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LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1938, Page 201

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

Constitutional Matters 201

shall directly elect from its membership. On the Boards of Electors
for the normal schools two of the five members above mentioned
shall be teachers.

“3. No member of the Synod, except the President, shall be
a member of two Boards of Electors.

“4. The members of the Boards of Electors shall be elected in
the following manner: The District in whose territory a so-called
college is located shall, in the year prior to the meeting of the
Synod, by ballot elect the members required, which election shall
in the following year be submitted to the Synod for its approval,
rejection, or amendment. For this purpose the names shall be pub-
lished in the Overtures and Memorials printed before the meeting
of the Synod. If no written protest or substitute nomination is
presented to the judge of elections during the first two days of the
synodical sessions, the election of the entire list submitted shall be
approved by one single resolution of the Synod.” (Synodical Hand-
book, p. 73.)

From this it appears that Synod has a different procedure with
regard to the electoral boards. For the seminaries and normal
schools the electors are to be chosen by the convention, of course
after nominations have been submitted by the Committee on
Nominations and accepted by the convention. The reasons are
obvious: the whole Synod is, and should be, vitally interested in

‘these institutions. But for the so-called colleges the District in
whose territory a college is located shall, in the year prior to the
meeting of the Synod, not merely nominate, but elect by ballot the
members of the Electoral Board for such college and submit such
election for approval, rejection, or amendment to the Synod. While
there may be some reasons for this difference in procedure, it has
not worked out very well, and we submit that a change is desirable.
We hold that it is of even more importance that the Synod elect
the Boards of Electors than that it elect the Boards of Control,
since members of various Districts are to serve on the Boards of
Electors, and therefore it hardly seems fair that only one District
should elect them. The way of nominating and electing the boards
for the seminaries and normal schools is to remain as it is, but with
regard to the colleges the prospective members of the Boards of
Control and Boards of Electors should be nominated in two slates
by the respective Districts and elected by the Synod. The names
of these nominees should be printed in the book of Reports and
Memorials before Synod meets, for the information of the dele-
gates. If Synod sees its way to adopt this recommendation, the’
paragraph on p.61 should read as follows: “Every District shall,
in the meeting held prior to the meeting of the Synod, take a ballot
for the purpose of nominating two slates of candidates for the in-