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Annual Elections

The bylaws of OBTS provide for annual elections, traditionally held in early Spring (February and March).  Members vote to elect Board of Directors members to multi-year terms.  Slates may include candidates for OBTS office, committee chair, and member at large.  Ballots must include all proposed bylaws changes, which members can vote to approve or reject.  An Election Committee chaired by existing Board members organizes and conducts each election.  The Society provides a secure, online “voting booth” to verify member status and tabulate member choices automatically. Mail-in ballots are available on request.

Nominations and Candidate Statements

Traditionally, open positions for the following year are announced in early fall and nominations accepted through late November.  Any OBTS member in good standing is eligible to run or to nominate another. 

Once on the election slate, each candidate will be asked to provide a photo and brief statement that answers several questions posed by the Election Committee.  Answers include a description of the candidate's previous involvement with OBTS, a comment on OBTS values and beliefs that resonate with the candidate, and a statement on evolving issues the candidate sees as critical to OBTS in the short and long terms.

Candidates are given ample time to review their online pages and revise their statements or submit replacement photos.  During that period, no candidate can view another's page. After all candidate statements are revised as requested, the election page is "turned on" and members have 30 days in which to read the candidates' statements and vote.  A hard copy of each candidate's statements is available, on request, from the election committee.

The Election Process

Polling typically starts at noon, Greenwich Mean Time, on a day in February or March, and ends at noon, Greenwich Mean Time, thirty days later.

We provide strong 128-bit (1024 bit RSA/SHA) secure connections for both registration and balloting.  The SSL/TLS server is maintained by safe-order.net and OLM, Inc. of Trumbull, CT, USA, in cooperation with OBTS and site-hosting provider Saltmeadow Editorial and Design, LLC.

Preparing to Vote

To vote online, members will need to enter the Members Area of the OBTS website before they can access the virtual ballot. 

Casting Your Ballot

Each member will have an opportunity to vote for a specified number of candidates among the total nominees. Online information on each nominee will be provided via links on a Candidates Page located within the Members Area.  Hardcopy information may be obtained by mail from the Election Committee.

Members may also have an opportunity to vote on Bylaws changes. Those changes, if proposed, and the current Board's reasons for requesting them, will appear on a Referenda Page within the Members Area.  Hardcopy information may be obtained by mail from the Election Committee.

If you vote online, you will receive two copies of your completed ballot: one in the form of an onscreen confirmation page that you may download and print; and one in the form of an email.  The email will be blind-copied to you (to preserve a secret ballot) and addressed to this year's OBTS election officials, so you can be sure the officials are receiving the same confirmation you are.

What you will need to vote online:

• Current membership in OBTS 
  
• Your OBTS member password (which you can have sent to your email address if you have forgotten it)
• Continuing access to the email address you supplied when you last updated your online member profile.