NASIG Newsletter

NOMINATIONS & ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
Anne E. McKee, Chair 

Committee Members: Carol Ann Borchert (University of South Florida, Tampa), David Burke (Villanova University), Karen Jander (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Susan Markley (Villanova University), Virginia A. Rumph (Butler University), Gracemary Smulewitz (Rutgers University), Martha Spring (Loyola University, Chicago), Susan Williams (University of Colorado, Boulder), Steve Savage (Board Liaison and Past President). 

NOMINATIONS AND CANDIDATE SELECTION 

1) Calls for nominations were made in 2 separate modes. The first call was the paper nomination form that was stuffed into each May 2005 conference packet.  Due to the change-over of chairs for the committee, President Mary Page issued 2 separate calls for nominations over NASIG-L in late October and early November 2005.   A call for nominations was not published in the NASIG Newsletter (as is customary) since the Newsletter’s fall deadline occurred amidst the change-over in chairs. 

2) 71 individuals were nominated by the new November 14, 2005 deadline (171 in total as many people received more than one nomination, some had several). Two were eliminated as ineligible (1 was already on the board and ineligible to be nominated for the same position and the other was not a NASIG member). The total number of nominations received was 23% higher than last year (2004-2005:139 total) but the number of individuals nominated was 7.8% lower (2004-2005:77). Numbers of nominations per office were:  

Vice President/President-Elect, 19
Secretary, 19
Member at Large, 53 

3. As the committee calendar was shortened (due to the chair change-over) each committee member (including the chair, who does not ordinarily contact nominees) contacted at least 6 people. Some committee members contacted a few more due to the committee members’ work commitments at that point in time. The breakdown on who submitted forms is as follows: 

Vice President/President-Elect, 4
Secretary, 3
Member at Large, 26 

4. Because of the relatively small number of nominees who agreed to be considered for office, all committee members read and evaluated all nominee profile forms. Based on the initial evaluation, the committee identified the strongest contenders for each office and contacted their NASIG references. Each committee member contacted references with a standard list of questions for each office. As the chair also contacted some references, one other committee member also read the references to ensure impartiality. 

5. The final slate was determined by the committee and sent to the President on January 13, 2006.  Please note that the President and Executive Board are always informed strictly as a courtesy. The President and/or Executive Board simply accept the slate as developed by the N&E Committee. There is no vote on “acceptance” from the Board.  

The NASIG membership was notified of the official slate by an email to NASIG-L on January 15, 2006 by Chair Anne McKee.  

Vice President/President-Elect: Christie Degner, Char Simser
Secretary: Kay Johnson, Joyce Tenney
Member at Large: June Garner, Sarah George, Emily McElroy, Meg Mering, Alison Roth, and Bob Schatz 

6. The Chair contacted all slated nominees by phone and unslated nominees via letter by December 29, 2005. 

7. The call for petition candidates went out on January 18, 2006, over NASIG-L.  Each potential petition candidate had to have 10 NASIG members “in good standing” (as of January 5, 2006) support his/her petition. The petition and nominee profile form had to be returned by January 25, 2006, 5:00 pm, Central time. Three petition candidates had the requisite number of current NASIG members supporting them to enter the ballot. However, it was determined that one of the petition candidates was not a current 2006 member. Therefore, two petition candidates could be voted upon. These petition candidates were:  

Vice President/President-Elect: Jill Emery
Member at Large: Rick Anderson  

BALLOTING

1.  The ballots were mailed on February 4 with a postmark deadline of March 4, 2006.  Ballots were mailed to members active as of January 30, 2006.  A total of 405 ballots were returned by the March 4 postmark deadline.  Seven ballots postmarked after March 4 were received. 

2. The Chair counted the 405 ballots and then Carol Ann Borchert, a member of the N&E Committee, verified the count.  There were no write-in candidates for any of the elected positions. 

3. The Chair notified the President of the election results by March 27.  The Chair then contacted all nominees by March 29.  The N&E Chair notified the NASIG membership over NASIG-L on March 29, 2006.  The results were posted on NASIGWeb and announced to other listservs the following week.  The results were also published in the NASIG May 2006 Newsletter. 

