Why was this Policy adopted?

During our May 1996 elections for NASA Executive officers a number of concerns were raised by members about how election procedures were handled. Executive elections are very important for NASA since the Executive has day-to-day responsibility for making decisions on behalf of the membership. Our election process should be fair and effective. In August, Reps Council reviewed the current procedures and found that our By-laws do not cover the election process in much detail. We had a number of questions:

• Should the Executive itself be involved in running those elections?
• Is acclamation -- where an Executive member gets in automatically if no one runs against them -- good for NASA?
• How could we make these elections more effective, more representative, and more informative for the membership?

Council adopted a formal Policy to improve the Executive election process and NASA members approved the proposal at the January 1997 general meeting. NASA "Policies" are adopted by a majority of members at a General Meeting. They provide rules and procedures which the Executive and Council must follow and it can only be overturned by another general meeting. Policies cannot contravene the Bylaws but only enhance them.

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