I strongly urge the Board
to adopt the proposal, put forward by Ken Fockler and Lorrie Cranor, that candidates
be eligible for the at-large ballot with the support of 2% of the members in their
region. (The proposal sets out a minimum threshold of 20 supporters in regions
with fewer than 1,000 members, and caps the requirement at 200 supporters in regions
with more than 10,000 members.) I also urge the Board to adopt Ken Fockler's
recommendation that members be able to endorse more than one candidate. The
statements of the other committee members do not address this issue directly. As
Lorrie Cranor states, it would not be problematic for a large number of candidates
to qualify for the ballot. While some people may object that a multitude of
candidates could splinter the popular vote, use of the Alternative Vote mechanism
(as the Elections Committee recommends) will solve this problem. The Committee's
recommendation allows a large number of people to run, thus avoiding top-down limitations
on candidacy, but nonetheless cumulates votes as if only the most popular candidates
were in the race.
Alternatively, if the Board is convinced that there must be
overall limits on the total number of candidates, some version of the Elections Committee's
Option Two would be an acceptable second-best solution.
Jon Weinberg
Professor
of Law, Wayne State University
weinberg@msen.com