1/6/22 – Rules for Officer Elections

An election for First Vice-Chair of the Johnson County Democratic Party will be held during the regularly scheduled meeting of the central committee on January 6th, 2022.

This election will be conducted according to the rules below:

  1. The election of officers conducted on January 6th, 2022, will be conducted by a Google Doc form unless there is only one nominee, in which case a motion for election by acclamation would be in order. 
  1. The Chair will appoint three (3) Tellers to count the votes and to report the results back to the Chair.  
  1. There are no secret ballots in the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP Constitution – Art. XII, Sec. III).  Therefore, the name and vote of each Central Committee member will be listed on the Google Doc in alphabetical order.  The spreadsheet will contain a column for each nominee for the position. To cast a vote, each Central Committee member will find their name on the spreadsheet. Then they will mark the column labeled with the candidate’s name that they wish to vote for beside their name. 
  2. Members cannot vote for more than one candidate on any particular round of voting.
  1. The nominees will be listed on the Google Doc form in the order in which they were nominated.  
  1. To be elected, a nominee must receive 50% + 1 of votes cast.  If there are more than two (2) nominees and no candidate receives a majority vote, then the lowest vote-getter will be dropped, and a new election will be held with the remaining nominees. This process will be repeated until one nominee receives a majority vote.  If, however, the election ends in a tie, the winner will be determined by the flip of a coin.  
  1. Nominations do not need to be seconded.  
  1. Nominating speeches are limited to a period of not more than one (1) minute.
  1. After nominations are concluded, each nominee will be allowed to address the Central Committee for a period of not more than three (3) minutes.  Nominees will speak in the same order in which they were nominated.  
  1. After all nominees have spoken, the Chair will entertain questions for the nominees from the floor for a period not to exceed ten (10) minutes.  This period may be extended up to an additional ten (10) minutes by a majority vote of the Central Committee.  The time allotted for questioning will not exceed a total of twenty (20) minutes.  There will not be a question period for an unopposed nominee.