Election Discussions

Election Discussions refer to a segment during elections that follows a candidate's speech and the question and answer segments. The discussion is used by actives to evaluate the merits of candidates running for office. The inclusion of election discussions was meant to ensure that all candidates would be evaluated holistically by the chapter rather than focusing on public speaking skills alone. Actives are encouraged to speak about qualities of candidates that the entire active body may not know about, so long as their comments are constructive and for the betterment of the chapter. Baseless and destructive commentary is prohibited.

History

Many chapters in Section 4, such as Gamma Gamma and Kappa Sigma, feature election discussions. In Spring 2010, Ashish Bhatt and Jhonatan Paredes saw a need to hold officer elections to a higher standard by mitigating them for more soft-spoken yet qualified candidates. Jhonatan heard of election discussions work constructively at Rho Pi whereas Ashish saw it in action at a Kappa Sigma general meeting. After discussing the possibility of bringing this innovation to Iota Phi, they presented the idea at the chapter's general meeting. They explained the idea took an informal show of hands to see how many people would be interested in having the chapter exploring the idea. The vast majority of members were interested.

In the week after the meeting, Ashish Bhatt drafted a proposal for how to run the discussion portion of elections, drawing on feedback from actives and from Chapter Advisor Isaac Liao who had seen the system at Gamma Gamma. The resulting proposal was approved by a nearly unanimous vote and applied immediately that term for the election of Fall 2010 officers.

Proposal

The proposal presented to the chapter for approval can be seen here. The file includes commentary used to rationalize each part of the proposal.

Rules

The rules governing the format and allowable content used to run the first known Iota Phi election with a discussion section can be seen is shown below:

Original Format

1. The chapter advisor(s) and/or Section Rep will moderate discussion.
2. Discussion for a position occurs after all candidates complete their speeches and Q&A sessions.
3. Discussion will only occur for the office of President, Service VP, Membership VP, Fellowship VP, Finance VP, and Pledge Parent
4. Candidates will be asked to leave the room.
5. Total discussion time allowed per position will depend on the number of candidates for that position. Time allowances are as follows:
   1. Max 5 minutes allowed if there are only one (1) or two (2) candidates
   2. Max 8 minutes allowed for three (3) or more candidates
6. Discussion time per person will be limited to 30 seconds max per person.
7. One person can speak a maximum of 2 times per position.
   1. E.g. You can only speak twice for the Membership VP discussion.
8. A person can only speak once acknowledged by the moderator.

Discussion Content

1. Any comments made by a speaker must be relevant to the candidates’ qualification for the position, and must be supported with evidence/reasoning.
2. If no reasoning is offered for a comment or a comment’s relevance is unclear, the moderator will request clarification. If no clarification is offered, the moderator will instruct the chapter to strike that comment.
3. If irrelevant inflammatory comments are made, a speaker may not be selected to speak again for the remainder of the election. Comments are designated as “inflammatory” at the moderator’s discretion.
4. A speaker may not advance a candidate’s speech or refer to a candidate’s ideas if the ideas were not mentioned in their speech.
5. All comments must be addressed only to the moderator.

Revision

The format was slightly revised based on feedback:

Fall 2010

1. Candidates are to be discussed one at a time.
2. Total discussion time allowed per position will depend on the number of candidates for that position. Time allowances are as follows:
   1. Max 5 6 minutes allowed if there are only one (1) or two (2) candidates
      1. Each candidate is discussed for three (3) minutes.
   2. Max 8 minutes allowed for three (3) or more candidates
      1. Each candidate is discussed for two (2) minutes.

Spring 2011

1. Discussion will only occur for the office of President, Service VP, Membership VP, Fellowship VP, Finance VP, and Pledge Parent occur for all offices.
2. Total discussion time allowed per position will depend on the number of candidates for that position. Time allowances are as follows:
   1. Max 6 minutes allowed if there are only one (1) or two (2) candidates
      1. Each candidate is discussed for three (3) minutes.
   2. Max 8 minutes allowed for three (3) or more candidates
      1. Each candidate is discussed for two (2) minutes.
   3. Each candidate is discussed for three (3) minutes if there are only one (1) or two (2) candidates.
   4. Each candidate is discussed for two (2) minutes if there are three (3) or more candidates.

Current Format

1. The chapter advisor(s) and/or Section Rep will moderate discussion.
2. Discussion will occur for all offices.
3. Discussion for a position occurs after all candidates complete their speeches and Q&A sessions.
4. Candidates will be asked to leave the room.
5. Total discussion time allowed per position will depend on the number of candidates for that position. Time allowances are as follows:
   1. Each candidate is discussed for three (3) minutes if there are only one (1) or two (2) candidates.
   2. Each candidate is discussed for two (2) minutes if there are three (3) or more candidates.
6. Discussion time per person will be limited to 30 seconds max per person.
7. One person can speak a maximum of 2 times per position.
   1. E.g. You can only speak twice for the Membership VP discussion.
8. A person can only speak once acknowledged by the moderator.
9. Candidates are to be discussed one at a time.

Reception

The first attempt at election discussions was generally well-received by the chapter. A notable concern was that slightly tighter moderation should be used to avoid too many comments about a candidate's personable qualities and focus on what makes them qualified for the position. A second concern was that actives tended to focus the discussion too much on one candidate and not give the others a fair amount of time for consideration. A proposed solution was to divide the discussion for each position to give an equal amount of time for each candidates and proceed one-by-one.

In Spring 2011, discussion was expanded to all positions. This was not done previously because it would result in the meeting becoming very long. There was much discussion about moving Chapter DSK voting to a different date to have the entire meeting concentrate on elections, but it did not happen this term because the chapter lacked time to fully evaluate how to order the business.