[amsat-bb] Publications and mailing lists

Wed Jul 15 18:56:55 UTC 2020

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 <brennanprice at verizon.net>
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 <bruce at perens.com>
> 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 <
> amsat-bb at amsat.org> 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:
> > 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
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Sent via AMSAT-BB at amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available
> > to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership.
> Opinions expressed
> > are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of
> AMSAT-NA.
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> >
>

-- 
Bruce Perens - CEO at stealth startup. I'll tell you what it is eventually
:-)