NASIG Newsletter

CREATING TRANSPARENCY IN THE NASIG ELECTION PROCESS
Tim Hagan & Kathy Brannon, Co-Chairs Nominations & Elections Committee, with Char Simser, Past President & Board Liaison

The administration of the NASIG election process has been an ongoing concern of the membership.   Some members have felt that the process is too exclusive, handled by a relatively small group of members on the Nominations & Elections Committee.   Others, while perhaps not sharing that feeling, have felt that the requirements and processes involved prohibit the general membership from even attempting to run.

The NASIG Board and the N&E Committee, recognizing these concerns, have taken steps to make the election process more transparent, more open, and less complicated for nominees. 

During the brainstorming session at the Louisville conference in June of 2007, “Why is it difficult to get people to run for executive office of NASIG?,” some of the difficulties and misconceptions of potential nominees were brought out.  (See the September 2007 Newsletter for full report).  The following month during a board conference call in July 2007, it was noted that the advent of online voting could open up the voting process and possibly allow for primary and general elections.   The concept of open elections was further discussed during the January 2008 board meeting.  At this time, the Nominations & Elections Committee was asked to draft recommendations for the board to review.

The charge given to the N&E Committee was “to develop nominations criteria for member-at-large in an open election system that does not involve extensive committee vetting.  Allowing any willing member meeting set criteria to be on the primary ballot or a general election.  Need to develop process for run-off elections and thresholds required to make it to a general election.”

The Nominations & Elections Committee began discussion on open elections and other steps toward transparency during their June 2008 meeting.  Some of the leading concerns at that time were how and if a vetting process would be maintained, how reference verification would work, and how a balance of librarians/vendors/publishers could be maintained on the board.

The N&E Committee was initially unsure whether the board had intended for the committee to propose altering the NASIG bylaws, particularly Article 5, section 2: “Any active member of NASIG shall be eligible for election to the Executive Board, except as otherwise indicated in these Bylaws.”   Because of a desire not to do this, the submitted recommendation contains proposals that would change the bylaws as little as possible.

The committee researched the election methods of various organizations, primarily not-for-profits.  Not one was found that had a primary election to narrow a field of candidates.   The work was always done by a committee in the organization (or they didn’t have enough candidates for this to matter), rather than having the entire membership do this.  This information certainly wasn’t enough to abandon or strongly influence the committee’s findings, but did raise concerns.

Discussion among the committee also brought up the concern of the potential for voter burn out.  While an online election makes the process easier for voters, the addition of a primary – and the need to promote it – may result in voter apathy and fatigue.   As an example, the number of member-at-large nominations received over the past four election cycles was 77, 115, 51, and 63 nominees respectively.***   In an open primary all of these nominees would appear on the ballot to be narrowed for the general election.   The amount of material – resumes/CVs, position statements, etc.  – that voting members would have to go through would be immense.

In addition, the total votes cast in the election for 2007 were 288 and for 2008 were 283, a relatively small percentage of total members. The odds of keeping voting numbers at this level for two elections a year seem doubtful.  The committee also did not envision a fair method to create a balance of librarians, vendors and publishers, etc., among the members-at-large using an open election.

Another concern was that removing the references – which are currently from former board or committee chairs – potentially removes both the knowledge of the work of the committees and the amount and type of work a member-at-large would encounter.  An optional step in the committee’s board report was to require prior work on a NASIG committee, although some members did not feel this was necessary because anyone (with or without NASIG experience) can become a petition candidate by submitting 10 signatures of current members.

N&E did provide a formal report to the board with recommendations and options for an open primary election. That report outlined possible steps of the process, including criteria for moving candidates from the primary to the general election. N&E’s role would be: 1) to ensure that the application packets were complete for those entering the primary for member-at-large positions; 2) to work with ECC to upload all nominee information to the NASIG website; 3) to solicit candidates if fewer than 6 were seeking office; 4) to oversee the primary election; and 5) to move the 6 nominees with the most votes to the general election ballot.

The report to the board was submitted with some reluctance since there was not an authoritative consensus among the members of the committee on its final content.   At least one member felt that the board should make these recommendations.   It was unclear whether this represented the feeling that there was not a need for change, the charge was not precise enough, or uncertainty that the concept of an open election was workable.   After some discussion it was agreed that the concept of an open election process would work for the member-at-large positions, but would require a lot more work and effort for the NASIG members who vote.

After reviewing N&E’s report, the Executive Board felt that pursuing an open primary was not in the best interest of the membership, especially in light of the number of members voting and the added burden for those voting members. N&E’s task is not a simple one, and the committee members do a careful review of nominees’ application packages before presenting a final slate to the membership. With a petition process in place, there is opportunity for every NASIG member to pursue election to the organization’s Executive Board.

Some steps have been taken towards more simplified and transparent elections.   Among these are:

1.    Online voting
2.    Fuller and clearer reports to the board and Newsletter
3.    All forms – both internal and external – used by N&E are on the web (see: http://www.nasig.org/about_elections_process.cfm)
4.    The nomination profile form has been revised (only resume or CV required now and position statement length is increased to 500 words)
5.    The petition process is active and working (especially as we have lately seen with petition candidates both running and winning elections)

The Nominations & Elections Committee would like to further refine the election process for more transparency and welcome comments and ideas from the membership.  Redefining the manner, number and types of references required is one area the committee would like to explore next.

***[Ed. note:  Following publication of this article in the Newsletter blog, N&E supplied the following erratum:  These figures represent the total number of nominations over the past four elections cycles, not just member-at-large nominations.  Actual member-at-large nomination numbers for these election cycles were:

2004/05 - 54 MAL nominations (23 agreed for nominee review)

2005/06 – 53 MAL nominations (26 agreed for nominee review)

2006/07 - 35 MAL nominations (14 agreed for nominee review)

2007/08 – 55 MAL nominations (24 agreed for nominee review)

Because of the lower figures, the Executive Board has recommended that N&E open a discussion forum in our members-only area to gather additional feedback from members over the next few weeks.]