Elections Committee Info

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CONTENTS
 
Elections Committee Standing Rules
Rules for Elections (1999)
Procedure to Contest GSA Elections
Elections Committee Ruling on Write-in Ballots

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Standing Rules of the Elections Committee

1. The GSA President is an ex officio member of the Committee; he or she will have no votes.

2. The Chair will vote only in the event of a tie.

3. In the event the Chair is unable to conduct meetings of the Committee, the Vice-Chair will do so.

4. The Secretary will take minutes of the Committee’s meetings.

5. If on a motion approved by the GSA, the Executive Committee will have been empowered to investigate charges and/or conduct disciplinary proceedings against any GSA Executive Committee member, and if an Elections Committee member is either the complainant or the defendant he/she will be precluded from service on the Committee during the proceedings.  Alternates may be appointed by the GSA Executive Committee.

6. The Chair will recognize who has the floor during meetings of the Committee.

7. In lieu of a majority of votes cast for any particular candidate for GSA office, a plurality shall be considered sufficient for election.

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Rules for Elections

1. The GSA nomination form must be filled in its entirety or it will not be valid.  Only a nominee’s name and school/department will be printed on the ballot.

2. The Elections Committee will contact all nominees to verify the acceptance of their nominations prior to the printing of the ballots.  If a nominee wants his/her name placed on the ballot, he/she must submit an official letter stating so to the committee.  All letters must be received at the GSA office (UCW 305) at least five days prior to the election.

3. Nomination forms, election rules, applicable University rules, election dates, times, and locations will be available at the GSA office and the Office of Campus Programs (OCP).

4. The Committee will publicize the dates of the GSA nominations and elections in The Tower and The Judicial Notice with flyers around campus.

5. Candidates may post flyers and elections paraphernalia on any bulletin board on campus, but may not post them on any walls, doors, or glass surfaces.  Alleged violations should be brought to the attention of the Committee which will investigate any and all claims of infractions.

6. If a candidate violates the Elections Committee rules, the Committee will determine and take appropriate action and report said infraction and action to the GSA Senate.

7. There will be at least one full week and no more than three weeks between the close of nominations and balloting.

8. The Committee will sponsor a forum at which graduate students may question candidates.

9. The Committee will conduct the elections in such a way as to ensure that no one may vote more than once.

10. There will be no active campaigning within sight of the ballot boxes.  Voters must present a valid graduate student I.D. and may not remove ballots from the view of the polling attendant.  Ballot boxes will not be left unattended during the elections except when they are locked and in storage in the OCP.

11. Once the Elections Committee convenes to count the ballots, no one will be allowed to enter or exit until all ballots have been counted and tallies deemed official.

12. In lieu of a majority of votes cast for any candidate for GSA office, a plurality will be considered sufficient for election.

13. The Elections Committee will establish a procedure by which election procedures may be contested.  Candidates may not contest election results.

14. Full elections results, including the number of votes for each candidate, will be presented to the GSA Senate before it decides to approve the results.  The results will also be published in The Tower and The Judicial Notice.

15. Ballots will be in GSA files for at least one year after the elections.

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Procedure to Contest GSA Elections

    If a candidate wishes to contest irregularities in election procedures, he/she must submit in writing to the Chair of the Elections Committee a statement declaring the time, location, and nature of the incident, at least 24 hours prior to the conclusion of the elections.
    The Elections Committee Chair must then call a meeting of the Committee within 24 hours.  The Committee will determine if the actions described in the candidate’s statement in fact constitute irregularities in election procedures.  If so, it will then determine if such irregularities will have a significantly biased effect on the results of the elections.  The Committee will then be responsible for determining and implementing appropriate corrective measures.
    The Elections Committee Chair will present the Committee’s findings in a report to the GSA Executive Committee.
    A Candidate may only contest the electoral procedures and not the result of the election.

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Elections Committee Ruling on Write-in Ballots

NOTE:  Some of the constitutional quotes and references in this ruling have been reworked from the original, due to the fact that the constitutional revisions approved at the end of the 1998-1999 academic year changed the wording/number of some of the references.

There should be no place on the GSA Election Ballot for so-called "write-in candidates." If there are any write-in candidates on ballots, those votes should not be officially counted in the GSA election. This was not done last year (1998), but the 1998 GSA Election Committee Chair Chris Schaefer (Modern Languages) did agree during the 1998 election cycle that write-in candidates are not legitimate.

Article IV, Section C of the GSA Constitution states that "The officers will be elected each Spring semester in accordance with the GSA Constitution and the Election Committee standing rules." Let us examine the GSA Constitution and the Rules of the Elections Committee.

