General Election Procedures

We hold elections entirely online to increase accessibility and reduce administrative effort. We are committed to maintaining the integrity, fairness, and transparency of the election process. This approach is intended to allow for increased participation with less workload for the election committee.

We will be using a Ranked Choice voting method, similar to that used for Cambridge municipal elections. With this method, there's no need for a nomination petition.

How to run for a seat

	If you need help, email secretary@artisansasylum.com.

• If you're interested in running for a seat, simply start telling people what you want to do and why they should vote for you!
• 

  Inserting the candidate template on a new wiki page.
  Add your candidate information to this wiki:
  • Create a new wiki page.
    • You can call this whatever you’d like. In our example to the right, we chose to call this “Cassius For 2024 Member Liason - Example Candidate Information Page”.
    • Apply the CandidateInformation template to the page:
      • Click on Insert.
      • Click on Template.
      • Search for the CandidateInformation template, then click on the blue template named CandidateInformation when it pops up.
      • 

        Completing the requested information in the candidate information template
        Fill out the requested information (Name, Election Year, Board role, Email address, Biography, Experience).
      • Click on Insert.
    • Click on Save page… to save your new candidate information wiki page.
    • Finally, at least three weeks before the election, e-mail secretary@artisansasylum.com with:
      • A short statement about your candidacy.
      • Optionally, a link to a video introduction.

	It's totally fine for a candidate to send a statement after the launch of the page, but they will risk getting less attention than those who were there at the start.

• Make yourself available to discuss your candidacy with member by using any of our ordinary member-to-member communication tools.

How to find out who’s running

Before each election, we will create a wiki page with short statements from each candidate. This wiki page will be launched two weeks before the election and announced to members via email and on posters at the front desks.

The two weeks until the election is the Open Election Discussion Period. This is a great opportunity to discuss ideas and hear from candidates. Candidates should feel free to use any of our ordinary member-to-member communication tools to interact with members.  Candidates are also encouraged to announce "office hours" when they will be available to talk with interested members.

How to vote

The Voting Period is the last week of November.  People who have maintained their membership continuously for 6 months before the election are eligible to vote.  If you have a question about your eligibility, email the Election Commissioner.

Votes will be confidential and only seen by the Election Commissioner and Assistant Election Commissioner.

	Make sure that you use the email account that matches your member profile in Nexudus.

• Email the Election Commissioner to request a security code.
• After checking your eligibility, the Election Commissioner will send your a personal security code by return email.
• Send another email to the Election Commissioner, including your vote and the security code.
  • You may rank for as many people as you want for each position.  It doesn't matter if the people you want to vote for are listed as candidates on the wiki - it only matters that they are current members.
  • You don't need to rank all of the people listed on the wiki if you only have preferences for a subset of them.
  • If necessary, you can change your vote by sending an updated message with the same security code. Please try to avoid this option unless you absolutely need to, since it is time consuming to change your vote after it’s cast. Here is an example voting email:

My security code is 0slVDfpg
For Board of Directors, my vote is:
1 Rosalind Franklin
2 Neil Armstrong
3 Ada Lovelace
4 Leonhard Euler
For Member Liason to the Board of Directors, my vote is
1 etc...

• If there's any ambiguity in your vote, the Election Commissioner will correspond with you by email to clear it up.

How votes are counted

The counting procedure will follow the example that Cambridge has been using for over 50 years, described at https://www.cambridgema.gov/departments/electioncommission/cambridgemunicipalelections and https://www.rcvresources.org/in-practice-cambridge-ma.

Basically, you can confidently express your true preference for candidates.  If your first choice is a long shot and in fact does only receive a few votes, your second choice vote will automatically come into play.  And if necessary, your third, fourth, etc.

The polls close at midnight on the last day of the Voting Period and late votes will not be counted.