From the ABATE Election Committee

by Dave ‘Twit’ Linberg

The deadline for candidacy papers has passed. On page 17 of this newsletter you will see the submitted profiles for the declared candidates for the 2020 ABATE of Wisconsin District Director election and we have published the ballots for each member to cast one vote for the District Director in your District only. You’ll note when you look at the profiles, that all of the districts either have one candidate running unopposed or in the case of Districts 5, no declared candidate at all.

So, is that all there is? Not necessarily. Per our By-laws ABATE of Wisconsin elections have the option of write-in candidates. I’ve included those Bylaw sections here:

Write-in candidates are to be allowed in ABATE of Wisconsin, Inc. state elections.

• Qualifications are to be the same as a registered announced candidate (Candidates for office must be members of ABATE with at least two (2) consecutive years of membership).
• Simple majority vote.
• Any candidate elected as a write-in may not be seated until minimum qualifications are verified by the election committee and the Board of Directors.

Don’t take this information as a sign that I’m saying that we need write in candidates in all the districts at this time. It’s being offered here to make the rules clear in the case that we get people stepping up as a write-in candidate as we have in the last few election cycles.

If you decide you would like to be a write-in candidate, how do you do it? You tell your ABATE member friends that are qualified to vote for you, to write you in (a write-in space will be included on the ballots printed on page 17).You can call them, you can write to them, you can hunt them down at events, you can sing it from the roof tops – but you cannot use ABATE of Wisconsin funds or publications to do so (unless it’s a paid ad.) This decision was made years ago to keep the process as fair as possible. To be as clear as possible on this – you can use your PERSONAL Facebook page to send out information about a write-in candidacy but you cannot post on any ABATE of Wisconsin regional/district Facebook page or the official ABATE of Wisconsin Facebook page. Administrators to all Facebook accounts linked to ABATE of Wisconsin are asked to adhere to this policy and not share any candidate (declared or write-in) posts on their ABATE pages.

You can go to any regional meetings and introduce yourself and ask for votes and/or help in spreading the word to other members. You cannot ask the region to discuss or endorse your candidacy in their regional reports.

If you have any other questions about this process, please give me a call.

Let’s make the best choices on our ballots to keep our organization a strong and vigilant one.

Candidacy for BOD and Executive Committee positions are now open.

Twit