Election Guidelines

The Registrar of Voters shall receive and count all votes and ballots, according to the following rules:

  • All the ballots shall first be counted according to the first choices indicated on them and the total number of valid ballots cast for each candidate as the first choice determined.
  • If any candidate receives a majority of the first choices, he/she shall be declared elected.
  • If no candidate receives such a majority, the candidate with fewest first-choice ballots to his/her credit shall be declared defeated and his/her ballots shall be transferred each to the candidate marked on it as the next choice among the undefeated candidates. Any ballot which indicates no choice among the undefeated candidates shall be set aside as ineffective.
  • If still no candidate has a majority of the effective ballots in his/her credit, the candidate then lowest on the poll shall be declared defeated and his/her ballots transferred similarly to the candidate marked on it as the next choice among the undefeated candidates.
  • The lowest candidates shall be declared defeated successively and their ballots transferred in the same way until one candidate is found to have more ballots to his/her credit than all the other undefeated candidates together.
  • As soon as a candidate is found to have a majority of the effective ballots, he/she shall be declared elected.
  • If, when a candidate is to be declared defeated, two or more candidates are tied at the bottom of the poll, that tie shall be settled by counting how many of all the ballots rank each of the two candidates higher, to see which would have won in a head-to-head election.  Any tie not otherwise provided for shall be decided by lot.
  • If a second board member is to be elected from among the same group of candidates, he/she shall be determined by a recount of all the ballots according to the preceding rules, all choices marked for the first candidate elected being disregarded.
  • If more than two board members are to be elected from among the same group of candidates, they shall be determined by further successive recounts of all the ballots according to the same rules.
  • In carrying out such a recount the highest choice marked on each ballot for an unelected candidate shall be treated as the first choice, and so on. All candidates except those previously elected shall be considered in the running until defeated in connection with the particular recount which is in progress.
  • Whenever more than one board member is to be chosen from among the same group of candidates at the same election, the candidate first elected shall serve for the longest term, the candidate next elected shall serve for the term which is next to the longest, and so on.

 

Guidelines for the Campaign and Election Behavior.

  • All campaign and election activity should take place outside of sobriety support meetings or venues. Candidates or advocates may ask the convenor’s permission for time to speak or post outside of the specific meeting time. In certain venues, the candidate or advocate will be self-policing.
  • If questions arise in a sobriety meeting venue regarding a LifeRing political issue, the questioner should be directed to where they can get the answer outside of the meeting arena or asked to wait for the answer outside of the meeting time.
  • All candidates and advocates should be intimately familiar with LifeRing’s general “Terms of Use” policy and use these terms as the boundaries within which to operate.
  • Candidates and advocates should be constantly aware that even a subtle representation of their qualifications, experience, and goals are unwelcome to many of our members within the sobriety support space.
  • Exercise the “Sobriety Priority” when campaigning or advocating. If there are sobriety issues present, the sobriety issue always trumps any other issue.
  • Please make an attempt to limit statements to under 500 words. (readers may get bored beyond that limit anyway)
  • The LifeRing Convenors email list is for issues regarding convenor questions only. Campaign statements and activity should only take place on the Nominee List for Board of Directors page or the Proposed Bylaw Changes page. Whichever is appropriate.
  • If anyone has any questions regarding the registration process or the absentee voting proposal, please email your questions to the Registrar of Voters at registrar@lifering.org or call the LifeRing Service Center at 1.800.811.4142.
  • Have fun!

 

Voting Method

The election for filling three seats on the LifeRing Board of Directors will be conducted using an Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) system. The board has decided to use this system to ensure that all winners had majority support, as opposed to the plurality system that most of us are more familiar with.  With this system, each delegate to the Congress will assign a ranking to each candidate, with the top choice listed as 1 and, in a field of five, the bottom choice a number 5.

Here is a graphic that explains how the votes are then counted:

Election Flow Chart