I received the following today in response to a query to the Chairman of the IEC.

Dear Mr. Hadley,

I have now looked at the copy of your letter sent to me from the International Office.  Here are your answers.  All of it is instructive for the next election and for all national Mensa chairmen.

You asked why no ballots from certain countries had been received.

CANADA Canada did not send the packet containing the ballot envelopes in time for it to reach ERS by June 8 as the rules required.  Thus, those ballots could not be counted.

HUNGARY As the election wound down, I wrote to all the chairmen to remind them to submit expenses.  The chairman of Mensa Hungary replied approximately June 7 or 8 saying she would send the expense report and the ballots to me.  I replied that she was supposed to send the ballots to ERS, but it was too late.

INDONESIA Mensa Indonesia mailed the ballots to me instead of ERS.

KOREA Mensa Korea made two mistakes.  They prepared small envelopes with something like "Mensa International Ballot" preprinted on them.  They sent these envelopes to me.  Maybe they received envelopes according to instructions, but then removed the small envelopes to send, or maybe they had a meeting and had each person there put a ballot into an envelope.

PAKISTAN I know nothing about why there were no votes from Pakistan.  I did send the materials.

SWITZERLAND Here is another good example of how things get a little mixed up when you don't know what questions to ask to start with.  Mensa Switzerland is listed as having a newsletter.  I sent materials to Mensa Switzerland as to other Mensas.

But what the IEC did not know is that Mensa Switzerland did not include the International Journal with their magazine.  Their members receive the Journal as Direct International Members.  Therefore, all the members of Mensa Switzerland received ballot materials as though they were DIMs. An alert American living in Switzerland helped me figure it out.  Mensa Switzerland decided to ask its members to vote as DIMs rather than confuse them with still another set of election materials.  They provided a membership list which we gave to ERS. So possibly one or more of the four envelopes received from DIMs came from Switzerland.

I hope that answers your questions.

Sincerely,

Linda Kelso