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Are there any guidelines on in what order the candidates should be listed? Alphabetical?

Suggest having chair of EC be an elected position, rather than appointed by Board, to maintain independence.

In concentrating the powers to make nominations, receive and verify petitions for self-nomination, monitor campaigning, and conduct the vote, the current Election Committee structure carries an apparent conflict of interest (though not one that has been abused in fact). This is amplified by the appearance of two candidate classes (EC nominees and petitioners) created by the self-nomination procedure as currently structured.

The self-nomination procedure is addressed elsewhere. Here I’d like to propose separating the role of overseeing the conduct of the election from that of making nominations – as a sketch for the moment though I’m happy to draft in more detail if there’s interest to develop this.

Voting Task Force

• Three-member group established anew each year and disbanded at the close of each election cycle.
• Proposed as a TF since charged with a specific set of actions to be conducted within 12 months.
• Responsible for conduct and oversight of AMIA officer and board elections. Duties roughly as described in Elections Manual Sect. III. B. 1, 3, 5-7.
• Based on roles outlined for board-appointed "inspectors of election" in Cali. Corp. Code.

Elections and Nominations Committee

• Standing committee of the board (as currently)
• Role in annual board elections: to develop a strong, representative slate of candidates to ensure quality leadership for AMIA. Duties roughly as described in EM Sect. III. B. 2 & 4.
• Could consider its nominating activity in context of wider role in cultivating/developing new leadership for AMIA board and across committees, possibly accepting a return of its earlier advisory role in committee elections which has since been reassigned to AMIA staff.

The above is based on proposals first presented by the 2007-2008 board to the membership as part of a broader governance review.

The bullet about diversity should be expanded to include gender, race, age.

Office or Committee should send a draft of ballot to candidates for sign off by certain deadline before posting publicly. (This is to ensure that there are no errors in how the candidate is represented).

Can committees campaign for candidates or ballot measures?

If Nomination by Petition is not the primary process (see previous submitted Issue), and EC continues to decide who gets to be on the ballot automatically and who has to petition, I think that EC should be transparent to nominators whose nominees are not selected about why their nominee was excluded the ballot.

Add - After polls close, AMIA Office must announce total number of votes cast.

Rule says that EC cannot "endorse" candidates for the Board, but how is "nominating" someone different from an endorsement, give that EC isn't just checking for eligibility but weighing candidates against each other and make personal judgements?

Nomination by Petition should be the first and primary process, followed by nomination by Election Committee. This way, the will of the membership is privileged over the EC not the other way around.

Suggest adding instructions on how to submit ballot measures to the Board. Would ballot measures from committees or chapters or groups of members carry more weight?

Should note requirements for how the membership is consulted or informed of changes.

Same as previous comment, suggest stronger language than "reserves the right" if Board overturns Committee recommendation. Should be "must" instead.

It should be more clearly stated here that EC plays a role in deciding whether to accept nomination recommendations of membership, if that's going to be the case.

Propose to update language to specify how the Committee must obtain the required information and documents IN THE SAME MANNER FROM ALL CANDIDATES.

This may include:

• Consistent and documented information collection and delivery procedures
• Oversight in the collection and delivery process (maybe by staff in the Office?)

Specifying this will help reinforce the equal treatment of all candidates and candidate statements and provide an opportunity to explore more accountable procedures for candidate self-description.

This process should take place before Nomination by EC so that members have a chance to nominate before seeing who the EC wants to endorse. The timeframe is also too short / unbalanced compared to the timeline for members to submit to EC -- i.e. doesn't seem appropriate that members have 2 months and three warnings to submit names to EC for consideration, but only 1 week to nominate directly on their own.

Suggest adding a mechanism by which membership can force a ballot measure without Board approval. To prevent abuse, could make the threshold very high? Or give the Board a veto?

AMIA Office, in addition to posting on website, should post on all official communications channels (e.g. listserv, Twitter, etc). This is already being done in practice, but should be formalized in the manual.

Suggest revising to include the opportunity for the EC to solicit additional or optional candidacy information to be presented as part of the ballot, but not required as part of the statement.

Current language:
b. A candidate's statement, including biographical information and goals or objectives to be pursued if elected. Statements should be no more than 500 words.

This revision would re-inforce the fundamentals of candidacy information (name, goals/objectives) and allow for the opportunity to present a more comprehensive candidate profile for member review prior to voting. Could additionally provide more context if campaigning is nonexistent or uneven.

Suggest more compelling language than "Committee reserves the right to express its dissenting opinion to the AMIA membership" if Board overturns Committee recommendation. Should be that Committee "must" inform the membership if the board does not accept the Committee's recommendation.

Would be helpful to define what a ballot measure is, what types of decisions one would use ballot measure for, maybe include some examples?