid in favor of adopting the “one member, one vote” election system, in response to unofficial outcomes from the workplace of court-appointed monitor Neil Barofsky. The referendum will cross until not less than 62 p.c of the remaining votes reject the change.

Employees voted in favor of fixing to direct election by a greater than 2-to-1 margin on the massive Ford Motor Co. native in Dearborn, Mich., and by about 4-to-1 at Ford’s meeting vegetation in Louisville, Ky., and the Stellantis transmission vegetation in Kokomo, Ind.

UAW members had till Monday to return their ballots, and 143,072 had been obtained by the deadline. The vote is a situation of the UAW’s settlement with the federal authorities over a corruption probe that has despatched 15 folks, together with two former union presidents, to jail for stealing cash from members.

Proponents of the direct election system, together with former U.S. Legal professional Matthew Schneider, have argued it may assist stop the kind of corruption uncovered by federal prosecutors. Below the present system, the union’s high officers are sometimes nominated by what’s often called the Reuther Administrative Caucus, and so they often sail to victory within the quadrennial election with little to no opposition from challengers.

If authorised, the change would imply that UAW President Ray Curry may face a more durable path to reelection than his predecessors when the union gathers subsequent June in Detroit. Rory Gamble, who retired as president a 12 months earlier than his time period was to run out, had chosen Curry as his successor partially as a result of he may develop into a multiple-term president.

Each Gamble and Curry had expressed help for the present delegate-based voting system.