Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Election Rules

FWG Ideas and Feedback Guild Election
#1

So I wrote up a timeline and rules for how this whole election thing is going to work. It’s a bit vague now in some aspects, but at least this will get us started.

[u]Election Rules

Those that would like to run will have one full month to announce their candidacy: March 31st thru April 30th. Anyone that would like to run that does not announce their candidacy within this time will not be allowed to run and will have to wait until the next term. Candidates must wait until this date to do an official announcement. If only the incumbent has announced candidacy by this point, the election is over and the incumbent will retain their status.

Terms will last for one year: from June 1st until May 31st of the next year. If the incumbent is voted out, they will have one week to make sure the new elected official is properly set up.

Candidates will be allowed to campaign as soon as they announce their candidacy, but the debates will not start until April 15th. We will also hold a debate here on the forums starting on May 1st and ending May 14th. In this time, voters will be able to ask the candidates their questions. The incumbent will be responsible for logging all answers into the original post of that thread for easy viewing. Questions may be directed to one or more of the candidates at a time. For those that do not have an account on the forum nor wish to have one (or for those who wish to remain anonymous), an email will be setup and run by two third-party individuals to post questions for them. The forum threads are visable to everyone, so those individuals can still keep track of their questions being answered.

Any candide that posts a campaign item should copy the incumbent of the guild in so they can repost the item. For example, tweets with links should mention @furwritersguild so that they can be retweeted. FA journal links should be noted to the guild FA so that way the journal post can be copied. All candidates must do campaigning on their personal accounts. You may campaign anywhere, so long as you’re posting under your own name. All accounts in the guild name (FA, Twitter, etc) may only be used to repost the posts made by all candidates.

Voting will take place starting 12:00am EST on May 16th and end 11:59pm EST on May 23rd. Voting will be done via email. An email account will be made for voting and will be watched and tallied by the two third-party individuals. The winner will be announced sometime on May 24th by one of the third-party individuals. Voting will be done by guild members, but non-members may clearly make their choices known.

If the elected official fails to meet the standards expect by the guild and its members, any member may petition to impeach the official. The one suggesting the impeach will have two weeks to make their position clear, then there will be a three day vote simply saying yes or no. If yes, the incumbent will resume office. If the incumbent is the one being impeached, a new election will be held from scratch, only with half of the election timeframes.

Share your thoughts and ideas here.

#2

Why?

Edit: Perhaps more accurately: I’m not sure I understand this. Is one’s “guild account” the account that one has on the guild forums? Meaning that campaigning can be done anywhere but on the forums? That’s my best guess as to what this means, but I find it a little odd as the forums seem like the natural place for such discussions. Though, maybe this means something else entirely, and I’ve just misunderstood it…? I don’t know.

#3

That is referring to the accounts operated under the guild name. For example, the FWG twitter and FA accounts. Basically I’m saying that I, as the one with access to those accounts currently, can’t post all of my campaign items directly on those accounts. I’d have to post them to my own FA/twitter. I can link to it from the guild FA/twitter, but I have to do the same for all candidates.

You can campaign on any website, so long as the account your posting from is your own. I guess that’d be a better way to put it.

#4

That makes way more sense than my first interpretation. Thanks for explaining it!

#5

No problem. I reworded that section of the main post to hopefully alleviate further confusion.

#6

Update: I changed the voting method from forum vote to an email. While there are 30 or so members registered, not everyone is going to want to register to vote. This will make it so that all members can vote easily. It will take away any anomitity, but I guess that’s rather necessary anyways to make sure the count is accurate.

Unless I get a non-voting third party to watch the email. Thoughts?

#7

I’d suggest having a third party tally the votes, partly for propriety’s sake and partly because if I were the incumbent, I don’t know that I’d necessarily have a strong desire to know exactly who voted for me and who didn’t. :slight_smile:

As far as the debates… What’s the benefit to having voice debates taking place in real time? I ask because we obviously have members scattered across various time zones/countries anyway, and I don’t use Skype and would be perfectly fine with just having a simple “ask the candidates” type thread right here, where members could ask whatever they want during a set time period (maybe 2 weeks or whatever seems appropriate before voting begins). But maybe I’m missing some major reason we need live debates…?

#8

What gets hard having such a thing on the forum is that there are several people who may have a question, but aren’t and won’t register for a forum.

Maybe we can combine a couple of ideas. Have it on the forums, viewable to everyone, and allow anyone to ask questions on there, but also have the third-party who would be tallying the votes also take in questions. This will be good for those who don’t want to register for the forums or want to remain anonymous. The third-party can post the questions for them.

The live debate, I feel, would be good for getting the candidates to think on their feet and respond in a more insantaneous manner, but I guess that’s not a huge deal. Two weeks also does sound like a good timeframe. I’ll update that in the main post now.

#9

So who is this third party “vote tallier” also usually known as an elections officer?
Or do you still require one?

#10

Still need one. I’ll probably be looking for volunteers starting next week.

#11

If I were the one counting the votes, I would rather be one of two or more people doing it. If only one person ever sees the ballots, that person could in theory alter the results (not that I believe anyone in the guild would do that). If I were that one person, no matter how much integrity I perform the task with, it is possible some will wonder if I wasn’t playing it straight. With two or more vote counters, the chances of either of these things happening are greatly reduced. In addition, if there is some question about whether certain ballots qualify or if there is a question about a voter’s intention, it is better to have two or more vote counters to discuss such ballots and reach a consensus than if it all falls onto one person.

#12

You’re right. Two it is!

#13

Oh, I just realized something.

The first elected official’s term is actually going to be one year and one month. I didn’t think through my months quite well. I rather wanted the term to be from July 1st - June 31st. So this first term will be from June 1st through the following June 30th. All of the voting dates will be pushed back one month for next year.

#14

What is this referring too?

#15

Whoever wins between the current candidates (which at the moment is between myself and Poetigress) and is elected president, their term will be from June 1st, 2014 until June 30th, 2015. And next year, instead of the election process lasting from April 1st until May 24th, it’ll go from May 24th until June 24th (to accomodate pushing the term back one month). It’s not something that really matters if the only office within the guild is “President”, but with my last campaign announcements, if I win this election, there will be multiple elected officals whose terms last for half a year. Would be weird for their terms to last from June until November, then December until May.

#16

FYI, there are only 30 days in June (but we know what you meant).

#17

This is why I normally don’t make forum posts while actually busy at work.