Running an election for an IEEE Chapter (or other type of organizational unit)

 This is for the Chair of the Nominating Committee (or the current Chapter Chair who is going to resign), and based on section 9 of the IEEE MGA Operations Manual (e.g. 9.6 for technical Chapters, 9.7 for Student Branches, 9.8 for Student Branch Chapters (SBC) etc.). 

 

Someone needs to run the election (but it cannot be a person who intends to be on the committee for the election period). Section's Nominations and Appointments (N&A) Committee Chair or Section Chair can usually help to find such a person. This person or team are called [Chapter/SBC/...] Nominating Committee. The Chair of this committee may need appropriate rights (to check the belonging to the Society on OU Analytics and to add the winners to the list of the officers). The rights can be assigned on the IEEE vTools Officers system by making them "SAMIEEE Recipient"s. Alternatively, the help of the Section Chair can be asked for. 

 

The election process itself is simple (shown below). Each step/part should be at least ~2 weeks or longer, to allow people to respond. 

 

0) Prepare people for election opportunities

Use eNotice and send a message to the entire Section, announcing that there will be an election and there is an opportunity to serve in various positions, and that, if someone wants to serve, they need to be or become a member of both the IEEE and the respective Society and give people time to sort the membership, if they want (say 2 weeks).

 

1) Ask for nominations

Use eNotice and send a message to the members of the Chapter, telling them what positions are available and asking them to submit nominations (incl. self-nominations). Ideally, the positions need to have brief descriptions (samples of descriptions are available here, here and here). 
You will also need to define what you want in a nomination. I suggest looking at what IEEE is usually asking for, e.g. 
* Full name,
* IEEE membership number, 
* brief professional bio, 
* a statement of relevant "qualifications" to do the job, i.e., a brief description of volunteering or similar activities,
* past achievements in those/how those acts benefitted the people/members, 
* a position statement (i.e. to explain the personal view on the position and intended approach to working in the position and how it will benefit the members). 
Each text should be < 100-200 words. Ideally, the entire nomination should fit on 1 page. 

 

2) Receive and collect the nominations (usually by email).

 

2a) Reminder: If necessary, send another Notice and remind people that they can nominate.

 

3) Process and pre-select the nominations, to 
* ensure that the formal criteria, like membership in the Society, are met (as per IEEE MGA Operations Manual, sec 9.6.D/F);
* ideally, have 2-3 candidates per position. 

 

4) Set up a voting system and request people to vote, i.e.,
* Set up the IEEE vTools Voting system, with the positions and names and info about the candidates, 
* which will send eNotice to all Chapter members, asking them to vote;

 

5) Reminder, if needed

After a week or so, you can also check the current status by logging into vTools Voting. If needed, send another eNotice and gently remind people to vote.  

 

6) Process the voting results:

  • log into the vTools Voting and get the results, 
  • announce the winners to the current ExCom (Chapter Chair, Vice-Chair, ...),
  • announce the winners to all the members of the Chapter (and offer official congratulations to the newly elected officers and thanks to the team who is leaving) using an eNotice announcement, 
  • add the new officers to the IEEE vTools Officer system,
  • remove the old officers from vTools Officers, as appropriate. 
  • send emails to the new officers
    • personally congratulate them
    • explain the opportunities, expectations etc. 
    • mention importance and ease of training (e.g. IEEE CLE or here)
  • help to set up the first meeting (and have a draft plan for the meeting in mind(!)), and, in the meeting/over emails, work with the officers to get their suggestions on what will be done (what should be ... so that the officers feel they can contribute and their contributions are welcome) and then also their commitments on specific tasks/targets. It may be good to get the previous team(s) to share their experiences and advice with the new team.