I left USAT's board of directors at the right time. I say this because underneath my rugged, good looking exterior and Marlboro man persona (I write this only to attract women who have no idea what I look like) I'm really sort of a pussy cat. Okay, I'm just a pussy. Without the cat.

This is not a happy time to be a board member. You work your fingers to the bone, and where's the payback? Where's the cheering as you run down Alii Drive? Where's the magazine honoring you as Board Member of the Year? It's the dog days of board service, and I must admit I'm glad it's them and not me. They're the heroes.

That aside, we do have a problem with the current election, on which several board and committee members have spent dozens of hours each and hundreds in the aggregate. We have two propositions that the board would like to pass, and the first is in peril because the second appears hidden behind opacity. "Read bylaws with proposed changes from USA Triathlon Board of Directors," the website tells us, after the ballot told us we, "may go to [USAT's website] to read the complete proposed Bylaw Amendments." [my bold italics]

So, one goes to the website, reads the (complete?) bylaw changes that will occur, and (if you're me) finds them entirely, or at least mostly, appropriate. Certainly sufficient for me to vote YES. Except that we now learn these bylaw changes only refer to Prop 1, and not Prop 2, and also that you won't find any bylaw changes on USAT's website would Prop 2 pass.

In other words, as opposed to Prop 1 which says, in essence, "We want to exchange this bylaw language with that bylaw language," Prop 2 says, "We'd like to change this bylaw language with bylaw language that we're not going to disclose to the voter.

"But wait!" you might say. "When I go to USAT's website there is a clearer idea of what bylaw changes will occur than how it is you're representing it, Dan."

To this I answer, guilty as charged. However, when you click the link that says, "Read bylaws with proposed changes..." you download an entirely different document than you did when one downloaded the document during the first week of the election. I just got my ballot in the mail yesterday. Now, when I'm referred to USAT's website, I'm reading what the board has in mind for bylaw changes under Prop 2. Those who got their ballots last week didn't have the luxury of somewhat clearer instructions (though the exact bylaw language of Prop 2 is still to be determined, should the membership vote YES).

Maybe I'm being picky, but I think when the judge sends the jury out to deliberate a matter, he's got to give the same instructions to the entire jury.

Our board needs to take itself in hand on this, and make a sort of Sophie's choice. Prop 1 is a reasonably good measure. Prop 2 smells to me like a power grab, the real intentions of which were hidden from the voters at first blush. Only on the basis of the bylaw changes published on the site at the beginning of the election was I in favor of both measures—because I thought that reading the complete proposed Bylaw Amendments meant what it appears to mean. Now that I see the true intentions of Prop 2, and on the basis of the revised wording on USAT's website, I must change my stand on this second measure.

As the furor and confusion over Prop 2 expands, Prop 1 becomes imperiled. As it becomes more widely known that two current bylaw requirements regarding election disclosure were abjectly and blatantly disregarded in this election, and that voter instructions were changed partway through the voting period, not only Prop 1 but the election for prospective board members becomes imperiled. It would be a minor disaster to the federation to have to spit-can the entire election. So, our board needs to do the expedient thing and publicly state that the election for Prop 2 is invalid, and only ballots for Prop 1 and for the individual board members shall be counted and considered.