Student Organization Election: Procedures and Guidelines

If you are the president or on the executive board for a student organization or group on your college campus, one of the most important responsibilities and duties that you have is ensuring that group elections at the end of the spring term go smoothly and that you have competent people in power in your organization who can get the job done.

Very often I have seen student group's put incompetent people in power simply because they forgot to notify their dedicated members about the elections or forgot to tell someone they had to submit a letter of intent in order to run for the position. Other times, the positions that were up for an election were not properly communicated to the group's membership. There are a slew of different things that can go horribly wrong for your organization. All that it takes for your organization to go downhill and fall apart is for incompetent people to be elected into office.

Rules, Regulations and Election Procedures: The first thing that you will need to consult for the elections in your organization is your organization's bylaws or constitution. Every organization should have an existing rules and regulations in heir bylaws or constitution concerning the governance and protocol for elections. Some organization have a secret ballot vote, others have a voice vote or raising your hand to vote for someone. Elections regulations vary considerably from organization to organization so you want to make sure that you are familiar with all election proceedings heading into the election. That way, if someone tries to challenge something, you can point to your knowledge of the club's bylaws as what that regulation or procedure is being done.