Article 9. Elections and Voting
General elections shall be held via secret ballot transmittals at regular intervals. Voting on issues shall be conducted as necessary, either in person at a General Business Meeting or via secret ballot transmittals. Special elections for filling vacant officer positions, as addressed in Article 6, shall be conducted in accordance with the same general protocol as for general elections. The protocol for nominations and elections is as follows:
1. The Board shall notify the Nominations Committee of the need to generate nominations for any and all offices which have become vacant or are scheduled to become vacant.
2. The Nominations Committee shall notify the membership of each vacancy, solicit nominations for the vacant office, and specify a closure date for receipt of nominations. For general elections, the closure date shall be no earlier than 30 days from the date this notification is issued. For special elections /ratifications the closure date shall be no earlier than 15 days from issuance of this notification.
3. The Nominations Committee shall review all nominees for standing, eligibility and availability and report back to the Executive Board with its recommended slate of candidates for a given position. The Nominations Committee shall nominate at least one eligible and available candidate for each office in assembling a ballot. In addition, candidates nominated by a signed petition of 15 or more voting members and all those eligible and available persons nominated for the Ombudsperson’s office must be included on the ballot.
4. Upon receipt of the Nominations Committee’s slate, the Executive Board shall arrange for a secret ballot process through which the voting membership can (a) select from among multiple nominated candidates and / or (b) decide ratification for a single nominated candidate, as applicable per position.
5. Secret ballot transmittals may employ postal or electronic distribution channels, so long as all voting members are sent ballots. Each ballot transmittal shall include the list of candidates put forward, instructions for executing and submitting the ballot, and the prescribed voting period.
6. The voting period for such election or ratification purposes shall be no less than 30 days from the date of ballot distribution in the case of general elections. The voting period may be reduced to 15 days in the case of special elections.
7. Upon closure of the announced voting period the candidate(s) with the most votes (selection from among multiple nominees) or a majority of votes in the affirmative (ratification of a single nominee) will be considered elected.
8. If the number of ballots received equals or exceeds one-third of the voting membership, the Executive Board may declare the results final and announce them. Otherwise, the Executive Board shall report the results to the Trustees, afford the Trustees two weeks in which to challenge the results before announcing them, and notify the membership of the Trustees review. In the event the Trustees challenge any or all the election results, the Board of Directors shall finally decide the election outcome.
Article 9’s most general provisions are unchanged from the 1979 edition. The revisions made were primarily directed to elucidating and clarifying certain points and provisions, such as:
- making clear the intended interplay between Exec and Nominations Committee
- specifying the upper and lower bounds for delimiting the election voting period
- making provision for accelerated special election voting periods
- making provision for electronic ballot dissemination / voting responses
- clarification of the criterion for election threshold (simple majority of votes received)
- making provision for both selection from amidst multiple nominees versus ratification / acclamation of a single nominee
- a safeguard provision establishing a ‘quorum threshold’ of 1/3 the voting membership for immediate validation of election results
- specification of the procedure to be followed if this quorum threshold is not met
To me most important is that the proposed revisions of the by-laws eliminate three rules that make it difficult for the society to continue functioning democratically.
(1) It eliminates the requirement to put at least two candidates up for each position. I realize both, that there have been violations of this rule in the past and that this puts a burden on the nominations committee to find alternative candidates (which is one reason why I prefer that the number of elected officers be kept to a minimum [4, every 3 years] and exclude the Vice Presidents for special tasks). However, these two reasons are not sufficient to deprive the membership of their choice. The existing by-laws were formulated because the pre 1979 board of directors failed to give the membership that choice. We should not go back to that archaic state.
Allowing the mere affirmation of a lone candidate does not assure that the needed offices are filled. Should a single presidential candidate not get a majority of votes, then we do not have a President, which leaves the Society stuck in a by-laws vacuum. I am not entirely sure of the rules for registering the Society in DC, but in other states I know, there are requirements that the chief officers be elected among alternative candidates.
I suspect that the idea of affirming candidates for offices rather than electing them has slipped into the proposed by-laws revisions because of the mistaken idea of affirming Vice Presidents for special tasks by vote, which is simply unworking organizationally. The elected Executive Board should be able to appoint people to undertake specific tasks and see to it that their tasks are performed.
