As the end of the year draws closer, so does the deadline to cast your votes for the Atlantic Chapter’s At-Large Delegates to the Executive Committee (ExCom) and for the members of your Group’s ExCom. This year we are coordinating the Chapter and Group elections through this special Election Edition of the Sierra Atlantic. Elections to the national Sierra Club Board of Directors will happen, as usual, next spring.
Why Vote?
The Sierra Club, the largest grassroots environmental group in the world, is proudly democratic and member driven. The At-Large Delegates you elect to represent you, along with the Group Delegates, direct the work of the Atlantic Chapter. A Group ExCom governs the local Sierra Club Group in your area. As a member of the national Club, you are automatically a member of both the Chapter and your local Group.
Widespread voting shows the national Club that members are interested in protecting the important role of volunteers. Most membership organizations do not allow voting for their leadership but Sierra Club does, so take advantage of that privilege! It’s a way to be involved even if you don’t have time to actually volunteer, and widespread voting counters the possibility of factions controlling elections.
Why Vote Online?
Sierra Club members have the right to vote by paper ballot at all three levels of elections. However, there are good reasons to vote online, which simply requires a one-time registration for a MyAccount to ensure online voting access for current and future Chapter and Group elections:
- It’s easy! Register once for a MyAccount and that’s it. Go to the public Sierra Club webpage at sierraclub.org, click on Login in the upper right (or simply go to myaccount.sierraclub.org), and click on Create your account. If you know your membership number (on your Sierra Atlantic newsletter above your address), supply it with your zip code and email address on the left side, create a password and you’re done. If you don’t know your membership number, enter your name, zip code and email address on the right side, and create a password.
- Vote for your Group and Chapter elections in the same place. When there are active Chapter and Group elections going on, the box at the top center of your MyAccount home page will let you know. (If the box says “become a Wilderness Guardian,” that means there are no active elections at that time.) You can save time and postage by voting for both elections in one place rather than sending in separate paper ballots, and you don’t even need to know what Group you’re in because the ballot for your Group will appear automatically.
- It’s secret! The Sierra Club online voting platform preserves voter anonymity. Sometimes members cut their name and membership number off their paper ballot before mailing it in, presumably because they don’t want vote counters to see their votes. This invalidates the ballot if the Elections Committee can’t identify that the voter is a valid member. (Know that once we confirm the validity of the voter, we separate the ballots from the names before tallying votes so vote counters don’t associate names with votes.) But if you vote online, the platform automatically confirms membership validity and counts the votes, and the only things Elections Committees see are the total votes for each candidate, not how any individual person voted.
- Vote at your convenience and never miss an election. The Atlantic Chapter will send out an email in mid-November to remind members there are active elections going on, so you can go into your MyAccount and vote. But you can still vote if you log in for another purpose and see you have a current election going on.
- Voting online greatly simplifies counting procedures for Chapter and Group Election Committees, for a more accurate vote count. In addition to checking membership validity of paper ballots, Election Committees have to check if the members also voted online and that anybody who voted on both sides of the paper ballot truly have Joint memberships. That process plus tabulating the votes takes hours for Chapter elections, given the hundreds of paper ballots we receive. The voting platform automatically does all that, giving Joint members two ballots and ensuring that once someone votes online, they won’t be able to vote again.
- Voting online saves ballot mailing costs for Groups. The Atlantic Chapter always sends the fall Chapter ballots in this paper newsletter we mail anyway, but to save money, many Groups have switched to online newsletters. It costs a lot to send paper ballots to all members, especially when some Groups have thousands of members and often they only get a small number of paper ballots back. So vote online to help Groups save money, or see inside this issue for whom to contact to get a paper ballot for your Group election.
- Having a MyAccount lets you do other things in addition to voting, like renewing your membership and changing your preferences for emails and mailings. You can see your recent donation history, access the online edition of Sierra magazine, sign petitions and find outings and events near you.
Vote! Voting deadline is December 15, 2025 (online ballots will go out on or around November 15th, 2025. Paper ballots will be on your Sierra Atlantic, hitting your mailbox in late October/early November). Whether you choose to vote by paper ballot or online, the most important thing is to vote for the people you want to represent you at the Chapter and Group levels.
In this special Election Edition, the paper Atlantic Chapter ballot and candidate biographies are included. In addition, each Group has a half page of information about their Group ExCom elections, including where to find out about their candidates and whom to contact to get a paper ballot. Find your Group on the map and check out their election information! If you vote online, the appropriate Group ballot will automatically appear in your MyAccount, along with links to the candidates’ bios. If you have any questions regarding your membership or Group location, email: atlantic.chapter@sierraclub.org.
A final note: If you see an election for your Chapter or Group where there are the same number of candidates as open seats, consider getting involved with the Chapter or Group and eventually becoming a candidate yourself! We welcome your participation and ideas.