Neverending Story

The USCF has issued a call for nominations for a special EB election to fill the positions formerly held by Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. Personally I think five is already too many Board members, but perhaps the EB wanted to close off any chance of P&T making a comeback (dig a hole, fill it up). So far the only announced candidate is Gary Walters of Ohio. He's an active Class A player (well, he took off from 1994 to 2007, but never mind) and correspondence player. He's also a lawyer, whose USCF Forum posts on the Polgar litigation were unusual in that venue for showing good sense. Whether I will vote for him depends on who else is running. Very likely Sam Sloan will slither from under his rock and run again; whether I will vote for him will not depend on who else is running.

The announcement from the USCF web page:

Special Election For Two USCF Executive Board Seats

Due to the revocation of the memberships of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong which took place at the USCF delegates’ meeting this past August, there will be a special election in June to elect two board members to one-year terms. Deadline for receipt of nominating petitions is midnight, January 11, 2010 and they should be sent to Cheryle Bruce at the USCF office, P.O. Box 3967, Crossville, TN 38557. Petitions must include 30 USCF-voting-member signatures, and the filing fee is $250.

Any current USCF member who is not a current USCF employee or designated contractor (see the USCF bylaws for these definitions) can be nominated as a candidate for election to the USCF executive board.

The nomination petitions must contain the dated signatures, printed names and USCF IDs of each voting member, and should contain the following text: We, the undersigned, being voting members of the U.S. Chess Federation, nominate __(candidate name goes here)__ as a candidate for election to the USCF executive board in the 2010 election. We also consent to having our names and USCF IDs published as having signed this petition. A sample nomination form will be made available on the USCF website.

Candidates must consent to be on the ballot, either by signing their own nominating petition or by a separate notice to the USCF.

Any USCF Member who is 16 years old by June 30th of an election year is a Voting Member, providing that person was a current member on May 5th for the entire day, Central Time.

Later:
1) Gary Walters has a blog at http://graysonebc.blogspot.com/. Looks like good stuff, check it out.

2) While I haven't seen this confirmed, I'm told that Mike Nietman of Wisconsin plans to run again. I rated him as acceptable last time, and see no reason to change that now, though he was a somewhat torpid campaigner.