At 04:54 PM 2/28/2005 -0500, you wrote:
>There would be nothing better than seeing a higher vote total in
>our ARMA elections.  The participation level is actually quite low,
>especially if one compares it to the involvement of each chapter board in
>past years.....

I'd have to agree with one of our newest Board members and Bruce that I'd
LOVE NOTHING MORE than to see a higher ARMA Voter turnout... well, there
might be one or two things I'd love MORE... =)  And I think we need to work
towards achieving this, but before we can fix it, we need to understand WHY
it's so low.

>  ...we may have had just as
>high a level of participation when each Board member of each Chapter cast
>their vote to recommend a candidate to what was then the Nominating
>Committee.

EEK!  Now this is the LAST thing I'd want to see us go back to... and there
are a LOT of reasons I felt this system was badly flawed:

1) Not all members belong to Chapters, but they're STILL members and their
voice should be heard
2) Not all Chapters have the same types of Boards... for example, our
Chapter has a 4 member Board
3) This old scenario was akin to Ballot Box Stuffing, in my mind (see #2)
4) Chapters who had members running seemed to have a distinct advantage in
those days, even with the no campaigning rule

>I'd love to hear some ideas here and on the ARMA Forum about what would help
>increase election participation.  I know that the Election Management
>Committee has discussed it ever since we moved to a more direct election of
>Board Members...... Any ideas?

Okay, seeing as you've asked:

1) Board Members need to communicate with members... about issues and about
ARMA
2) Candidates need to be able to speak to Chapters, and not have it viewed
as campaigning
3) Chapter Boards need to encourage member voting participation
4) Not everybody goes to the Conference, so find a way to take the
Candidate Forum on the road
5) We used to get pictorial flyers with the Candidates and their bios and
position statements in the mail
6) Move the "election season" to a different time of year... it's over the
holidays now
7) Shorten the election period... people tend to wait now and many forget
to vote

I sent three announcements out to my members about the election and voting,
making sure they had their info current and that they watched for ballots
and I was contacted directly by 10 members who said:

"Gee, I'd consider voting if I knew anyone who was running, or if I knew
what the differences were between the candidates, but I don't know any of
the people or where they stand on the issues"

So, obviously what we're doing now to promote the issues and candidates
isn't enough...

Larry

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