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Wednesday, July 20, 2016 6:45 PM ET
WPFW Evaluation Committee Live Meeting - Not Recorded - Executive Session - Not Streamed
Reason for Executive Session:  We will discuss personnel matters
Address:
WPFW Radio Station
1990 K Street, N.W., 2nd floor
Washington, DC
Purpose: To Select a Program Director Committee Members
Washington, DC - WPFW
Tony Leon unleon@verizon.net
Posted: 07/08/2016 - 3:13 PMUpdated :07/08/2016 - 3:13 PM

Wednesday, July 20, 2016 8:30 PM ET
Elections Committee Teleconference
Committee Members
Agenda
View Text 
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From the updated Elections Working Group report, sent on June 1 (omitting sections related to the nomination period):

Membership databases:
* Since staff and listener member databases have been a repeat problem, but must be updated/corrected before the end of nominations in order to determine candidate eligibility, LESs should get started on this ASAP since we have found we cannot trust that the database information they get from the stations is correct or up to date. LESs need to understand the various ways that people can qualify to be members (see the Bylaws, Article 3, Section 1) and be aware of the problems we have had (besides people not listed as members when they should be): duplicate entries due to variations in their names or having both new and old addresses (both of which have caused members to get more than one ballot), being listed in both the listener and staff databases, wrong addresses due to information not recorded properly by phone volunteers or due to moving with address changes not entered into database, e-mail and/or snail mail addresses for one member associated with a different member, etc. Address corrections should be handled on a regular basis by staff at all stations, but how well this is done seems to vary dramatically between stations depending on whether they request and enter address corrections from all their regular mailings to members.

* The staff registry software developed by Otis Maclay for Pacifica paid and unpaid staff should be used (with updates if needed), at least to ensure we have the names and current contact information for all staff, even if volunteer staff refuse to log their times. But to qualify as unpaid staff the LESs also need to verify that non-union volunteer staff have put in at least 30 hours (exclusive of fund drive telephone room time) in the 3 months preceding the Record Date, and it's difficult to verify that without a log.

Misc. elections activities to work on in near future:
* The LESs should be reminded that per our Bylaws they can choose people to be on their local Elections committees to help them, but they should avoid getting people from the LSB's (current or past members) due to factional affiliations. Alternatively, if such people are asked to join the committee, they should be balanced between factions. It would be best to have local elections committee members with no connection to any faction, if that can be determined. Consider recruiting CAB members and/or playing on-air announcements to help the LESs find volunteers.

* Standard Class mail (bulk rate) should not be used for ballots. First class (non-profit rate) mail should be used for this. There were unacceptably long delays last year, and many members (perhaps 30% or more) did not get ballots at all in the mail until/unless they requested (sometimes repeatedly) replacement ballots, even for many members who had not moved and therefore did not have to worry about Standard Class mail not being forwarded. In turn, these delays necessitated a 4-week extension of the voting period and along with the large number of replacement ballot requests it created substantial increases in the election costs.

* The Elections Committee, along with the NES, should review the Requests for Proposals (RFPs) used last year and for previous elections, to see what may need to be changed in order to assure compliance with the Bylaws and to minimize costs while maximizing the chances that all elections will achieve quorum.

Later issues requiring more discussion:
* How best to ensure all elections reach quorum without extensions, while still minimizing overall costs

* Most of the working group felt we should continue to mail a paper ballot and the short candidate statements to all members, even though that increases the printing/postage costs, while also e-mailing all members (more than once) with online voting information, and encourage everyone to go online to get additional candidate information. Most of the working group felt the extra costs for printing and mailing would help to reduce the chances of not making quorum (especially since some of our members may not want to go online to get candidate information) and then needing to extend the elections at significant additional cost. However, a more complete financial report from the 2015 elections is needed to determine what were the costs of different aspects of the elections.

* How to reduce the number of errors in playing of individual candidate carts, and the seemingly inevitable deluge of Fair Campaign Provision complaints that result. The resulting workload on the LESs can get especially large with larger numbers of candidates.

* After the RFP for election vendor services is ready, send it out, get responses and review them (in executive session), determine and interview finalists, and choose one company to provide the services (design ballots, print, mail, handle replacement ballot requests, collect snail mail and online ballots and tabulate them, report results, make ballot images available publicly and other steps required for transparency and validation).
Bob Lederer ledererbob@usa.net
Posted: 07/02/2016 - 8:07 PMUpdated :07/18/2016 - 5:52 PM

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