Release INFORMS Election Vote Counts to Members
Motivation: The results of the INFORMS election indicate the winners, but do not provide the actual votes of the election, As a professional society that supports data science, greater transparency around our elections are needed. The INFORMS Policies & Procedures, Section 4: Administration, NUMBER 4.5, NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS FOR THE BOARD, Subsection: Notification of Outcomes of Elections states:
As soon as practicable after balloting is closed, the Secretary, or designee, will inform each candidate as to whether they were elected to the office for which they were standing. The Secretary, or designee, will publicize the list of persons elected on the appropriate INFORMS channels. The vote counts for elections will not be released.
If INFORMS members would like to have the last sentence changed so that the vote counts are released, please sign this petition to support such a change. Here is the proposed new wording:
As soon as practicable after balloting is closed, the Secretary, or designee, will inform each candidate as to whether they were elected to the office for which they were standing. The Secretary, or designee, will publicize the list of people elected on the appropriate INFORMS channels. [LANGUAGE PROPOSED TO BE ELIMINATED: The vote counts for elections will not be released.] The vote counts of the candidates will be sent directly via email to the Secretary, the President and the Executive Director by the vendor who is overseeing the election process. These numbers will then be reported by the Secretary to the INFORMS membership. If any race results in the two candidates receiving within 0.5 percent of the total number of votes casts,the vendor will also provide an anonymized list of each candidates’ votes, labeled by unique voter registration and time that the vote was cast.