NOTE: *Not enough meetings:

Unfortunately, the candidates did not meet the requirements of the Bylaws, which state:

Only those members with one continuous year of membership, in good standing with this Union and in attendance of not less than 50% of the general membership meetings during the past twelve months shall be entitled to be nominated for an Executive position. (Article B.2.3/B.7.1)

It is not my desire to exclude anyone from participating, but the bylaws are fairly clear.  We received a motion through the email to waive the requirements of the meeting attendance provisions.  This motion, however, would be out of order, since the requirements in the bylaws exist to create an equal playing field for all candidates, and it would not be fair that they be altered right before the election.  This requirement has been waived in the past only in circumstances where there was a vacant position with only one candidate who did not meet the meeting attendance requirement.  Given that in this circumstance, the positions have another candidate who does meet the meeting requirements, it would be improper to apply a rule to one candidate, but relax the rule on another.

In assessing the meeting requirement, I attempted to give the benefit to the candidates, but the requirement was still not met:  the bylaw requires 50% of the meetings in the past 12 months, which would be 50% of 8 meetings total; even when we subtract 2 meetings not held due to COVID-19, this leaves 8 meetings total.

If we credit the candidates “virtually” for a meeting that would have occurred in May, and count that meeting as part of the calculation, this would bring the total number of meetings up to 9.