by I will have a more complete report on the NRA Meeting of Members up later. However, I wanted to get this statistics from the Election Committee out.
Bob Barr, former Congressman from Georgia and Director, was chair of the Elections Committee. He started out his report detailing how votes were tallied by an independent accounting firm and how they were read electronically.
Barr then gave these statistics:
- Ballots Mailed – 2,535,798
- Ballots Received – 78,327 or 3%
- Valid Ballots – 75,454
- Invalid Ballots – 2,873
- 1,163 received after the deadline
- 558 missing membership number
- 503 not signed
- 401 voted for more than 26 candidates
- 168 voted for zero candidates
- 47 used an improper ballot (last years or photocopied)
- 33 had multiple votes for the same candidate
- Ballots that contained write-in votes – 1,218
No write-in candidate received enough votes to be elected.
Barr then ran through the list of everyone elected or who failed to get elected. I had those name up earlier and you can find them here.
My first impression is that fewer and fewer members are bothering to even vote. Given a low turnout local or municipal election will have a response of 15% +/-, a response of 3% is horrendous. Either people feel their vote doesn’t make a difference or they just don’t care anymore. Bear in mind everyone who got a ballot was either a Life Member or a 5 year continuous annual member.
The second impression is that this is the time for petition candidates to get on the ballot. The bylaws state that for a petition candidate to be placed on the ballot the threshold is 0.5% of the valid ballots cast in the past election. That means a candidate would need 378 valid signatures to make the ballot. Compare this with earlier years when a candidate need 6-700 or more to make the ballot.
One final note is that Rick Ector was elected as the 76th Director for a one year term. Congratulations to Rick as this is recognition, in my opinion, for all his hard work in Detroit training thousands of women year in and year out.
Those numbers are abysmal, and a testament to the fact that no one gives a shit nor will they until things truly change. WL must be dragged out of his cushy lair, removed from power, and banned from the organization for life. Then the entire culture of the NRA must change from “Negotiating Rights Away” to becoming fierce opposition to all infringements past, present, and future. They need to become the real Boogeyman the left portrays them as.
My observation would be that I don’t know any of the people on the ballot or whether they would make a good Board member. I read this blog and get some insight, and in the past there’ve been a couple other blogs I read where I got more. Sometimes the advice conflicted. Vote for one, vote for all you can, then the people whose names I know quit and there’s a big kerfuffle on the blogs about how that person was so great but left in frustration. So “no”, I don’t think I voted this time, not because I don’t care but because I don’t know who to vote for to make a difference and because it doesn’t seem to matter year after year as the one person (Frank, for example) who tries just gets shut down, year after year.
Yep, Frank got shut down. I got shut down for simply asking questions. So did several others. We were criticized for making our concerns public. They were ignored otherwise. The voting percentage should be a sign but I think it will get ignored too. John is spot on about the low threshold for petition candidates, I hope several people take advantage of that. <- I only vote for candidates who petition the members. Those that say it is to hard infuriate me. I did it twice. And yes it was difficult. But it was a constant reminder of who I worked for and why.
I’ve been tweeting the breakdown on what the stats show compared to previous years, but there’s one thing I’ll disagree with your post about – the impact on the low turnout for petition candidates.
While the low turnout does make it easier to get on the ballot, I don’t think that’s a specific reason someone should run. The fact is that if someone’s network of resources to get petition signatures is so small that they can’t get upwards of 1,000+ plus valid petition names (because you know NRA is going to discredit every one they can come up with any excuse to invalidate), they have zero chance of getting the average of 62,780 votes needed to be the “last winner” of 25 candidates. Even with the vast drop-off in voting participation that really started in 2020 as the corruption allegations had traction with general gun owners at that point, the average of the “last winner” is 54,734 votes.
If someone doesn’t have the network to get close to 1,000 valid petition signatures, they don’t have the reach to try and find many tens of thousands of votes.
If there’s any reason why several petition candidates should consider, it’s because of the timing of the election. This one will be after the NY case is likely done and after NRA is likely to be in bankruptcy for actual bankruptcy and broke. And we know that 67,593 voters have vanished from participating – but likely not their eligibility – since 2019. There will be prime opportunity for obvious messaging about the shitty leadership of current board members. And likely some reputation-damaging quotes from legal documents by that time.
Neither I nor my brother bothered to vote, a first for both of us because until Wayne and his cronies are gone what the hell is the point. That was made all the worse this year by there being no clear reform candidates on the ballot, the only two men I trust to steer the NRA’s ship are currently on the board in Judge Phil Journey and Frank Tait.
Well I didn’t vote this year, kind of ashamed to say it, but I do have the impression that none of my voting has mattered in past years at all. I’m also convinced that a 76-member board is an ineffective board by design. I’m also convinced that the NRA won’t be reformed until the thieves are out of power (WLP, et al). Their legal expenses are burning down the house that their betters built. I just hope there’s something left of our institution by the time the dust settles. Completely out my hands though.
Why go to the trouble of voting when literally all of the candidates are hand-selected by accused felonious embezzler WLP’s personal nominating committee?
I agree with Glypto and the others, why waste my time on WLP’s pets???