How to Run a CS Society Election

Start 6 weeks before the election deadline. You'll need lots of time.

Week 1: Send out an email asking for an elections officer. The officer must be a CS Society member. They will need to commit 2-3 hours a week of volunteer work for about a month. Tell all interested parties to come to the next society meeting.

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At the meeting, appoint the elections officer. Note that the EO cannot run in the election, or in any by-election prior to the next general election. The EO must also avoid making their opinion of any of the candidates known to any person, and in general, avoid interactions with the candidates for the duration of the election cycle. The EO is appointed by a secret ballot vote, much like the appointment of a council member.

The EO should have 5 weeks to run the election in. The first week should involve:

• Alert students that an election is approaching via emails and posters
• Create a schedule for elections that is constitutionally valid (See constitution and by-elections for most up to date information), and present it to council.

Traditionally, schedules have been: Nominations 2 weeks. Nomination acceptance 2-3 days. Campaigning 1 week. Voting 2-3 days.

In weeks 2&3, the EO should solicit nominations while continuing to advertise the election to students. Candidates require 4 nominations, and may not nominate themselves. Nominations may be sent to the EO's account (scripter@cs.dal.ca), or delivered in hard-copy form to the CS Society Desk. Students may, at present, nominate as many people as wish, and may nominate more than one person for the same position. Use of scripts to send mass nominations is highly discouraged, but happens nonetheless. If scripts are used to nominate a set of candidates, the EO is advised to notify the candidates that their nominations were automated.

After the nominations period ends, candidates who have received at least 4 nominations should be emailed by the EO. There are scripts to do this in the scripter account on bluenose/torch which will use the usual message body. Candidates should reply, in writing, to scripter@cs.dal.ca before the end of the acceptance period.

Prior to the start of the campaigning period, the EO must create a set of campaign guidelines. A typical set of guidelines would:

• limit spamming by placing a cap on the number of emails any candidate may send to the csannounce, csall, csugrads, or csgrads mailing lists. csexchange is generally left open to any who would dare spam it.
• Spending caps. Usually not an issue, but the EO should put a cap of $100 or so on the amount any single candidate may spend on their campaign.
• Debates. The EO should schedule 1 or 2 candidates debates, and advertise them heavily to students.
• Slander. The EO should establish a fine for publishing false information about any candidate. Candidates who do so must pay the fine or drop out of the race. A similar fine should be used for any other infractions during the race, like campaigning during the voting period. Candidates must be made aware of this prior to acceptance of their nominations.

During campaigning the EO should pay attention to candidates' campaigns.

After the end of campaigning, no candidate may issue any public statements regarding the election. Doing so will result in a fine. Votes must be gathered using an online voting system like the scripts in the scripter account, to allow coop students to vote. Hardcopy ballots may also be used, but may not be used exclusively. Hardcopy ballots are not preferred because they require much greater vigilance on the part of the EO to prevent double voting. In no cases should hardcopy or online ballots require society members to include their names, logins, or student numbers on the ballot, as this system is both insecure and not a secret ballot vote.

The EO should tally the ballots and announce the results as quickly as possible once voting has ended.

Things NOT to do:

• Do NOT modify the schedule for any reason other than a complete failure of the election. Do not, for example, accept the nomination of a candidate that comes in 5 hours after the deadline. If the candidate wins a race that would have gone to someone else, the election may be declared invalid, and the EO will be held responsible.
• Do NOT encourage particular candidates to seek nominations, or encourage any person to vote for a particular candidate.
• Do NOT fail to advertise the election. A do-over will be required if no one is nominated.
• Do NOT reveal any information about candidates that they do not explicitly authorize you to reveal.
• Do NOT reveal any information that might compromise the secret ballot nature of the voting process.