Board Ballots Mailing (and E-mailing) on March 27

All ABA regular bookstore members will soon receive -- either via e-mail or U.S. Postal Service -- a ballot for the 2009 Board of Directors elections, candidate bios, and letters from ABA President Gayle Shanks and Nominating Committee Chair Steve Bercu.

Bookstore members that opted in to receive this material via electronic means should watch for two e-mails arriving in their inboxes on Friday morning, March 27. The first e-mail from ABA President Gayle Shanks will bear the subject line "Time to Vote for ABA's Board of Directors & Officers" and will include important information about the Annual Membership Meeting and links to the proposed Bylaws amendment and Board candidate bios. To maintain the integrity of the election process, a separate e-mail from ABA's auditor with a link to the ballot will be sent around noon Eastern Time. The sender will be electronicvoting@bookweb.org, with the subject line again being "Time to Vote for ABA's Board of Directors & Officers." All electronic ballots must be submitted by Thursday, April 30.

Any regular member store that opted in for the electronic ballot that does not receive both of these e-mails on Friday should contact Kristen Gilligan as soon as possible.

Bookstore members that did not opt in for the electronic ballot will be sent a traditional paper mailing via the U.S. Postal Service on Friday, March 27, which should arrive in stores within the following week. Paper ballots must be returned in the special postage-paid envelope addressed to ABA's auditors Marks Paneth & Shron with a postmark no later than Thursday, April 30, and be received by Thursday, May 7.

The ballot includes, for member approval, the names of officers selected by the Board to serve one-year terms: Michael Tucker of Books Inc. in San Francisco for President and Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshops in Naperville, Illinois, for Vice President/Secretary.

The three Director candidates on the ballot, recommended by ABA's Nominating Committee and approved by the Board, are Betsy Burton of The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah; Beth Puffer of Bank Street Bookstore in New York City; and Becky Anderson. Anderson and Puffer currently serve on the Board and are both eligible for an additional three-year term.

No petitions were submitted by members in support of additional Director candidates; however, in accordance with ABA's Bylaws, space is provided on the ballot for write-ins.

The Bylaws amendment, which will be up for a vote by members at the May 29 Annual Meeting, would allow ABA to use electronic means to notify members about governance issues and for ballot distribution and voting at the discretion of the Board without the need for members to opt in.