June | 2011 | Sonora Senate

Due to the election of Alyse Stofer for FY12 President Elect, as vacancy has formed on the SWE Board of Directors. The nominees for the upcoming vacancy of this position (Director of Membership Initiative) position have been announced. They are (representative region in parentheses), in alphabetical order:
Lana Fountain Flakes (C)
Jonna Gerken (F)
Diana Joch (E)
Justina Mikals (B)
Holli Pheil (H)
Fran Stuart (B)
Penny Wirsing (B)

Per the Society Bylaws the Senate is tasked with filling the vacancy. The senate will be voting for the next Director of Membership Initiatives starting on June 4th.

If you have any comments, about the nominees, please send those comments to Governor Kerrie Greenfelder at Kerrie.Greenfelder@swe.org no later than Thursday, June 2nd. Kerrie will compile all of the feedback for transmittal to the Region B Senators on Friday, June 3rd. After June you may contact the Senators directly, please cc Kerrie.

Here is the message from the SWE Parlimentarian which describes the voting process.

Greetings,

The SWE election has resulted in one of the current board members being elected to another position, so as of July 1 there will be a vacancy. The SWE bylaws provide that the senate fills vacancies, as they represent members from the membership. I will be sending out your ballot and information this evening – this is a test and explanation of the process that we will be using.

At the special conference call meeting, there were seven nominations for this position. With so many nominations the odds increase that it would take more than one ballot to achieve a majority if each ballot were handled separately. A better way is to use the method of preferential voting, also called instant runoff voting. With this method, you are asked to rank all of the candidates in order of your preference. It is important that you put ALL of the candidates in order of your preference. When all of the ballots are in, they will be sorted according to the first choices, like the example below:

SAMPLE TALLY SHEET:

30 ballots cast

A received 10
B received 2
C received 2
D received 7
E received 5
F received 1
G received 3

A majority of 30 is 16, so there is no election on the first ballot. As F received the fewest votes, that vote is re-allocated to the second choice on the ballot. The second round tally looks like this:

A received 10
B received 2
C received 2
D received 8
E received 5
G received 3

Still no majority, so B and C are both re-allocated to their second choices. Here’s the tally:

A received 11
D received 11
E received 5
G received 3

Still no majority, so G is re-allocated to the second choice. (If the second choice has already been eliminated, we continue down the preference until we get to someone who is still in.)

Next tally:

A received 12
D received 13
E received 5

So it’s time to re-allocate the E votes:

A received 14
D received 16

D is the winner of the election – and each person’s vote only counts once.

I will be sending an email to you from voting@agreatmeeting.com. Please look for it and if you don’t find it, check your junk mail and spam folders. In the email I’ll give you the seven names. Reply directly to that email with the list sorted from first preference to last. I’ll take care of the rest, and send the results to the speaker. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU LIST ALL SEVEN NAMES SO THAT YOUR PREFERENCES CAN BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. It does not help the process (or help your choice get elected) if you withhold votes; that only works when there are multiple candidates for multiple positions and the ratio needed is a plurality.

Ballots are due by midnight EDT Tuesday, June 7. Ballots received after that time will not be counted. Only direct replies to the email will be accepted, except that if you must forward because of work or travel, please explain the path in the email to verify that it is your vote being cast.

Colette Collier Trohan, CPP-T, PRP
A Great Meeting, Inc.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns – please contact a Region Senator or post your comment here.
Deb Willems
deb.willems@swe.org