Only candidates may request a recount or revote. Any candidate who wishes to do so should send her or his request (with an explanation as to why she or he thinks that a recount or revote is necessary) to the Elections chair within a week of the close of the polls; the Elections Committee will make a ruling within a week of receiving such a request. If a revote is deemed necessary, it will begin within two weeks of said ruling.

If it is proven to the satisfaction of the Elections Committee and the Board that a candidate offered an incentive for a vote, then the candidate will be disqualified from running or voting in that election.

If the person offering the incentive is not a candidate, she or he will be disqualified as a voter for that election.

Donating (e.g., purchasing a membership) under a fraudulent name to a nonprofit organization is not merely against organization rules, but illegal, and grounds for immediate removal from the Board.

Candidates are not allowed to:

• Offer an incentive for a vote (whether monetary or another sort of consideration, including fannish creative works).
• Have access to the voters’ roll, in order to protect the legal identity of members.
• Out another candidate’s pseudonym, or link the legal and fannish names of any OTW member who has not chosen to make that connection public.

These tactics will be grounds for disqualification from candidacy.

However, there are no restrictions on:

• The number of friends who may campaign on your behalf.
• The value of donations of money or labor you can receive for the purpose of campaigning.
• The formation of coalitions between candidates.
• The use of closed discussion forums.

Candidates’ official campaign statements will be posted by Elections on the organization’s website and in a variety of other spaces (e.g., the OTW News on IJ and LJ, twitter, the Yahoo! group and other outlets regularly used by Community Relations) and their statements can include an advertisement for their own campaign website or community. A chat forum will also be provided for the public chat (see "Are there any official campaign activities?").

Candidates are also encouraged to campaign in other forums.

Candidates are required to provide a brief public statement summarizing their philosophy, goals for the organization and their view on future directions for the organization etc.

Candidates are also encouraged (but not required) to participate in a public chat at a mutually agreed time of their own choosing. If the candidates cannot agree upon a time, the Elections Committee will decide on an appropriate time.

Candidates can start campaigning at the end of the declaration period, 8 weeks before the election. The campaign period extends until the close of polls.

Yes, whether you win or lose. There are no term limits for Board members.

In case of a tie, a runoff election will be held. The runoff will generally take place two weeks after the election, but the date may shift to accommodate holidays or other special events; in any case, the runoff date will be on the election timeline distributed in advance of the election.

In case of a tie in the runoff, another runoff will be held, but in no case will the rollover date (when Board members’ terms end) be changed. If necessary, rollover will take place with empty seats, which will be filled once the runoffs have produced a winner.

Full results will be posted after the polls close: barring unforeseen and catastrophic software failure, we will announce results no later than three days after the end of balloting, and very likely much sooner!

If results are delayed into a second or third day, Elections will post updates on the cause of the delay and the status of our count.

Live e-mail support will be provided throughout the voting period. If you have a difficulties casting a vote, or problem that may require you to recast a vote, let the Elections support team know before the polls close by sending a message to Elections.

The votes will be counted by cumulative voting. Cumulative voting is a voting system that is most commonly used for corporate board elections (for which it is mandated in many states) and for many city councils and school boards. Its advantage in an election with multiple open seats is that it allows voters to choose between distributing their votes between their preferred candidates or concentrating their votes on one specific candidate. As a result, smaller interest groups are more likely to gain some representation on the Board, while candidates with broader support will still receive most of the seats.

(a) Eligible voters—all paid members in good standing—will be assigned a login name by the Elections Committee. You will use this name to log in, once only, to the voting site. A password for each login name will be generated randomly and that information (the login name and password) will be sent to the e-mail address you used to join the organization. Only the Elections Committee has access to the list of login names, and they will not see the vote tallies in any format where the login names are linked to votes: no one will know how you voted.

(b) You may, by assigning it beforehand, have another member vote as your proxy. See the section on proxies below for more details.

Once the format of ballots has been set up by the third party polling service we’re hiring to do this ballot, we will link to a sample ballot and instructions in this space.

Yes! However, in order to vote, they MUST be paying members of OTW. Moreover, they must be verified paying members by a month before the election.

If there are fewer declared candidates than open seats by the eight weeks’ deadline (e.g., two declared candidates for three open Board seats), then the deadline for declaring a candidacy will be extended by two weeks. The Elections Committee will make efforts to encourage possible candidates to run. If a seat still has no candidates six weeks before the election, the Board may appoint members (even if they have less than a year’s committee service) for seats that cannot be filled in any other way. As with an uncontested election, no election will be held in these circumstances.

If there is only one candidate per open seat (or fewer) by the eight weeks’ deadline, then the deadline will be extended by two weeks. Six weeks before the election is the absolute final date to declare candidacy, even if we have no more candidates than there are seats. If by the six week deadline, the number of declared candidates is still exactly equal to the number of open seats, then no election will be held: those declared candidates will fill the open Board seats.

Send your declaration to the Elections chair. Please include a statement that you are over 18, the committee(s) that you served a total of at least one year on, and your legal name. If you have been serving on that committee under a pseudonym (for example, you did not switch over your name on the committee a few months in advance, as suggested in "Will my real name and fannish identity be connected?"), the chair of Elections will confirm with the chair of Volunteers that you did, in fact, serve for one year on that committee, and will confirm with the chair of Financial that you are a paid member.

You MUST declare candidacy, including verifying your legal name by becoming a paying OTW member, by eight weeks before the election. The only exception is for elections that don’t attract a sufficient number of candidates at eight weeks before the election (see below).

You must provide an official campaign statement at least one month prior to the election.

Sure!

• Ten weeks before the election: The Elections Committee issues a public call for candidates. The Board will hold a chat on or near this date, to answer questions from any members who are considering running for election.
• Eight weeks before the election: Deadline to declare candidacy and submit initial ID verification (a paid membership, as described above). Campaigning also commences at this time.
• One month before the election: Deadline to become a paid member, for the purposes of voting in this election, and for candidates to provide an official statement.
• Two weeks before the election: Deadline to declare proxy vote transfers.
• Election day! Campaigning may run through to the close of polls.