FACTS: THE Decision Sciences Institute, Inc. sent email ballots to its members for their use in amending their Constitution. The…

FACTS: THE Decision Sciences Institute, Inc. sent email ballots to its members for their use in amending their Constitution. The Members were not required to sign their ballots. A review of the membership roster used to send the email ballots disclosed that 18 members did not receive ballots.  The Decision Sciences Institute Inc. did not preserve copies of ballots cast and it is not known whether or not all other members received ballots.  It is known that approximately 500 of about 1,400 members in fact cast ballots and there is anecdotal evidence that some members to whom email ballots were sent did not receive ballots because of junk mail filters and the like.  had their servers set to reject email from addresses not on their “friends” and “favorites” lists or from businesses with whom they had previously agreed to transact business with electronically.     The Board intended to amend the Constitution to remove regionally elected vice presidents from the Board.  However, the ballot did not offer any amendments to ARTICLE VII, the composition of the Board.  Undaunted, the Board that conducted the balloting removed the regionally elected vice presidents from the board.  This has caused a many members to resign and the regions to reconsider their allegiance to the Institute because their representatives were removed from the board without a vote by the Members.   Over the past 40 years the Regions have served the professional development needs of about 68,000 faculty members in their annual meetings while the Institute has served the professional development needs of about $44,000 Members in its Annual Meetings.