The Elections Committee, in keeping with a recommendation approved by the Board of Trustees in 2001, reports on the campaign experience, including violations of campaign guidelines, after each election. The committee extends its thanks to all candidates for their participation in the election and their cooperation with the committee.
Following a practice established several years ago, the Elections Committee held a conference call with nearly all candidates in October 2003 to review the election guidelines and to answer questions. The committee also used ElectCom, the list serve set up for use by the committee and candidates to post questions and answers about the guidelines and the election process. We believe that both the conference call and the list serve continue to be useful tools in providing candidates with the information they need to comply with the guidelines and in minimizing the number of violations.
The Elections Committee is pleased to report that it encountered only minor violations of campaign guidelines in the course of the 2004 election campaign.
There were two instances in which members used APA list serves (an Area list serve and the Assembly list serve) for campaign purposes. The only APA list serve (including district branch list serves) that may be used for campaigning is Member-to-Member. The committee will consider a change in this guideline to clarify that Area list serves are not to be used for campaigning and to re-emphasize that Member-to-Member is the only APA list serve that can be used.
There was one instance in which a district branch newsletter published a news item of the candidacy of one of its members but included a sentence that crossed the line from biography to campaigning. The committee will consider including the district branch executives of the branches to which the candidates belong in the conference call prior to the election, since those are the district branches most likely to publish information on the candidates in their newsletters.
Lastly, a candidate’s photo appeared in the Daily Bulletin of APA’s Institute on Psychiatric Services. The candidate did seek clarification on whether the photo could appear, but the photo was printed before the issue could be resolved. The photo should not have appeared, but the candidate could not be held accountable for it.
The Elections Committee will meet in May to review the 2004 election experience and report any recommendations for changes in the guidelines to the Board in June. The committee welcomes feedback about any aspect of the election, from the ballot design to candidate campaigning. Comments should be e-mailed to Carol Lewis at [email protected]. ▪
