I am now in favor of a total withhold vote in 2026



After reading an excellent article about the 2025 election, by Dave Jamieson in The Huffington Post, I came to believe that the best solution for the 2026 election is to withhold vote for all 3 candidates, including Chuck Sams as the strong message we should send to the board and to the public opinion, if that they will never get any support from the membership as long as they don't change the bylaws to abandon their oligarchic grip on the coop.

If all the candidates of the 2026 election were defeated and if the board decided again to coopt new directors without an election, that would mean two thirds of the directors would have no election legitimacy with the objective for the membership to withhold again all the candidates in 2027 leading to a board where 100% of the board would have no election legitimacy.  How damaged the image of the Coop's leadership would then be? 

Continuing to sort of playing along a nomination and election system that is corrupted is not a good strategy. The bylaws have to change to install a democratic open process for candidates nomination and elections. 

Also from the Harvard Law School of Corporate Governance (but in 2012).

The image on the top I found on a very interesting (again) article on Reddit by r/campingandhiking and it is sourced to the REI union site but I could not find it there. It probably belonged to their 2025 campaign and has since disappeared or I coud not find it.

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