Brennan,
Thank you very much. The election bylaws do not provide properly for canvassing. I think the assumption was that the candidates would be able to do that in AMSAT's periodicals, but the election dates specified in the bylaws and the periodical lay-out schedule could never have aligned, as you previously observed.
Thanks
Bruce
On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 11:46 AM Brennan Price [email protected] wrote:
Bruce,
There is no bylaw guidance on point here, so much of this falls to the interaction between and practices of the candidates of the day and the Secretary of the day.
In this particular case, I finished verification of nominations on June 20 and asked for candidate statements by June 29. All candidates substantially complied with the timing I requested.
From that point, there are two relevant events that occur on different schedules: access to corporation mailing lists for the candidates, and the layout of the candidate statements to accompany the ballot packages.
The corporation mailing list was offered to the candidates on July 3 (with individual candidates accepting either immediately or soon after), after checking to ensure that the voter list provided to Paladin met Paladin's requirements and matched the list offered to the candidates.
The candidate statements required typesetting (by me--Paladin simply printed the finished product), which was concluded July 5. Typeset statements were sent to the candidates for proofing, and released for printing by me on July 6.
Whether mailings a candidate may choose to undertake or commission arrive at a member's address before the ballot arrives depends on whatever actions (with the safeguards discussed below) the candidates have taken since July 3. I am not privy to any candidate's plans in this regard and don't wish to be.
On the other hand, it is not possible for the candidate statements to arrive later than the ballot, as they were sent in the same package on July 14.
73 de Brennan N4QX
On Monday, July 13, 2020, 11:23:15 PM EDT, Bruce Perens [email protected] wrote:
Brennan,
Thank you very much for this discussion, and please bear with me for one more question. How much time are the candidates given to prepare, print, and have mailed their campaign documents between the time that AMSAT informs them that it ratifies their candidacy, and the time that the ballots are mailed?
It seems very likely that some members will have voted before they could possibly receive the mailed campaign information.
Thanks
Bruce
On Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:44 PM Brennan Price via AMSAT-BB < [email protected]> wrote:
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:
- There are no election-related purposes once the election ends.
Accordingly, candidates have agreed to discard the list after the election.
- 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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