GSA Constitution

Article VI

In Article VI the nomination process is always linked with the election process, even in the title of the article "Nomination and Election of Officers." The article has 3 sections (A, B, and C). Out of the 3 sections, the first 2 sections are about the nomination process. As we shall see in all the official rules of the GSA, the nomination process is always linked and proceeds the election process.

Section B states "a person submitting a nomination for an officer position and the nominee must be members of the GSA." Subsection 1 of Section B then goes on to state "Nominations must be in writing and will include the name, intended office, department/school, address, and phone number of the nominee and the nominator." This rule is meant to ensure that a newly elected officer is a member of the GSA and is on the ballot for a specific officer position. The problems it seeks to avoid are the election of a non-graduate student to a GSA position, and/or the election of one person to more than one officer position. Either result could invalidate the entire election. One example would be the write-in candidacy of an undergraduate or non-enrolled person getting the most votes for president. What happens then? Also let us say that "Joe Smith" is a write-in candidate who gets the most votes for the offices of both President and Secretary. Which office does he hold? Both? How do we choose which office he now holds? The nomination process is designed to avoid these constitutional crises.

Article IX

Article IX states in Section B, Subsection 1 that the Elections committee will "propose schedules and procedures for nominations and elections, and ensure that approved procedures are followed." This again proves that nominations and elections are always linked in the Constitution.

Constitutional Conclusions

Though never expressly forbidding write-in candidates, the entire orderly rule-based process of the GSA elections makes the nomination process come first and the election come second. Write-in candidates are outside the rules and procedures of the elections as stated in the Constitution. Therefore there should be no space on the ballot for them and any write-in votes should not be officially counted.

Rules for Elections

There are 15 election rules stated after the 7 "Standing Rules of the Elections Committee." Election rules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 deal with the nomination procedures, again as always linking the nomination and election of officers. The nomination rules as always come first.

Rule 1 explains the nomination forms.

Rule 2 deals with making sure that a nominee wants to be officially on the ballot. This raises an issue of a write-in candidate who does not want to be a write-in candidate. Someone could be elected who does not want the job. What is done then?

Rule 3 tells where nomination forms will be available.

Rule 4 tells how the committee will publicize the nominations and =
elections.

Rule 7 explains the time between nominations and elections.

Rules 5, 6 and 10 deals with elections rules violations. This raises the issue of how election rules could be enforced against a candidate who has not gone through the official nomination process because the Elections Committee would not be even aware of their candidacy. The candidate could violate any number of election rules and procedures about flyers and campaigning, because officially the candidate is not a candidate.

Rule 8 explains the candidates forum. A write-in candidate could not be part of a candidates forum because officially they are not a candidate, and the Elections Committee would not be even aware of their candidacy.  This would deny the GSA Senate and the graduate students the ability to have an open forum to question all the possible vote getters. So, in effect, write-in candidates are stealth candidates.

Just like the GSA Constitution, the standing rules never expressly forbid write-in candidates, but the entire orderly process of the GSA elections makes the nomination process come first and the election come second. Write-in candidates are outside the rules and procedures of the elections as stated in the "Rules for Elections."  Rule 12 states that "In lieu of a majority of votes cast for any candidate for GSA office a plurality will be considered sufficient for election." So only a candidate may get votes. That begs the question; what is a "candidate"?  It is interesting that the "Rules for Elections" never uses the word "candidate" until rule 5, after the nomination rules have been explained. The term candidate only emerges in the rules after the nomination process has finished. Clearly "candidates" are only those who have followed the nomination process. So there should be no space on the ballot for write-in candidates and any write-in votes should not be officially counted because they are not candidates as defined by the "Rules for Elections."

Additional Problem

An additional problem with write in-candidates is the spelling of a write-in's name.  In certain situations, the ballot counters could not know who the vote is being cast for.  An example would be a write-in for Steve Millies in which someone writes "Stephen Milneys".  Who is this?  Does this count as a write-in for Steve Millies?

There could also be a problem with a joke write-in campaign for a fictional candidate.  What if "Calvin and Hobbes" gets the most votes?  Does that mean that the second most vote getting candidate wins?

General Conclusions

What gives the Graduate Student Association its dignity and value at The Catholic University of America is that it operates by its rules and procedures. Abandoning these rules and procedures would ensure the sort of chaos we often here about in the elections and operations in various undergraduate student governments. If a graduate student wants to run for a GSA officer position, then they should follow the rules and procedures clearly stated in the Constitution, at the GSA Senate meetings, and publicized by the Elections Committee. Write-in candidates are outside the rules and procedures of the GSA and thus are unconstitutional.