LSSC Election Guidelines

The following procedures have been established by the Library Staff Support Committee (LSSC) to ensure that the election of the Library staff division liaisons is fair and impartial.

Call for Nominations to be on the LSSC Ballot

For each election, LSSC will invite all eligible civil service employees online via LIBSTAFF-L to submit an application to be listed on the ballot for vacancies on the committee. The online invitation will describe eligibility requirements for serving on LSSC, will list the available openings, and will describe the process for submitting applications via an online form.

Eligibility for Serving on LSSC

  1. Open to all civil service Library staff who have completed their initial probationary period
  2. Library Staff are ineligible after two consecutive terms on LSSC or until they have been off the committee for 1 consecutive term. However in the event that no one else in their division is willing to serve, they are allowed to continue on the committee.

Election Procedure

To ensure that the election results are tamper-free, one Human Resources member and two committee members from divisions not involved in the election will be asked to witness the generation of electronic reports.

Election Timeline

DATE

 

PROCEDURE

First Monday in May   Electronic self-nomination period begins.
Second Monday in May   Self-nomination period ends at 5pm.
Second Tuesday in May   One HR member and two LSSC Committee members from divisions not involved in the election will witness the generation of self-nomination form results, which will be used to create the election ballot.
Third Monday in May   Election period begins.
Fourth Tuesday in May   Election period ends at 5pm.
2 days after the election   One HR member and two LSSC Committee members from divisions not involved in the election will witness the generation of election results.
June   Winners will be notified and election results announced in time for the July LSSC Committee meeting.

 

Electronic Voting

The security of electronic balloting must be consistent and offer the equivalent degree of anonymity and accountability as traditional mail balloting.

Electronic balloting is set up to use Bluestem authentication. Voters have to log in through bluestem.

The order of nominees’ names on electronic ballots should be rotated so that they are not always listed in alphabetic order.

Electronic ballots will allow only one electronic submission (vote) per voter for each election.

An electronic record of votes cast and election results will be saved for a minimum of two years on the LSSC G: drive. The person who generates the election report  may keep their report as long as he or she wants to.

Confidentiality of all votes will be ensured at all times. The report’s login identification field will be removed prior to tabulating votes. It must not be referenced during the tallying of votes nor saved with the election results.

Ballots will be designed to allow only one vote per position opening.

Notification of Election Results

The LSSC Chair will directly notify elected staff, and will then send out an announcement via Lib-News. Vote tallies will be released to any candidate requesting the results from the LSSC.

Uncontested Candidates

If a candidate is uncontested, notice will be sent to staff in the candidate’s Division with the name of the candidate stating the candidate’s uncontested status, and allowing Division staff to present objections to the candidate. In the event of a lack of opposition within 24 hours after the notice, the candidate is considered elected. In the event of stated opposition, election by ballot will proceed.

Tied Election Results

In the event of a tie a runoff election will be held between candidates tied with the most votes.

 

This document was last updated June 6, 2012.