Preliminaries:
- Before Fall Elections: Fall Elections are held only to fill vacancies. In October, check with the currently elected officers to find out if they want to automatically renew their position. If any don't, you'll need to hold an election.
- Before Spring Elections: Spring Elections are held for all positions.
- Other Elections: Elections outside of spring and fall elections are held only for vacancies. They should be held within 4 weeks of the vacancy.
Scheduling the election:
- Spring elections are constitutionally held 4-8 weeks prior to the start of office. This generally turns to mean that they should be held between mid March and mid April. Avoid scheduling them over MIT's spring break.
- Fall elections should be held sometime between the end of October and the end of November.
- Vacancy elections need to be held within 4 weeks of the vacancy, but the club meeting needs 2 weeks notice, so scheduling is already somewhat restricted.
Getting Candidates:
While nominations can technically be done at the election, this should be discouraged. It's better for everyone if candidates have had a chance to decide if they're interested and find out more about the position beforehand. Also, you'll want to have a good slate of candidates, so you'll want to know who's running so you can recruit for positions without any interest.
There are a couple ways of getting good candidates: Volunteers and Recruits. Both of these are good options, and you'll probably need both.
Getting candidates who you weren't aware of or who aren't already involved in Tech Squares is a good way to get different viewpoints on the EC. In the same email that announces the club meeting (or an earlier one), you should explain what positions are available and what they entail and encourage people to talk to you or another officer if they are interested. It's also nice to have a way for people to point out others who might be good at the job. (As of Spring 2015, we tried doing this on a google spreadsheet the way ESP does, with limited success.) The more of a description you can give people the more likely they are to choose a position appropriately.
Recruiting candidates. One source of candidates is people who currently are involved in Tech Squares and hold the positions. If someone wants to continue with their job and they are doing it well, you probably won't need to recruit for that position. However, for other positions, you may need to recruit. When recruiting, try to get people who show interest in being involved, but aren't currently very involved. Also, given that we need 50% students on the EC, consider students. Consider going through the attendance sheets or the voting member list and noting people who'd make good officers. Then, talk to these people and encourage them to run. Also talk to other officers; they might know of people who are getting more involved that you don't know about.
If you have positions with no (good, qualified) candidates even after recruiting, you may need to consider people who are already heavily involved or who have held offices in the past. These people are a second choice to getting new people involved, but it's important to have offices filled. Often you'll be able to find someone who will run if no one else is running. For the sake of continuity, it's good to have at least a couple of the officers have been officers before - the Vice Positions are suited for this. Also, if the named officers are all new or students, experienced officers can be encouraged to run for Member at Large.
At elections:
For each position, someone (probably the current position holder) should describe the position. Then, all nominations should be announced (including anyone has has already been nominated and declined). At this point, if there are new nominations, they are allowed. Then each candidate should have time to state their platform, and members should have a chance to ask questions.
Even in uncontested elections, you should still kick the candidates out of the room so that club members can say in closed meeting any concerns they wish to express. Then hold a vote (see the Standing Policies for how votes are conducted).
After a candidate has won, the candidates are allowed back in the room and the process is repeated for the next position.
After Elections:
The results should be announced to the club.
New officers should be added to the mailing list and given other access privileges. See Things new officers might want and Welcome e-mail to new officers for more.