Psychiatr News December 1, 2006
Volume 41, Number 23, page 37
© 2006 American Psychiatric Association
APA's Voting and Ballot Information
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HOW APA'S PREFERENTIAL VOTING SYSTEM WORKS
There are three candidates for trustee-at-large and for member-in-training
trustee-elect (MITTE) in APA's 2007 election. The preferential voting system
will be used for these races. The system avoids the cost and time of a runoff
election by having members vote in a single ballot for all their choices in
order of preference.
Please note that these instructions are for the printed ballot; members
who choose to vote online will find instructions adapted for the computerized
ballot once online. Also, only members-in-training will get ballots with the
MITTE race included.
In the three-way races, next to each candidate's name are three ovals
marked 1, 2, and 3. To mark your ballot, decide which candidate you want to
win. Make a solid mark in the oval marked 1 next to that candidate's name.
Then decide which one of the remaining candidates you would want to win if
your first choice received the lowest number of first-choice votes and was
eliminated from the race. Make a solid mark in the oval marked 2 next to that
candidate's name. Indicate your last choice by making a solid mark in the oval
marked 3 next to the remaining candidate's name.
In preferential voting, voters must decide which candidate they would want
to vote for if the candidate of their first choice receives the lowest number
of first-choice votes and is therefore eliminated from the contest. The only
second-choice votes that are distributed are those on the ballots of the
candidate with the lowest number of first-choice votes. You are not
helping your first-choice candidate in any way by not rank-ordering the
remaining candidates. Conversely, you are not hurting your
first-choice candidate in any way by rank-ordering the remaining
candidates.
The procedures for counting preferential votes are as follows: All
first-choice votes for each candidate are counted. If no candidate receives a
majority vote, the candidate with the lowest number of first-choice votes is
eliminated. His or her ballots are then redistributed to the remaining
candidates based on voters' second choices and added to each of the remaining
candidates' first-choice votes to determine which one has now received a
majority vote.
The three-candidate races will appear on ballots as shown below.
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IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS
•Rank order the candidates. (1, 2, 3 with 1 being your first choice.)
•You need not rank order every candidate.
•You may vote for a single candidate by marking only one oval containing a "1."
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To be sure you get the most out of your APA voting privileges,
rank-order all the candidates in the trustee-at-large race and in the
member-in-training trustee-elect race.
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American Psychiatric Association.
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