Currently, the 5 board members are elected by a system where each member gets up to three votes to cast, and the 5 nominees with the most votes are the ones who are elected to the board. Since people are only allowed three votes, if there are 3 or four nominees who everyone agrees should be on the board, they get nearly all the votes, and the reminder is nearly random.
A simple tweak to this system, which would keep the intent without the random tail, would be to allow each voting member to vote for as many board member nominees as they like. This would allow a voter to say which of the nominees they approve of, and would like on the board, and withhold votes only for those they may not wish to be on leadership. The Board would still be selected as the top 5 vote-getters from this larger pool of votes.
To implement this, I propose the following change:
Delete paragraph 6.5.2 (Elected Officers/Elections Section, Paragraph 2) which currently reads:
All eligible positions shall be elected at the same time, by the process determined in these bylaws for the Votes of the Members, with one exception: Full Members may cast up to three votes for the Directors at large; these votes do not have to be for separate candidates.
And replace it with:
Election of All Board of Director and Elected Officer positions shall be by Votes of the Membership, with one modification to the typical voting system for the Board of Directors vote. Members may cast votes for as many or as few Board of Director Nominees as they would like, up to one vote per nominee. The five nominees who get the most votes shall be selected as the Board of Directors. In the event of a tie for the 5th position, any nominee tied for 5th who has been elected to an Elected Officer position for the year or who holds a Warden position is disqualified. If the 5th place tie persists after elimination of Elected Officers and Wardens, the selection shall be made by random lot from the tied nominees.
If there are typographical errors in this, or you have a recommendation for improving the wording to be more clear, please let me know, I’ll try to incorporate changes which do not alter the core concept.
Thanks,
Kevin M.