(2) The existing by-laws require that the President is elected by receiving the highest number of votes among at least two presidential candidates and the Vice President receiving the second highest number of votes. This reduces the burden of the nominations committee to find viable candidates for each office separately, guarantees the membership a choice, and assures that the two most capable candidates are in the Executive Board – with the Vice President able to continue the President’s term should that office become prematurely vacant. Removing such a rule is an invitation to autocratic rule and the end of the Society as we know it.
(3) The existing by-laws assign the nominations committee the task of nominating all candidates for offices (except for nominations by petition, which it has to pass on to the membership without judgment other than on the candidates’ eligibility under the existing by-laws). The proposed revisions of the by-laws reduce the power of the nominations committee to making mere “recommendations” to the Executive Board, which seems to want to reserve the right to honor them or not. There is wisdom in requiring a nominations committee to be appointed right after the Executive Board takes office and granting it autonomy under the by-laws. This is to prevent an Executive Board from continuing its reign beyond popularity.
The phrase “The Nomination Committee shall … report back to the Executive Board with its recommended slate …” should be replaced by what the existing by-laws require: “The Nominations Committee shall nominate…” (This is not meant to apply to nominations other than to elected officers.
Additionally, most of the paragraphs of Article 9 deal with the operation of the Nominations Committee in relation to the Executive Board and should be part of Article 8, Committees.
Voting Members of the society vote on three things:
(1) To determine the officers and trustees of the Society
(2) To accept or reject proposed amendments and changes of the by-laws.
(3) To decide on policy matters, specific issues, including on Executive Committee reports, and on matters that emerged at a General Business Meeting without a quorum
The revisions of the by-laws deal almost exclusively with (1), the election of officers. This is inadequate inasmuch as voting on (2) and (3) have different requirements.
I am glad that the proposed by-laws revisions allow for electronic voting. In associations in which I am a member, electronic ballots are the norm. Postal distribution of paper ballots has long been abandoned – without requiring by-law changes! Postal distribution of paper ballots should not be mentioned as a possibility in any new b-laws. As I suggested re. Article 4, maintaining internet access should be a requirement for the Voting Members of the Society. (Non-voting members do not vote and we have no reason to require it).
In sum, most of the revisions of this article bear the seed of undemocratic governance, make adaptation to new circumstances difficult, and do not make use of the contemporary means of efficient communication among the members of the Society and between members and its leadership. This is sad.
The notion of affirmation has entered in recognition of practice. It has nothign to do with the vp pathway.
Since it has been nearly impossible to find even one candidate for the posts needed (at the moment president, vp, secretary, treasurer, vp membership, and vpep) it was proposed (when I was the nominating committee, since my colleagues on the committee actually failed to act) that one way round this would be affirmation. Note: we hadn’t 6 candidates, and Klaus’s trimming of voting officers would still require 8); nor could we maintain a nominating committee. This was in 2004, if I remember right. In the end I had to propose myself as vp, there being no one else.
if finding members to assume leadership responsibilities is so difficult — and i do believe you — maybe we should rethink the nature of the society we want instead of writing complicated and long winding by-laws that demand more offices and expand voting privileges. there are intellectually active communities that do with less.
I believe that the Exec Board is responsible to the membership. To whom is the Nominating Committee responsible in this reworking.
Randy’s proposal makes the Nominating Committee responsible to the Exec Board. The current situation Klaus wishes to reassert makes the Nominating Committee responsible to no one, while the NC is actually proposed by the President.
I understand that there was a bad case of cronyism, which lead to the ASC taking the form it does today. It seems to me that the fear of this repeating may be out of proportion. I would like to suggest that we should try to find a way of dealing with such cronyism (I am not sure how, as I make this suggestion) that does not place such burdens on the society that it cannot fulfil.
