Running National Elections

SigmaJoy · #1 06-23-2002, 11:19 PM

Hello -

How does your organization run elections for National offices? Do all members have a vote? Does a committee review applications? My sorority is in the process of writing the bylaws for our new National Board, and we need a little bit of help in this area.

Thank you.

ZChi4Life · #2 06-25-2002, 01:25 AM

Hi SigmaJoy,

In my org, everyone gets a chance to vote for National officers. Since we are so small, I think we are able to get away with it. Here's what we do:

All candidates submit an application for a position in which they'd like to run for.
After all apps are in, the current national officers distribute a copy of each candidates application to each chapter president. In turn, the pres of each chapter will then distribute the necessary amount to the chapter members at a chapter meeting.

Each chapter gets one vote for each position. If there is only one person running for that position, we use Robert's Rules... RR says that if one person is running for a position, they get it by default.

The current national officers vote individually.

All this takes quite some time...we hold our national elections every other summer during our national convention. We usually start the process 3 months before our national convention takes place.
Hope that helps! If you have any more questions, let me know.
Welcome to GC by the way!
ZC4L

SigmaJoy · #3 06-25-2002, 09:10 PM

Hi ZChi4Life -

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

We were thinking about implementing an election process very similar to yours. I am glad to know that we were on the right track. Do other organization have other successful methods?

Do the candidates give speeches at the National Convention, or are all the votes decided before the Convention begins solely based on applications?

Are there any restrictions in your organization on who can run for office? (i.e. Age, leadership experience, alumni status, etc)

All advice is welcome. If you have written guidelines about elections that you don't mind posting, that would also be very helpful.

Thanks again!

Joy.

ZChi4Life · #4 06-26-2002, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SigmaJoy
Hi ZChi4Life -

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

We were thinking about implementing an election process very similar to yours. I am glad to know that we were on the right track. Do other organization have other successful methods?

Do the candidates give speeches at the National Convention, or are all the votes decided before the Convention begins solely based on applications?

Are there any restrictions in your organization on who can run for office? (i.e. Age, leadership experience, alumni status, etc)

All advice is welcome. If you have written guidelines about elections that you don't mind posting, that would also be very helpful.

Thanks again!

Joy.

Hi again,

Well in my org, only alums are allowed to hold National offices. That's our only real restriction. Previous leadership w/in the sister's home chapter is of course looked upon favorably, but we don't make it a requirement.
We don't have the candidates give speeches per se, more like just a little blurb about why they'd like to hold this office. It's very short...like 2 min max. So basically we use the application (which includes an essay) to vote. Since we are so small, everyone pretty much knows everyone (on a national level)! So as of now, it's not that hard to vote, however, as we get bigger, we'll have to make changes I'm sure.

I would like to hear others as well about this b/c we are in the process of renewing our constitution. So any suggestions would be great for me as well!

Thanks, and hope this helps Joy

MsDGP007 · #5 04-10-2008, 03:58 PM

Hello...

Sorry for bringing up old threads...but some of these topics are interesting

.

We hold national elections online. In the private area of our website, the ballot is made available where it tags the user name and IP address so you can only vote once. Yet the results are sent to our national e-mail box anonymously...which is pretty cool.

(Our last election was the first time we ran it this way...it was a great system).

All of our sisters can vote - active or not. Only alumna or sisters who are graduating sisters (our board re-convenes in May) can run for offices. There is a nomination stage, candidate acceptance, and distribution of qualifications to all sisters before voting takes place. It takes about two months from start to finish.

preciousjeni · #6 04-11-2008, 08:19 AM

This is an interesting topic. Two issues come to mind...

I realize Z-Chi might do things differently now, but

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZChi4Life

Each chapter gets one vote for each position. If there is only one person running for that position, we use Robert's Rules... RR says that if one person is running for a position, they get it by default.

Robert's Rules allows an organization to make changes to the rules to suit its needs. I can't imagine that it would be a bad idea to vote against a candidate that wasn't ready for office, because, let's face it, not everyone that runs is really best for a position.

Also,

Quote:

Originally Posted by MsDGP007

We hold national elections online. In the private area of our website, the ballot is made available where it tags the user name and IP address so you can only vote once. Yet the results are sent to our national e-mail box anonymously...which is pretty cool.

Not to suggest that members aren't honest (

) but what if they use different computers to vote more than once? And, what happens if a campus computer lab has the same IP address. That would mean anyone using that lab could only vote once.

I'm afraid there are issues in any way elections are handled. But, we do what's best for our organizations.

MsDGP007 · #7 04-11-2008, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by preciousjeni

Not to suggest that members aren't honest (

) but what if they use different computers to vote more than once? And, what happens if a campus computer lab has the same IP address. That would mean anyone using that lab could only vote once.

I'm afraid there are issues in any way elections are handled. But, we do what's best for our organizations.

Ah...you have the mind of a programmer :-) It was also tied to username. So both the IP and username must have been unique. So let's say someone voted....their IP and username are logged. They go to another computer and log in...it will not let them vote. Also, if two women tried to use the same computer (where one voted...logged out...then another one logged in)...it also would not work. Although that wasn't necessary to prevent duplicate voting, it was a help in the aspect of confidentiality...because we felt that each person's votes should be private.

As far as duplicate IP address, a particular Internet service provider will generate dynamic IPs in a certain range for the computers accessing the internet using their service. That is why someone can be found in a general geographic area via their IP. The first 3 digits will determine the ISP. However most of us have dynamic IPs...not static. It is possible that two people at two different times could have an IP address that is the same if they go to a computer lab. However you looking at a 10 digit number where the last 7 are randomized. I'm don't know how to compute exactly what the probability would be that the same number would be generated twice...but it seems to me it would be in the millions (I say that because I believe PA has 8 digits in their drivers licenses...and the state has millions of licensed drivers). That's why the software gave us the option of logging the IP....because I'm sure they wrote the program with organizations much larger and complex than ours which may not have registered site users.