ELECTION RESULTS

Vice President/President-Elect: Char Simser
Secretary:  Joyce Tenney
Member at Large: Alison Roth, Bob Schatz, and Rick Anderson 

The N&E Committee would like to stress that with the 2006/2007 Executive Board, we have one of the most diverse Boards since the earliest days of NASIG. The Board will include 1 publisher, 2 subscription agents, 1 book vendor and 7 librarians.  This truly does represent all segments of the NASIG membership. 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

Due to the unforeseen circumstances which resulted in removal of one chair and the appointment of another chair, the committee had to literally compress their usual 9 month working calendar down into a very JAM PACKED 4 months. This created a very high stress level and even more condensed actual working days. While this was not the timeline the committee had envisioned when they were asked to serve, the committee worked together as a team and performed admirably and, frankly, above and beyond the call of service.  The Committee would like to make the following recommendations: 

• Electronic voting MUST be implemented immediately. If the N&E Committee had been able to count on electronic voting, much of the stress level and intense periods of work could have been alleviated. Benefits to electronic voting are (but certainly not limited to) the following:
  • The ballot could be created extremely quickly-rather than the weeks it takes to order the letterhead/envelopes from the printer, wait for delivery, copying of all material, folding, stuffing and mailing.
  • Mail expenses AND delivery time would be instantly negated
  • The chair discovered that much has changed in printers agreeing to copy, fold and stuff the ballots.  Every printer the chair contacted stated that this is now the type of labor they would now outsource to other countries (such as Mexico, India and
    Ireland.)  The chair could not identify one printer in the 5^th largest city in the
    U.S. who was willing to do this work locally in the timeline required by the Bylaws.
  • Errors like printer’s mistakes, ballots that didn’t have the “official” envelope, packets that didn’t include the “official” ballot etc (all problems that occurred this year) would be negated as well.
  • Any question on voting irregularities (while never happening in the past) could be instantly confirmed or denied.
  • There are many turnkey solutions in the marketplace. This would not need to be a NASIG- generated new project
  • Voting percentages would increase as it would be much easier to do from either each member’s work or home. I’ve been told by members that the time it takes to manually fill out the form, send it in the correct envelope and then remember to stamp it (with their own stamp) is too time-consuming and difficult. Indeed, ALA realized a sharp increase of voting when they went to all electronic voting.
• IF paper balloting will remain, then a procedure must be implemented to insure that each member only votes once.  The committee recommends adding the member’s unique identifier to each official ballot return envelope. Thus, the ballot counters could check off each identification number as the envelope is opened. The verification lists would not have to be identified by member’s names-but just have the members numbers in numerical order
• On the ballot, it would be more informative to state that it is permissible to vote for less than the number required in each office.  The chair had to field at least 3 separate questions from members who wanted assurance that the ballot did not have to be completely filled in (1 vote for VP, 1 for Secretary, 3 for MALS) for the ballot to be “verified.”  Perhaps adding wording such as: “can vote up to 3 people” etc.
• The committee recommends eliminating any specific date references in the Bylaws. For instance, in the petition candidates’ section of the Bylaws, it states that the petition candidates must have all paperwork in by February 1.  Wording could be changed to something like “Petition candidates must have all paperwork in 10 working days prior to the mailing of ballots” etc.

CLOSING

The chair would like to sincerely and enthusiastically thank each member of the 2005/2006 N&E Committee for his or her dedication, perseverance and teamwork in accomplishing a 9-month calendar of work in only 4 months.  One of the committee members said it best, “We’ve always had the best interests of NASIG uppermost in our thoughts and actions.”  It was truly an honor and a privilege to have worked with this committee.  

Additionally, The chair and committee could not have accomplished their work without the able assistance of Kathryn Wesley. Ms. Wesley, the 2004/2005 chair of N&E was invaluable in her assistance to the chair of sending all the different forms, ballot format suggestions etc. This created much less work for the current chair. Kathryn was also an excellent brain to “pick” and could help alleviate confusion in different steps in the process. Kathryn also readily agreed to just accept all the ballots (never opening them but just sending them in batches); when the printer made the mistake of putting last year’s address on the return-ballot envelope. The election would have probably failed to meet the Bylaws-specific date requirements without Kathryn’s willingness to step in and be the official “mail collector.” 

Finally, the chair and committee would like to sincerely thank and applaud Steve Savage, Board Liaison. He was our consoler, cheerleader, positive thinker, and the largest shoulders we could have had to lean on. We appreciate and thank him profusely.