As we hope all members know, we just had an election for our chapter’s board of directors. Normally ballots are sent out in a printed Bay Leaf newsletter, but this was not practical this year due to COVID-19.
Instead, we mailed ballots to every member (there were 907 active members). In order to make voting easier, an anonymous donor contributed stamped return envelopes. Of the 907 ballots we sent, 324 were completed and returned to us. All voted for the board-nominated candidates, so the five officers chosen by election were the five who were nominated: President–Sally de Becker, Vice President–Cynthia Adkisson, Treasurer–David Margolies, Corresponding Secretary–Barbara Leitner, Recording Secretary–Robin Mitchell.
Several voters commented that we used a lot of paper to carry out the election, and the election committee agrees. The method we used was, we feel, forced upon us by circumstance. Since a Bay Leaf method was unavailable and online voting was too complicated to set up in the time we had available, a special mailing seemed to be the only practical option. We intend that the next election will be online with only a reminder postcard being sent to members.
—David Margolies, Elections Committee, CNPS East Bay Chapter
February 2021
