I pay my dues. Why isn't that enough? I don't know these people. Good question. Here are some answers.
The Kansas chapter and its five geographic groups are a small part of the Sierra Club, the oldest and most influential grassroots environmental group in the United States. The chapter and the groups have separate executive committees (ExComs) which manage their activities.
Legal Requirement
We are required by Sierra Club to send a chapter and group election ballot to every single member, whether they have asked for a ballot or not, whether they have ever voted or not, and whether or not they know or care about our organizational structure.
Honor the Volunteers
We're a grassroots organization. Our volunteers are dedicated to fulfilling our environmental goals by giving their time to write for our newsletter, endorse political candidates, advocate for environmental legislation, and raise money to keep us going. The members of our executive committees oversee all of our activities, they develop our budgets, ensure our compliance with national policies, and set organizational priorities. You may not be able to give your time, but you can support our candidates by voting.
Big Cost to Chapter in Dollars and Volunteer Time
Paper Ballots vs. Digital Ballots
Just so you know, for this election, we're mailing paper ballots and we sent an email ballot on Monday, October 3rd. And guess what? The paper ballots are expensive, and it took a lot of hours to create them.
Why don't we send everyone an email ballot? Because we can't. You should have received yours on Monday because we have your email address but lots of members haven't given us their email address or have not given us permission to use it.
So, it's a lot of work and it's not cheap but we have to do it. Since we're in, we're all in. We want it to matter. We want your voice to make a choice. Just as we want you to vote for our endorsed candidates and against the two constitutional amendments, we want you to participate in our elections. If you don't choose, someone else will choose for you.
Choosing candidates
Some of our elections are not contested, meaning there aren't more candidates than there are vacancies. Vote anyway. In some cases you can vote for all of them. You can always vote for fewer candidates or even vote NONE. But you will be participating and that will tell us that you're interested.
How do you decide which candidate(s) to support? Read the candidate statements.