2012-13 Elections Open Until March 15 at 4:00 PM Eastern
February 3, 2012 The official balloting for candidates for the 2012-13 AACE International election began on February 1 and will conclude on March 15, 2012 at 4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.
The 2012 slate of candidates from the Nominating Committee was posted at the website on Nov. 15 to meet the bylaws mandate for presenting this information to the membership. The Nominating Committee added an “Ask Your Candidates” where candidates have been asked 10 questions regarding their candidacy. Their answers have been posted online for voting members to review. The questions and candidate responses may be viewed here.
Also on the 2012 ballot is a constitution amendment to remove an inconsistency between the AACE constitution and bylaws regarding the percentage of for votes required to pass amendments. Currently, the constitution requires a three-fourths affirmative vote while the bylaws requires a two-thirds affirmative vote. The 2012 constitution amendment would unify the affirmative vote at two-thirds for both the constitution and the bylaws to avoid a potential conflict in the future. The Board of Directors endorses the proposed constitutional change and urges the members to vote in favor of this provision.
Which ballot a member receives is determined by what they listed as their primary section membership as of December 31. Director-Region officers will be elected for Regions 1,2,4,7, and 9. In accordance with policy, members must have made any changes in their primary section classification no later than Dec. 31, 2011. The master voter list was determined based upon the section selections made as of Dec. 31, 2011. Any member who joined for the first time since January 1, 2012 will not be eligible to vote in the 2012-13 election.
Members in regions not electing a director-region candidate will receive a ballot that does not include access to any of the director-region candidates. Members in the regions electing a director-region candidate will receive a ballot with the candidate(s) for their particular region.Director-region candidates are elected by members in each specific region, including at large members in that region, and not by the membership as a whole.
Qualified voters may access the candidate bio, goals, photos and the actual ballots from the AACE website. AACE contracts with Votenet Solutions to be the independent 3rd party provider of the election software used to set up and oversee the integrity of the voting process. Once a member logs in and saves their choices on a ballot, they cannot alter or amend their vote. We have had rare cases of a member voting and then contacting AACE headquarters complaining that they voted on the wrong ballot. Once anyone completes their voting, we cannot do anything to allow you to revote based upon any errors you made with the original ballot you cast. Any attempt to alter or recast a ballot will result in Votenet election officials challenging that ballot and removing it from the official tally of votes cast.
If you log on and feel you receive a ballot for the wrong director-region candidates or you receive no director-region candidates but believe you are in a region electing a candidate in 2012, stop immediately and contact AACE headquarters before proceeding with completing your ballot. If you vote for board members and complete the process, believing you can then go back and get a ballot for the director-region candidates, that is a wrong assumption. You only get one time to save and submit a ballot and that one time will conclude your ability to vote in 2012.
Anyone with any election questions can e-mail editor@aacei.org. If you e-mail or call after regular office hours or on weekends, you probably will not receive an answer to your question until the next business day when staff is in the office.
Please remember that for the 2012 election, voting will close at 4 p.m. Eastern US time on March 15, 2012. In prior years, we have had voters wait until very close to the completion of voting times in the middle of the night and then encounter problems that prevented them from voting. This meant that the issues could not be resolved until after the election had been officially closed. In response, the Board of Directors changed the voting procedures to assure that staff would be available in the moments leading up to the closing of the election process. Please cast your votes early enough that if you encounter problems there is time for AACE headquarters to respond and attempt to help you have a successful voting experience. The 4:00 PM March 15 cut off will be an automatic computer controlled shut down of voting and cannot be changed.
