This spring, American Mensa will be having an election. Voter turnout is traditionally low in Mensa elections. The rationale has been offered that the lack of voter participation is because people don't care who wins or don't know the candidates. There is not much that I can do about the former, but I can help with the latter. I approached my Regional Vice Chairman (RVC), Sallie Banko, who is not a candidate in this election, about using the Region 2 website to give the members of our region as much information as we can about the candidates. She liked the idea and gave me permission to set it up and develop a set of rules that were fair to all potential candidates. The first issue I faced was that of inclusion. For the first time in many years, Region 2 was expected to have two candidates seek the office of Regional Vice Chairman. The Nominating Committee (NomCom) came up with one candidate, Ed Gordon. Thereafter, Jim Lange announced that he would run on petition. Officially, the only RVC 2 candidate was the NomCom candidate. Based on the Election Procedures, it could have been several months before there were any official petition candidates. If I had waited until all candidates were official, that wouldn't have left much time for the people to get to know the candidates. If I offered space only to currently official candidates, the petition candidate(s) would be at a serious disadvantage. Therefore, I decided to offer space to any Region 2 member who came forward with the intent of submitting a valid petition to run for RVC. If they later changed their mind or failed to submit a valid petition, they would be removed from the website. The other issue I faced was what content to provide. Each candidate was allowed to submit a bio, including a photo, list of Mensa positions held, reason for seeking office, and a non-Mensa biography. In addition, the candidates were asked a series of questions, with the questions and answers posted to the website. No answers would be posted until each candidate had the chance to submit an answer. All editors and LocSecs in Region 2 were sent a notice about this website and a request to notify their members about the website and encourage them to submit questions for the candidates. Questions were sent to the webmaster, who forwarded them directly to the candidates and then awaited the candidates' responses. One member expressed concern that since questions could not be posted directly to the website, there could be problems with the perception of censorship. That concern is partly correct. If a question were deemed inappropriate for the election, it would not be used. For example, I would not allow the question "What is your annual salary?" to be used because it is a personal question that has nothing to do with the election. Like all volunteers, I'm learning more about website creation by doing this at the same time that the members of the region are learning more about their candidates. You do not have to be a paid professional webmaster to help your own region create a website or a section on its existing website that serves as a candidate information center. The twists and complications of election material untangle for voters as more information appears on the Web. Please check out our website. It is updated on a regular basis as new information becomes available. If anyone from outside Region 2 would like to check out our site, please feel free to do so. Maybe it will encourage you to create your own candidate website for your region during the next election.
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