A Closer Look at the 2026 USA Fencing Election
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — USA Fencing has long aimed to offer members a high level of detail into our elections. Following a request from a candidate, we are taking the opportunity to share even more about how this year's Board of Directors election worked, what we can and cannot see as administrators, and the safeguards built into the process.
We believe our members deserve full confidence in their election, so here’s a closer look at the data available to us.
How Voting Works, and What We Can See
USA Fencing conducts its elections through eBallot, an independent third-party election platform. Each eligible voter receives a unique login credential sent to voters by eBallot (not by USA Fencing) and casts a secret ballot.
As in most elections, voting is anonymous. Our administrators can see that a member voted, but not how they voted. The connection between a member's identity and the contents of their ballot is not visible to anyone on the USA Fencing staff or the Election Committee.
This is by design, and it’s the standard across credible elections. It is what protects every member's right to a private vote.
One consequence of that anonymity: because we cannot see how any individual voted, we cannot produce statistics that would describe how particular groups voted. We are not able to report, for example, what percentage of any membership category ranked a particular candidate first. That information does not exist in any form available to us, precisely because the ballot is secret.
This is the same principle at work in public elections. When you see a figure like "62% of women voted for a particular presidential candidate," that number does not come from the ballots themselves — a U.S. election uses a secret ballot, and the ballots carry no information about who cast them. Figures like that come from exit polls and surveys, in which voters are separately asked how they voted. They are estimates drawn from a sample, not tallies taken from the votes. Our election works the same way: the ballots are secret, so the only group-level information that could exist would have to come from asking members directly, not from the results.
Who Voted: Turnout by Membership Type
What we can share is who participated. A total of 3,323 of 16,780 eligible members cast ballots in the 2026 election, a turnout of 19.80%. For comparison, the 2024 election drew 2,334 ballots from 12,092 eligible members, a turnout of 19.30%. This year's turnout was consistent with recent cycles.
Below is a breakdown of voter participation by membership type.
How the Results Were Counted
The Board of Directors election uses a ranked preferential voting method known as the Borda Count, as required by the USA Fencing Bylaws. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and each ranking is assigned a point value: with seven candidates, a first-place ranking is worth seven points, a second-place ranking six points, and so on down to one point for a seventh-place ranking. Candidates left unranked receive no points from that ballot. The two candidates with the highest combined point totals are elected.
A note on reading the results: because the Borda Count combines points across every ranking on every ballot, the published point totals are not the same as a share of voters. A candidate's point total reflects broad support across many ballots, not the number or percentage of members who selected them. The full point breakdown, showing how many first- through seventh-place rankings each candidate received, was published with the results so members can see exactly how the totals were reached.
We’ve also included a screenshot of how this looks in eBallot below.
The numbers you see in each column represent the number of times a voter ranked that candidate in that position. For example, 829 voters ranked Greg Husisian first, giving him 5,803 points toward his total (829 x 7).
The Fingerprint Report: A Complete Record of Administrative Actions
eBallot generates what it calls a Fingerprint Report, an audit log that records every administrative action taken on the ballot from the moment voting opens through the completion of tabulation. Each entry is timestamped, attributed to a named administrator, and preserved so that the election can be independently reviewed or audited after the fact.
Two USA Fencing staff members had access to voter support tools during this election, fewer than in previous cycles. Their role is limited to helping members access their ballots. When a member contacts us because they cannot find or open their ballot, staff can do only a few things, and only after verifying the member's identity:
- Reset the member’s password.
- Correct or update the member's email address on file.
- Add an eligible member who was missing from the initial voter list.
Staff cannot view or alter how a member votes. Every one of these support actions appears in the Fingerprint Report.
Across the entire voting period, these individual support actions occurred a total of 12 times: seven password resets, two email-address corrections, and three eligible voters added. Each was a routine response to a member who contacted USA Fencing for help, and in every case staff verified the member's identity before acting. Each action is documented in the Fingerprint Report and can be traced to a specific email from the member requesting assistance.
Across more than 3,300 ballots cast, only 12 identity-verified support actions were recorded during the voting period. These actions were limited in scope and audit-logged, and the closest margin in the Board of Directors election was separated by thousands of points.
One more item worth noting in the spirit of transparency: The voter list for this election was generated from the roll of members who met eligibility criteria. After that list was pulled, two members were suspended. Because the voter list had already been created, those two individuals initially remained on the roll in error.
When this was identified, both records were deactivated in the eBallot system, and the Fingerprint Report reflects those two deactivations. No votes were recorded for either account. The error had no effect on the outcome of any race.
We are sharing this not because it changed anything, but because transparency means accounting for the small things as well as the large ones.
Independent Election Committee Oversight
As always, every aspect of the election process, including vendor selection, staff accountability, member concerns, and administrative action, are accomplished under the watchful eyes of our Election Committee. This group is made up of four volunteer general members and two athlete members selected by the Athletes Council.
They convene each year to set the election timeline, review, test, and approve the ballots, and resolve any acute issues in accordance with the USA Fencing by-laws. This layer provides an independent, neutral group to work with both the staff and voting members with one purpose, to ensure a fair election process.
Confidence in the Outcome
The 2026 election was conducted through an independent platform, on a secret ballot, with a complete and auditable record of every administrative action. Turnout was consistent with prior years, the counting method followed the Bylaws, and the full results were published for members to review.
We are grateful to every member who voted, to every candidate who stepped forward, and to the volunteers of the Election Committee who oversaw the process. We remain committed to running elections that our members can trust.
If you have questions about the election, you can reach us at information@usafencing.org.
