> Board candidates are selected by the REI Board Nomination and Governance Committee. In earlier years, board elections were competitive elections, with both board-nominated and self-nominated petition candidates. In recent years, REI eliminated the opportunity for petition candidates and has nominated only as many candidates as open positions.

Emphasis mine. Sounds like OfSanguineFire's comment is right. The Governance committee decides how the company is run and members don't have a choice of candidates besides rejecting them.

From Wikpedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REI