This is a guest post from Fred Hopengarten, K1VR Past Director, New England Division.
The ARRL does a lot of good work. It fights for spectrum. It helps organize public service. It supports education and licensing. You should be a member. You should support the League.
And yet: membership is shrinking, the mood is frayed, and the organization could use a little oxygen. Maybe a lot of oxygen.
This year, four Division Directors may seek reelection: K0AIZ in the Midwest, N8SY in the Great Lakes, AC0W in Dakota, and K5UZ in Delta. They may be fine fellows. They may be good operators, decent DXers, repeater builders, public-service regulars, or all of the above. Good for them. But that is not the job. Directors are not hired to be pleasant at dinner. They are there to make decisions that strengthen the League and amateur radio.
On that score, I think these four have backed the wrong plays.
A League That Likes the Curtain
Start with secrecy. In the old days, any Board member could ask for a roll-call vote. That changed. Now a recorded vote requires a motion, a second, and five directors willing to say yes.
Maybe that sounds tidy. Maybe it sounds efficient. It is neither especially tidy nor especially efficient. A roll call takes less than a minute. What the new rule really does is make it harder to see who voted for what.
That matters, because some of the most important motions are the least glamorous ones: dues, governance, and League positions on public issues. If members want to know how their directors voted, they should not need a treasure map.
K0AIZ, N8SY, AC0W, and K5UZ all supported that change.
Campaigning, But Make It Tiny
Then there’s the election rule that says campaigning and fundraising must stay entirely inside the division holding the election. No outside support. No GoFundMe. No help from a friend, a club, or a brother in another division.
That is a strange way to encourage competition.
Think about the math. If a division has 10,000 members, even a modest mailing gets expensive fast. A challenger is supposed to build a campaign, spread the word, and overcome the built-in advantages of incumbency — but only with one hand tied behind the back.
It starts to feel less like election reform and more like incumbency insurance.
Residency, Or Else
There is also the residency rule: a candidate must live full-time in the division. Not just be based there. Not just keep a foothold there. Full-time.
That sounds neat until you imagine real life. People own cabins. People snowbird. People split time between places. People travel. People have jobs, family, and call signs that do not always fit into a clean little box.
But under this rule, a vacation place outside the division can become disqualifying. A fishing cabin can become a scandal. A winter house can become a problem. It is hard not to wonder whether this is really about eligibility or merely about protecting the people already inside the tent.
Don’t Mention the Other Guy
One of the more remarkable rules says a candidate may not make any comments, direct or indirect, about an opponent in campaign communications.
That is a campaign rule that somehow dislikes campaigns.
By that logic, challengers are supposed to run without contrast, without comparison, and without saying why the incumbent should be replaced. In other words: please compete, but gently, and never in a way that causes a voter to notice there is an incumbent at all.
That is not healthy democracy. That is upholstery.
No Real Megaphone
The communications restrictions are just as odd. Candidates may not use communications vehicles that carry campaigning outside their division, except for personal websites or webpages.
Meanwhile, incumbents have the League’s machinery, the visibility of their office, and the ability to email members in ways challengers cannot match. Think of it as a League halo. That is not a level field. It is a tilted one.
And the burden is not theoretical. Email lists are not handed to challengers. Postal mail is expensive. Club networks are restricted. Large national clubs can become unusable for campaign outreach. If you are trying to run against an incumbent, the system seems designed to make sure your message arrives late, thin, or not at all.
The Bigger Problem
The deeper issue is not any one rule. It is the accumulation of rules that make challenge harder, scrutiny weaker, and change less likely.
ARRL membership has been declining for years. The League needs fresh thinking, not procedural armor. It needs directors who ask whether a rule grows the organization, broadens participation, and encourages competition. It does not need a governing style that treats every awkward question like a threat.
Ask these directors what they have done to reverse the decline. Ask whether they voted for the rules that narrow debate, limit fundraising, and shield incumbents. Ask whether that is really the best way to rebuild trust.
Because if the answer is “we made it harder for challengers to compete,” that is not a reform. That is a warning label.
What To Do
The good news is that small elections can still matter a lot. In the Great Lakes Division in 2023, N8SY defeated W8CI by only 152 votes out of 4,198 cast. In Midwest, Dakota, and Delta, there were no challengers at all.
That should not happen.
We need candidates in the Midwest, Great Lakes, Dakota, and Delta Divisions. We need energetic, eligible, forward-looking hams who want to serve, not just occupy a seat. Public service people. POTA people. SOTA people. Digital folks. Builders. Volunteers. People who care about growth.
So here is the ask: find one good candidate in your division. Encourage that candidate. Provide support. Help them run. Make sure you are an ARRL member. And when the ballot comes, use it.
Because the League does not need fewer challenges to prevailing thought. It needs more.
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