by Over the coming days I will be doing a series of reports about the NRA Annual Meeting including the Board meeting and Meeting of Members. They will cover a number of topics. These topics will include the Elections Committee report, the Annual Compliance Report to Members, changes to the Executive Committee, and much more.
I am starting with the Elections Committee report which is embedded at the end of this post. Sadly, voting numbers were down again. Out of approximately 2.5 million ballots sent out, only a total of 59,781 were return for a voting turnout of a mere 2.43%. The total number of valid ballots was 56,850. This will mean that petition candidates will only need a total of 285 valid signatures to make the ballot.
One reason for the low turnout could have been that virtually all the candidates on the ballot were going to be elected. This was due to resignations of Board members which opened up a total of 10 slots in addition to the regular 25 3-year terms and the 76th Director. We may never know.
As I reported earlier in April when I gave out the draft election results, Isaac Demerest decided not to run for 76th Director which only left Lynn Gipson. Then Eb Wilkinson declined the seat he won. Thus, Regis Synan moved up to take a 3-year term, Jim Wallace moved up to take a 2-year term, and Isaac Demerest won a 1-year term as he had placed ahead of Lynn Gipson. As the Elections Committee report makes clear under Robert’s Rules of Order, Mr. Gipson was declared the winner by acclamation of the 76th Director seat.
All was well and good until Sunday afternoon.
We learned then that both longtime director Wayne Anthony Ross of Alaska and Lynn Gipson had passed away on Saturday, April 18th. My condolences to both the Gipson and Ross familes.
We took up the issue in Monday’s Board meeting regarding whether they would or could be replaced on the Board. It resolved around the meaning of Article VIII, Section 4 of the NRA Bylaws stating that the 76th Director “shall be chosen only from those persons who were nominated as candidates for election for Director in the mail ballot…” The debate was whether write-in candidates could be considered “nominated” within the meaning of this bylaw. It was ultimately decided that “nominated” only applied to those candidates who appeared on the ballot by a nomination from the Nominating Committee or by a nomination by petition. There were a number of arguments regarding this. One strong argument was that write-in’s had not been vetted to see if they were even eligible under the Bylaws unlike the other candidates.
By a vote of 27 yes to 33 no, it was decided as there remained no nominated candidates those two positions will go unfilled. Thus, the 2026-27 Board of Directors will only number 74.
My vote was not to seat a write-in candidate and that vote had nothing to do with the candidates themselves. Indeed, I had urged voters to write-in Chuck Rowe’s name on their ballots as I thought he would make a great Director. Rather it went back to what I considered the letter and the spirit of the Bylaw itself.
One thing I might point out is if you are considering running for the Board of Directors now is the time to request a petition package from the NRA Office of the Secretary. As a reminder, potential petition candidates can now gather signatures electronically from eligible NRA voters.
The report of the Committee on Elections is below:
Building Map:
