I generally don't intend to engage in the ongoing discussion s beyond an announcement on process once the ballots are mailed (which they will be, tomorrow or Wednesday, on or before the date specified in the bylaws), but I do want to address what the Bylaws say about the organization's publications and mailing lists, as I think (perhaps naïvely) that would be helpful. Article III Section 3 provides, in relevant part: <<Duly nominated and eligible candidates shall be afforded equal opportunity to circulate statements of their qualifications and positions to the Members through the corporation’s publications and shall have use of the corporation’s mailing lists for election-related purposes at no cost to the corporation.>> The production and publication schedule of the AMSAT Journal does not render it a suitable vehicle for candidate statements given the bylaws-mandated nomination and election timing. The absence of campaign statements from the Journal is entirely consistent with the Bylaws: no opportunity for any candidate is inherently equal opportunity for all candidates. Traditionally, the organization has used the ballot mailing itself the relevant publication, and this is the approach that will be taken this year. The "equal opportunity" requirement and paper format (not to mention common practice across multiple organization's) necessitates a target word count, balanced to the extent possible against letting candidates have their say. All candidates met or came close to meeting the target I suggested (350 words), with the most long-winded exceeding by 14 words according to the Word 2016 word counter. Upon review, I offered the remaining candidates the chance to expand up to 364 words. None of them took the offer. All six statements will accompany the ballot, and none of them required editorial work beyond the correction of a repeated word and an excess space. I thank the candidates for making that part of the job easy. I have construed the mailing list as the postal mailing list, which has been offered to each candidate (and thus far, five of the six have accepted the list). Data protection regulations require the corporation to take reasonable efforts to safeguard personally identifiable information, and candidates accepting the list have agreed to support those efforts by limiting use of the list for the "election-related purposes" specified in the bylaws. Two results follow: 1) There are no election-related purposes once the election ends. Accordingly, candidates have agreed to discard the list after the election. 2) It is common to engage agents for mailing and postage purposes. I will not hyper-officiate any candidate's choice to do so, but candidates have agreed that any agent will have access to the list only for the time necessary to execute the mailing and will be required by the candidate to discard it afterwards. This is a reasonable effort to safeguard in light of the bylaws requirement for candidate access to mailing lists, which establishes an expectation (however infrequently it came to fruition in past) that members may receive election-related postal mail. I think that's enough for now. 73,Brennan Price, N4QXSecretary, AMSAT
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