Bill,

Your lack of knowledge of AMA history and politics is showing. That's surprising for a moderator in an AMA discussion group. These are the same basic by-law proposals that were submitted by Rich Hanson, D 10 VP, about 1996. That's one of the reasons I would support Rich for Dist X VP again.

Jim McNeill has made it clear that he thinks Red is the "savage" behind an effort to unseat him as the Dist V VP. I think Jim's memory is failing him. IF I recall correctly, Rich is the Chairman of a committee currently looking into by-law changes and election reforms. I'm guessing, but, I would bet that the idea was generated in Rich's committee. Only McNeill would look to Red as the source.

The election process has been a problem for the AMA for a number of years.

Sometime, ask Horrace Cain about the elections around 1980. Earl Witt (the AMA President) and Horrace, both the incumbents at the time, were left off the ballot, by EC vote, and ran a write-in campaign. Horrace won. Witt came close. In that same era, ballots went directly to HQ, instead of the auditor's, as they do now. Surprisingly, quite a few ballots were, uh...... "misplaced". Witt stumbled over them, literally, or the election might have come out very differently. That was when the change was made, to send the ballots to the AMA auditors. (Not the same elections, if I recall correctly). Horrace probably has a better recollection of this era than I do.

In more recent years, after changes were made to the election process, allegations of abuse of the nomination procedures have been made.
The nomination process is within the power of the EC, as granted in the AMA by-laws. The
Standing Rules are written by the EC and only they can change them, unless the by-laws are changed.

The Standing Rules that exist require that the Nominating Committee (the AMA VP's and EVP) accept any bona fide nomination and place the candidate on the ballot if three or less candidates are nominated, including the incumbent. The Nominating Committee has no leeway in this process. There is no
mechanism to determine the validity of a nominee. If the nomination is received, and accepted by the nominee, within the protocols of the Standing
Rules, there is no choice.

If more than three nominees are nominated, then
the Nominating Committee must make a decision as to which will be on the
ballot. The rule for the incumbent is that 3/4 of the Committee must vote
against putting him/her on the ballot to withhold his/her name.

This process leaves room for abuse. For instance, if an AMA member wants to
block a legitimate candidate, he has only to submit a nomination for a
shill. If two such shills are nominated, the EC must make the decision as to
who is left off the ballot. The Committee has only the nomination acceptance
statement/resume from the candidate to rely on in making their judgement.

On the one hand, you have a situation where it is extremely difficult to
encourage legitimate candidates to run for office, and on the other, a very
simple mechanism to block those same candidates from being placed on the
ballot. Even the placement of one candidate-shill would dilute the votes for
legitimate candidates.

The incumbent has a huge advantage going into the
election by way of the simple fact that he is the incumbent. The word
'Incumbent' goes next to his name on the campaign statements and the ballot.
Unfortunately, it appears that a substantial number of ballots are cast on
that information alone. The fact that the incumbent may also have as much as
three years of writing a column in MA certainly does not hurt his cause.

If anyone has ideas on how to eliminate the potential problems, post 'em.

JR