A. The Bylaws empower a National Election Supervisor to appoint Local Election Supervisors to oversee the election process and certify the fairness of the elections and that they comply with the Bylaws. Rules and procedures are adopted by the election supervisors rather than by staff, management, or local advisory boards. Although these part-time Supervisors have ultimate authority, it will still be necessary for station management and staff to cooperate in preparing voter lists, coordinating election programming, etc. Ballots will be prepared, mailed, and counted by neutral volunteers appointed by election supervisors, and not by any station management or staff.

A. Some Pacifica stations have pre-existing election committees, perhaps set up by the station Local Advisory Board, for example. However, the new bylaws empower the Local Election Supervisor to appoint an election committee exclusively of neutral individuals. In order to distinguish this committee from pre-existing unofficial election committees, we have adopted the term Election Supervisory Panel for this new neutral group. The Election Supervisory Panel is charged with assisting the Local Election Supervisor in verifying petitions, adopting procedures, counting the votes, etc. Unofficial election committees may continue to function doing diversity outreach, voter education, etc.

A. Every voter will receive statements from all candidates with their ballot. There will also be on-air candidate forums. Those with access to the Internet can also read candidate statements and responses to a candidate questionnaire . A list of candidates will be posted on the elections web site and at the stations when they become available . Most candidates will happily respond to individual questions from voters.

A. There are sharp restrictions on how staff may actively support listener candidates. Paid and unpaid staff, board members and management may not endorse candidates on-air, nor facilitate the use of any station resources, or web sites that utilize station resources, or could be confused for official websites, to benefit some candidates and not others. As purely private individuals, staff may promote listener candidates (such as by an email to a private list not generated with station involvement).

A. Absolute. No Listener candidate may be granted more air time than another. Article Four Section Seven of the Bylaws sets out the fair campaign provisions...

"SECTION 7. FAIR CAMPAIGN PROVISIONS

A. No. Rules adopted by the National Elections Supervisor with approval from the national board extend the same principle of equal access to all station resources such as use of facilities for meetings, photo-copiers, web sites, etc. These supplemental rules read as follows:
No station resources, including, but not limited to, services, and meeting space may be provided to some candidates but not equally to all candidates.
Website endorsements: All members and programmers that maintain a website utilizing Pacifica or station logos or call letters and/or references to their own Pacifica or station programming that could be mistaken for an official web site, are subject to and shall be bound by these rules:

A. No. All candidates must have equal access. This must include at least one candidate forum.

A. The Bylaws require every candidate and every member of the station staff, whether paid or unpaid, to sign the statement.

A. Members should send any complaints to the Local Election Supervisor (elections@kpft.org). The Bylaws give the Local and National Election Supervisors the authority to fashion an “appropriate remedy, up to and including disqualification of the candidate(s) and/or suspension from the air of the offending staff person(s) (paid or unpaid) for the remainder of the elections period.”

A. While the ballot will simply list individual candidates and have no provision for identifying slates, Listener-Sponsor candidates may certainly endorse other Listener-Sponsor candidates and form slates.  Candidates may identify themselves with a slate if they wish in their candidate statement mailed with the ballots and available on-line. Some members, familiar with typical winner-take-all elections have expressed concerns about slates being undesirable. However, slates are not problematic nor something to fret about, because we are using a proportional voting system, rather than a winner-take-all system. In fact, slates may be beneficial for informing voters in an election that could possibly have over 50 candidates. In ranking a large number of candidates, voters may be helped by understanding which candidates have similar views or platforms. The fact that we are not using a winner-take-all voting system means that NO slate can possibly make a sweep of the election, and minority voices will necessarily win their fair share of seats proportionate to their support in the electorate.

A. Not necessarily. Slates can function to organize some voters to concentrate their support, but ironically also may drive away other voters. Candidates who are able to reach out across factional divides may win both first preference votes as well as alternate-choice votes from voters who may lean towards one faction or another. Reaching out for alternate-choice rankings to the supporters of other candidates can be a winning strategy.

A. No. Although the Bylaws give the National Election Supervisor the option of providing for voting over the Internet, for this election cycle the National Election Supervisor has concluded that the importance of having a paper audit trail that can be readily recounted if necessary trumps the convenience that might be achieved for some voters using the Internet.

A. Yes. This election will be using a method of proportional representation, known as “Choice Voting” or “Single Transferable Vote” (STV). In a winner-take-all election, whether for a single seat or for a group of seats, the dominant group has the possibility of electing every single seat in a sweep. This is not possible under proportional representation. All significant (self-defined) minority groups have the chance to elect a fair share of seats proportionate to their share of support among the voters.

A. Proportional representation refers to voting systems in which groups of voters win representation in proportion to their numbers. For example, 10% of the voters will elect approximately 10% of the seats, 20% of voters will elect 20% of the seats, and so forth. The majority wins a majority, but not all of the seats, while minority viewpoints also win their fair share of the seats. The Choice Voting form of proportional representation is a system in which voters rank candidates in order of choice. The method of tallying votes is designed to facilitate each voter having someone elected to the board that is acceptable to him/her. Under winner-take-all voting systems the majority has the potential to elect every single seat on the board, which leaves minority viewpoints unrepresented.
Instead of one dominant group of voters choosing all 18 Listener-Delegates, and all smaller losing groups having no representation, with Proportional Representation, eighteen sub-constituencies of around 6% of the electorate each will elect their favored representative. By voting for your favorite candidate (as well as alternate choices), you determine which candidate will represent you. By ranking candidates in order of preference (1, 2, 3, etc.) if your favorite candidate has more than enough votes to win a seat, your vote will not be wasted, but will instead automatically count for your next favorite candidate. Likewise, if your favorite candidate has so little support that she or he cannot win a seat, your vote will also not be wasted, but will instead count for your next choice who is still in the running.

A. The details are spelled out in Article 15, Section 1 of the Bylaws (click here). But here is a summary of how the winners are determined:

First a 'winning threshold' needs to be calculated, which is the minimum number of votes a candidate needs to get elected. To calculate the winning threshold the total number of valid ballots cast is divided by one more than the number of seats to be filled, plus one vote.

Each voter has a single vote, but that vote may end up being divided into fractions of a vote that help elect more than one candidate.

Any candidates who have enough votes (first preferences) to reach the winning threshold are declared elected. If a candidate receives more votes than needed to win a seat, the “surplus” portion of each vote in a winning candidate's pile will be transferred to each of those voters' next preference candidate so that each vote can be fully used.

If there are still unfilled places after the first preferences have been dealt with and any surpluses transferred, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and voters who favored that candidate have their votes transferred to the voters' second preferences. Any candidate who now has more than the winning threshold is declared elected.

This process continues until all of the seats are filled.

A. Choice Voting (STV) has been used for over a hundred years in thousands of elections for both governments and private associations. For example, it is used to elect the national legislature in Ireland, and the Senate in Australia, and was used by over 20 cities in the United States, including New York City at the time of Mayor LaGuardia. Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only U.S. city that uses it today.

A. While each case was unique, as a general rule proportional representation was repealed because it worked exactly as intended. It allowed full diversity on city councils, including racial minorities and third party candidates. The dominant groups in these cities were eventually convinced to repeal proportional representation so that the majority could again exclude minorities.

A. The actual casting of a vote is quite simple, though different than most voters are accustomed to. Instead of entering a number of “check marks,” electors simply enter the numbers 1, 2, 3, ... etc. next to their preferred candidates, in order of choice. Indeed, they need only express as many preferences, or contingency choices, as they desire, i.e. from just one, up to as many as there are candidates running for election.