Elections Procedures

Nominations:

Nominations will be sought from the membership represented by the Staff Council not less than six weeks prior to the election.  Anyone eligible to vote can nominate regardless of the category.  At the close of nominations, those persons nominated will be contacted to determine if they wish to run (any individual not wishing to run will be removed from contention).

Eligible Voters:

Those individuals specified in Article II, Section 1 and 2 of the “UNO Staff Council, Structure and Procedures” will be eligible to vote.  Voters will be eligible to vote only within the particular group to which they belong as stated in the “Structure and Procedures” document, Article II Section 3.

Instant Runoff Voting

Voters rank candidates in order of choice: 1, 2, 3 and so on.  It takes a majority to win. If anyone receives a majority of the first choice votes, that candidate is elected. If not, the last place candidate is defeated, just as in a runoff election, and all ballots are counted again, but this time each ballot cast for the defeated candidate counts for the next choice candidate listed on the ballot. The process of eliminating the last place candidate and recounting the ballots continues until one candidate receives a majority of the vote. With modern voting equipment, all of the counting and recounting takes place rapidly and automatically.

IRV acts like a series of runoff elections in which one candidate is eliminated each election. Each time a candidate is eliminated; all voters get to choose among the remaining candidates. This continues until one candidate receives a majority of the vote.

(Instant Runoff Voting information provided by www.fairvote.org.)