In any case, the manner of electing the board and officers smells. It is hard for me to rationalize that very closed system with my understanding of the law of the land i.e. one man one vote. The whole thing smells.
"The Act requires that active athletes (defined as amateur athletes who have represented the United States in international amateur competition within the last ten years) must hold 20 percent of the voting power of any board or committee in an NGB". I think this deserves a closer look.
Go ahead and look, Pete. You'll find that the Board of Directors of US Sailing has way over the number of required number of Sailor Athletes. Only certain committees are required to have the 20% representation (explained here:
http://about.ussailing.org/Directory/Councils/Sailor_Athlete_Council.htm).
If you call up any list of committee or council members on the US Sailing website, you'll see an "SA" column that shows the person's sailor athlete status. The only problem is that not every member who races has registered their sailor athlete status (takes about 5 minutes:
http://www.ussailing.org/sac/athletes/register.asp).
As far as the election process go, what "elections" are you referring to? US Sailing Board of Directors? Multihull Council? None of these are "secret" processes. Some aspects are confidential - they have to be when you're talking about people's qualifications and capabilities, but the process isn't secret.
"The law of the land i.e. one man one vote?" W-T-F are you derping about? Do you think you actually cast a direct vote for the President of the United States? If so, you need a remedial course in government.
US Sailing members can vote for candidates to the board of directors - every year.
