Officer Election 2010

by Bob Wood, Election Supervisor

The 2010 Officer Election results have been tabulated and decidedly a successful election. This was the third election where the RA used its new eVoting system combined with traditional paper mail-in ballots. In 2008 the Board adopted this new electronic voting procedure and it seems to have been well received by the membership. You may find it interesting that this Officer election, unlike the last one, had 55% of the balloting cast in the traditiona l manner -- mail-in paper ballots. However, in 2008 more eVotes were cast percentage-wise, but the total number of voting members was much lower. It is encouraging to see a full 7% of our members participate in this year’s election. I optimistically see this as greater interest in the club and its leadership. It’s good to see our core glow.

Election Procedures: As prescribed in the Bylaws as amended in the 2009 membership approved referendum (see my Bylaws Amendment Report elsewhere); the 2010 Officer Election began by publishing the election notice and procedures in the September 2009 OTL. Candidate position statements and a mail-in ballot were delivered in the combined Jan/Feb 2010 issue and the online eVoting system activated on the 25th of January. Electronic voting was counted until midnight on February 28, 2010 and mail-in ballots counted if postmarked by that date. The eVoting ballots were validated as they were cast, whereas the mail-in votes were processed after they were received and then entered into a database for tabulation along with the imported eVotes. Mail-in ballot validation was completed in a similar manner as the online, by cross-referencing back to the membership database. Duplicate votes were checked for between the two vote collection methods. Mail-in ballots allowed for more creativity. A couple of ballots were received without any member information at all (truly secret ballots) and unfortunately not counted.

A few had write-ins, but there is no provision for this either. However your suggestions will be passed along. And if a ballot was cast with more than five trustees selected, no votes were cast for any trustee candidates from that ballot. For the most part the voting instructions were followed. I am confident to report that this election and the voting processes used accurately complied with the RA’s Bylaws and the following results clearly reflect the voice of the membership. Perhaps I can see a pattern beginning, but President, Vice-president, and Treasurer positions again ran unopposed. The real race was in the five Trustee slots. Since there were no nominations for filling the Association’s Secretary position, the Board has decided to offer the open Secretary position to the Trustee with the highest vote count. If accepted this appointment vacates one Trustee position that will be filled by the candidate with the next highest vote count. So essentially, six of the seven Trustee candidates will likely become Board members.

Below are the final results for the 2010 Officer Election. The Trustee candidates are listed in ascending order from the highest to lowest number of votes. These volunteers have committed to serving the membership for the next two years. Please welcome them as your new RA Officers.

• Debbi Harbour President unopposed
• Jeff Yost Vice-president unopposed
• George Nyktas Treasurer unopposed
• Julia Shirley Trustee 1st
• Bob Alexander Trustee 2nd
• Paul Bachortz Trustee 3rd
• Gary Haydel Trustee 4th
• Will Guyan Trustee 5th
• Bill Johnston Trustee 6th
• Elwood Miles Trustee 7th