NAISA has five newly elected officers, including Kate Shanley, who will become president-elect of the association at the conclusion of the upcoming annual meeting in Tucson May 20-22. Also, Kim TallBear and Vince Diaz were elected to the NAISA Council, and Joanne Barker and Bronwyn Fredericks were elected to the Nominations Committee. Congratulations to all!

For a short report on the numbers, click read more...

The election closed at noon Central Standard Time (North America) on February 24. At that moment, NAISA had 335 members who were current in their dues. Of those 335, 129 (37%) voted in the election. Close to 400 people who were members in 2009 have not renewed, so the association has many more potential voters. The NAISA constitution, available under documents in the menu of links to the left, mandates that only current members can vote in association elections. The Council has accepted the results of the election, and they should be certified by Nominations Committee Chair Daniel Justice soon.

Compared to last year, fewer members voted this time, but at a higher percentage rate. In 2009, the Acting Council extended voting to everyone who registered for the founding meeting in Athens, Georgia (USA) and everyone who had joined afterwards. Of those 520 potential voters, 170, or a little less than a third, voted.

The "decisions" module of the Drupal website software NAISA uses on this website creates some potentially confusing text, including a running count of "eligible" voters (in the program's terms, those not only who are current in their membership, but who also logged on to the site during the election) and a message to those who did not have current membership and an updated user account that "your vote has been recorded." Multiple messages about these issues were included in a blog post featured on the front page of the website.

Last year's election took place on a dedicated website, and all voters received user accounts and log in information, making voting more direct than this year's system of integrating voting into this website. However, this year multiple offers of assistance were posted in email messages and on the site itself, and every person who requested help with voting was assisted before the voting deadline.

The 2011 election will provide an opportunity to incorporate lessons learned from this election into our developing election practices, so please let me or other members of the Council know what changes you might like to see. You can contact me at rwarrior@illinois.edu. Contact info for other members of the Council is available through the Council link on the left side of this page.