Nominating and Ballot - Minutes - October 7, 2020

Nominating and Ballot Committee meeting #1  

October 7, 2020, noon to 1pm via Teams  

Present:

Chris Bohling (LFSA Exec rep), Jim Richey (on 1st of 2-year term), Sunita Gandhi (on 2nd of 2-year  term), Lars Leon (on 1st of 2-year term)  

Agenda:

1. Introductions and overview of N&B code  

 Standing Charges. The Nominating and Ballot Committee:  

o Issues the call for nominations, recruits candidates for elections, and contacts nominees  to verify their willingness to serve  

o Provides a slate of candidates for the officers (Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and Secretary) of  LFA and LSA and for standing committees with elected membership, in sufficient time  for elections to take place no later than May 15  

o Assembles all ballots, tabulates, and reports the results to the respective LFA and LSA  Executive Committees within one week  

Recommendations on how we can work from Chris, Sunita (N&B veteran):  

 Start planning elections around beginning of March or earlier  

 One piece of code struggled with – “no later than May 15” – some interpretations have  been start by, other years interpreted – all ballots in by May 15.  

 Has used Qualtrics for balloting. Sunita still has access to this.  

 Last year – N&B decided to have one person check voting status and report out.   Need to be clear about ballot deadline date in our communications.  

o If Special election and during General – recommend creating a tip sheet about each  candidate. People can provide info about themselves. Some have in the past expressed  interest in knowing more about the candidates.  

Notes:  

 Most of N&B Committee time usually spent April through end of June during election season   Michelle Curttright is new governance webmaster. All our notes+ will go through her.   Chris created a N&B team in Teams with owners being Jim, Sunita, Lars.  

 Chris will join us when needed for our meetings but otherwise won’t participate. Chris  happy to help with organizing election season.  

2. Special charge  

Chris shared that LFSA Exec is interested in exploring the following. He will check with  LFSA Exec and share a specific special charge with us.  

Would like N&B to continue to work with Committee on the Code to clarify some questions related to dates and some questions related to a quorum in the  code. Two examples: our Code refers to a date when election takes place by.  

Another is in the past we have operated under rule we need to get 2/3 of  faculty and 2/3 of staff to vote to be valid. That doesn’t seem to be in the Code  and just a rule of thumb we have followed. It would be good to get in the Code  if that is what LFSA wants to do. If not want to do get an official number added  to the Code.  

Chris recommends working out the special charge before election season. No firm date  in mind at this time from LFSA Exec. It will likely call for a ballot to change the Code.  

Actions  

Place previous N&B email templates (e.g. survey invites,  etc.) into Teams. Sunita will email us and we’ll get them  loaded.  

Sunita is on Codes committee too. They had their first  meeting in August. Inform Codes we are going to look into  our special charge and love to meet with them by December  9th.  

Sunita Sunita 

Next N&B meeting 12/1 10:30 to 11:30 via Teams to discuss  the special charge (Chris will send us official one). We should  each read the Code looking out for issues before we meet. 

Sunita, Jim,  Lars 

Notes revised and approved via email 10/8-9.