We need a reality check. Many of the criticisms being laid at the modified by laws we have proposed seem to me to have little to do with the actualities of trying to be an effective officer in the ASC, and the problems of keeping the ASC alive. I note Pille’s comments, infused with an awareness of how difficult it is to do what’s required.
i am a longtime member and former president of the international communication association. one of the first acts of an elected president is to appoint a nomination committee (actually to nominate the successor of that president’s successor). once appointed, that committee can no longer be influenced by the president or the executive committee.
we have had a case where the current president tried to influence the slate, which was taken badly by the members — speaking of cronyism.
the nominations committee sorts out the eligeability and qualifications of the candidates it elicits (and MUST keep on the ballot any candidate who comes by petitioned with a certain number of signitures). There has to be trust in the nominations committee when the choice among candidates is exercised by the voting members.
problems arise when, as the proposed by-laws do, the choice by members is eliminated by allowing one candidate to be merely confirmed. if the Executive Board can ignore the work of the nominations committee and put themselves up for confirmation, then we do not have meren cronyim but dictatorship.
i invite you not to go that route
Neither the 1979 by-laws nor the 2009 proposed revisions accord the Executive Board any approval or veto privileges with respect to the slate of candidates submitted by the Nominating Committee. The committee nominates, and the Executive Board arranges for the election.
The only organ capable of influencing the contents of a ballot would be the membership, 15 of which may petition for inclusion of a candidate which the Nominating Committee is explicitly obligated to include.
intentions are one thing and language is another.
article 9 of the existing by-laws say “the NC shall nominate…”
article 9 of the proposed revision say “The NC shall … report back to the Execurive Board with its recommended slate of candidates …”
moreover article 6 allows the Executive Board to agree by vote to violate the specified term limit of a “core” officer (2 terms of 3 years each) by voting “to include that officer on the ballot in addition to any other nominees received from the Nominations Committee.”
a nomination to be put to a vote by the membership is unlike a recommendation of a slate of candidates to the Executive Board.
Klaus,
As far as I can see, in your proposal there is no answer to the question: to whom are the Nominating Committee responsible?
They are not elected.
They determine what shall happen and tell the only elected body, the executive board, what to do (in the case of proposals for fellowships, awards, etc). If they don’t advise, there is nothing democratic in this.
They are not responsible to the membership, and they report to no one.
This is a bad precedent. I am surprised with all your insistence on democracy that you make such a suggestion, unless I misunderstand you, in which case you must surely apply your own language critique to yourself, and not just to others.
And what about the other committees. Should we be consistent, and make the Finance Committee and the Membership Committee similarly autonomous, so they issue edicts rather than suggestions, lead rather than fulfil a brief with the exec committee, and have no connection at all with the membership?
The prime ASC active organ is the executive board, the only elected body, elected to act and therefore with authority, the organ that proposes and actions, but which is ultimately answerable to the membership (and the trustees).
I fear your fear of cronyism overrides everything else in your view and makes of what should be democratic arrangements arrangements that are completely undemocratic and completely unanswerable to the membership.
If you fear cronyism, then the BGM should have the power to undo the crony-istic actions; as should, in the extreme, the trustees. You complain about the lack of involvement of the trustees. Here I am making another opening for their involvement in the society.
ranulph,
on the issue you rase, i speak from good and bad experiences.
the good ones come from an academic association in which the nominations committee is appointed well before the board could set its agenda and know its friends and foes, well before it could stack the nominations committee with political allies. it worked there for over 50 years.
the bad experineces i had was that a leadership promoted itself by offering members no choice, making changes nearly impossible short of a revolution, which actually happened shortly before the organization was run to the ground.
the existing by-laws allow the membership choices both at the nomination process where nominations by petition must be brought to a vote, nominations to the committee are subject to its evaluation, and most importantly, by voting on alternative candidates.
the proposed revision removes the requirement of presenting the membership with a choice among alternative candidates, and allows the executive committee to take nominations only under advisement. knowing too well the danger of powerful people to overstay their time in office, the proposed revisions promote that tendency and make leadership changes difficult.
i am sympathetic to the difficulty of the nominations committee to find good candidates, which is why i would urge a reduction of the number of elected officers to a minimum while not abandoning the membership’s right to chose. making appointment to non-voting special purpose vps gives the executive board flexibility.
