Election Rules
For President
1. Nominations, or self nominations for the position of President will be sought between the formal announcement of the General Assembly and 12.00 midday on the day before the General Assembly. All nominations must be made by Full Members in writing to the General Secretary and signed by the candidate or nominator. Candidates nominated by others must confirm their willingness to stand in writing. The General Secretary will publish lists of candidates to the membership and update them as necessary before the General Assembly.
2. If there is only one candidate, general acclamation will be sought at the General Assembly, rather than a secret ballot. If ten or more Full Members demand a secret ballot, it will be arranged. The ballot forms will ask for a "yes" or "no" response to that candidate. If the "no" response is a majority, the new Executive Council will elect its own President from its own membership. The outgoing President and the rejected candidate may not be considered. If this is not possible, one of the Vice-Presidents on the EC before the election will serve as an acting President until an extraordinary General Assembly can be arranged. This person should be identified by the EC at its first meeting after every General Assembly and they should also be expected to take over from the President in his/her absence.
3. If there are two candidates, there will be a simple secret ballot and the candidate with most votes will win. In the event of both candidates receiving the same number of votes, subsequent ballots will be held as necessary.
4. If there are more than two candidates, a series of ballots will be held. If one candidate receives a majority of votes cast in any ballot, he/she will win. Otherwise, the candidate with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated and further ballots held until the number of candidates is reduced to two, at which point rule 3 will apply. Candidates will be given the opportunity to withdraw and address the membership after any ballot, if not eliminated.
5. All candidates in a contested election will be given the same amount of time to address the General Assembly in an order decided by the drawing of lots. They will also be given the opportunity, in advance of the General Assembly, to have written statements posted on the website and distributed at the conference and General Assembly.
6. The oldest and youngest Full Members present at the General Assembly will be appointed to assist the General Secretary in the election procedure, to help with the distribution of ballot papers and the gathering of completed ballots, and to observe that the counting of votes is correctly done.
7. All ballot papers will be signed in ink by the General Secretary to prevent fraud. The ballot papers will be distributed according to the register of attendees compiled at the beginning of the General Assembly - one to each Full Member organisation present. Ballot papers for proxy votes will be distributed at the same time.
8. According to the statutes, every Full Member may pass its vote to another Full Member if it will not be represented at the General Assembly, but each Full Member present may receive only one such proxy vote. Only those present may vote. The General Secretary will prepare official proxy vote transfer forms and these will be available for downloading from the website and will be distributed with the official notice of the General Assembly and available at the conference. Only properly filled in forms, signed in ink, will be accepted and the deadline for returning such forms to the General Secretary will be one hour before the scheduled start of the General Assembly. The General Secretary will announce the proxy votes at the time of the compilation of the register of attendees and the member organisation will be registered as represented at the General Assembly. Ballot forms representing the proxy vote will be given to the Full Member designated to cast it, at the time of the distribution of ballots.
9. The result of each ballot, including the number of votes cast for each candidate, will be announced at the General Assembly and included in the minutes.
Nomination form for President
Self-nomination form for President
For places on the Executive Council
10. The nomination procedure for places on the Executive Council will be the same as that for President, as set out in section 1 above. Six places on the Executive Council will be filled at each election. Members of the Executive Council whose four-year period of office has expired must stand for re-election if they wish to continue as members.
11. If the number of candidates is six or less, election by general acclamation will be sought at the General Assembly, rather than a secret ballot.
12. If the number of candidates is greater than six, a secret ballot will be held. Each Full Member must cast six votes for their vote to be valid. The six candidates receiving the most votes will be elected to serve on the Executive Council.
13. The election will be conducted according to the rules set out in sections 5 to 9 above. Only one ballot will be held, unless two or more candidates receiving the same number of votes results in more than six being eligible for places. In this event, those candidates clearly elected will take the relevant number of places and subsequent ballots will be held for the remaining places between the candidates receiving the same number of votes. Each Full Member must cast the same number of votes as the number of places remaining to be filled for their vote to be valid.
14. If the successful Presidential candidate is a member of the Executive Council with a further two years' mandate left, that position on the Executive Council will either remain unfilled or will be filled by a co-opted individual, but will not be filled by election at the General Assembly. If the successful Presidential Candidate was also a candidate for the Executive Council elections, his/her name will be removed from the ballot paper. Unsuccessful Presidential candidates may only be candidates for election to the Executive Council if nominated in advance according to the rules under section 1 above.
15. According to the Statutes, membership of the Executive Council is personal to the elected individual, and not available to the Full Member organisation which he/she represents for disposal to another individual. However, the rules of co-option allow that the Executive Council may, at its discretion, invite a Full Member organisation to nominate a different individual to complete the term of office of an elected individual, only in the event that the elected individual has ceased to work for that organisation or has moved to another part of the organisation unconnected with the objectives of FIAT/IFTA.
Nomination form for Executive Council
Self-nomination form for Executive Council
Offical proxy vote transfer form
