Voting Opens on Proposed ABA Bylaws Amendment

On Wednesday, September 16, in an e-mail from American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher, all ABA main store members were sent a link to a ballot to either approve or disapprove a proposed amendment to the association’s bylaws, which would increase the number of members serving on the Board of Directors from 10 to 11.

The amendment, which was unanimously approved by ABA’s Board of Directors at its July 2015 meeting, must now be approved by a majority vote of bookstore members, with at least 10 percent of the members voting.

The voting page includes the language of the proposed bylaws amendment (text to be deleted and added has been highlighted). Booksellers must be logged in to BookWeb.org to vote, and each ABA member store may only vote once.

In a recent interview with Bookselling This Week, ABA President Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, encouraged members to vote on the amendment, which if passed would increase the possibilities for diversity among the board’s members and ensure against the possibility of tie votes on important ABA governance matters.

Voting on the proposed change will be open till the end of the day on October 26, 2015.

If an ABA main store member did not receive the September 16 e-mail, which bears the subject line “Voting Opens on Proposed ABA Bylaw Changes,” they should first check their spam folders, and if it’s not there, contact ABA’s Member Relationship Managers.