i do not see a difficulty in appointing a committee made up of respected voting members of the society, require it to follow a prescribed procedure, and come up with a slate of candidates. the executive board is surely responsible for assuring that the procedure is followed, but why should it interfere with the result of its judgment? if it can dismiss the slate that a nominations committee has worked out and is able to replace it by its own candidates, then one might as well discard the nominations committee altogether and let the executive committee decide its own successors, like kings and queens did.
i am less certain about awards. i dislike the executive committee to make this choice on its own and would expect a nominations committee to be quite capable of sorting out the merits of what the executive board proposes. there has to be some checks an balances.
the existing by-laws give the membership committee the authority to generate, evaluate, and decide on applications. there is not a word of being advisory to the executive board.
the existing by-laws also say that the finance committee supervises the treasurer. personally, i think this is a bit odd, yet there is the need for the treasurer not be entirely autonomous. although we are not rich, but money should never be controlled by one person.
past experiences aside, i didn’t complain about the lack of involvement of the trustees. having an executive board that realizes its dependence on trustees’ approval and a chair of the trustees who makes sure to be consulted is a step in the right direction. i don’t see this to a by-laws question but one of following procedures.
yes, the general business meeting should be given the power to undue cronyism. as we know, in practice, only a few people turn up there and they should be given the power to force an electronic vote by the membership on an issue it formulated there. but if the revised versions of the by-laws do not make cronyism illegal, what could any vote possibly accomplish?
My apologies for the delay in joining the conversation. My one thought re some of these deliberations was to construct some simple PQR statements - the device in SSM - to clarify amongst the readers how the proposers were thinking of different bodies in terms of ‘a system to do P by Q because of R.
So the Executive can be understood as a system to …..
Ditto for a nominating committee
Ditto for Trustees.
Ditto President
Ditto VP
and so on (one doesn’t need to start with each of these ‘hows’ - in a systemic inquiry one could start with say ‘ a system to have nominations handled by a group who have maximum trust but minimal power in the affairs of the ASC’).
My reasons for responding this way was because of my experience of lack of clarity between what, why and how in some of the contributions. I am not being critical - and am in fact most appreciative of the hard work done bythe drafting gorup and to those who have, unlike me, taken time to make detailed comments.
NEW Article 9: Elections and Voting
Voting by the Voting Members of the Society may take place either in person at General Business Meetings, or by electronically transmitted secret ballots.
Elections of Officers are held periodically, at least six months before the terms of elected offices expire and at most 60 days after an elected office has become vacant or is known to be vacant. In either case, the Nominations Committee invites nominations from the membership, transmits its choice of qualified and available candidates, at least two for each open position, to the Executive Board. The Nomination Committee must include all candidates nominated by petition from at least 15 Voting Members of the Society. The Executive Board may add other candidates but not eliminate candidates nominated by the Nominations Committee or by petition. All nominees may provide their mission statement, about equal in lengths. The Executive Board shall arrange for the election of Officers, provide voters with the candidates’ mission statements, and allow at most 30 days between announcing the candidates and voting.
Voting on specific issues that the Society is facing, for example issues that emerged from a General Business Meeting with fewer than one half of the Voting Members of the Society in favor, voting to override a veto by the Trustees, or any other issue of importance to the Society requires the Executive Board to present the issue to the Voting Members together with arguments in support and in opposition, and allow between 15 and 30 days for members to cast their vote.
Voting on by-law changes is initiated either by petition from at least 15 Voting Members, by majority vote of those present at a General Business Meeting, by the Executive Board, or by the Trustees. The Executive Board or a designated lawyer shall work with the proponents of these changes to assure that they do not render the by-laws inconsistent. The Executive Board shall present the proposed changes to the Voting Members for electronic deliberation for a 30 day period after which voting takes place. Should revisions emerge during these deliberations and be acceptable as friendly amendments or revisions by the proponents of the original changes, the period of deliberation shall be extended for 15 more days after the last revisions.
If the total number of ballots received exceeds one third of the Voting Members and is not tied, the Executive Board may declare the results final and announce them. Otherwise, the Executive Board shall report the results to the Trustees, afford them two weeks to challenge the results before announcing them. Should the vote result in a tie, the Executive Board shall ask the Trustees to break the tie within two weeks before announcing the result.