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By Shree S. Vinekar, M.D.
Chair
APA Elections Committee
In March APA's Board of Trustees voted to approve minor revisions in the campaign guidelines as recommended by the APA Elections Committee. With the announcement of the Nominating Committee's selection of candidates for the 1999 election at the September fall components meeting (Psychiatric News, October 2), the campaign season is officially under way, and members, particularly those wishing to support a candidate, will want to be familiar with the campaign guidelines.
The APA Elections Committee is charged with establishing procedures, with the approval of the Board of Trustees, for equitable voting of the membership. These procedures are documented in the campaign guidelines section of the Operations Manual.
Guidelines prescribing members' election-related activities were established by the Board in the early 1970s when APA began having contested elections. Restrictions on campaigning were initially adopted as an attempt to address at least four major concerns: (1) to guard against massive campaign efforts "buying" an election win, particularly if those efforts were financed by resources from outside the membership; (2) the revulsion against campaign committees, war chests, and unwelcome bids for public support; (3) the growing distress of the membership at being deluged with campaign materials; and (4) a feeling held by an unknown proportion of the membership that large-scale campaigning was unseemly and inconsistent with their conception of APA's professional image.
There are three sections to the guidelines: guidelines for the candidates and supporters, guidelines for those holding appointed or elected positions in APA/Area Councils/district branches, and guidelines for the use of electronic media.
The intent of the guidelines is "to encourage fair and open campaigning by APA members on a level playing field, foster opportunities for candidates to educate their colleagues about the issues and about their experiences and views, keep costs down, and maintain dignified and courteous conduct appropriate to the image of a profession."
Challenges to candidates' records are permitted, but not to their character or institution.
Limits on the number of letters that each person may write were established because the committee believes that 400 letters (or 100 for an Area office) is a manageable number for any member wishing to support a candidate. There are no limits on the number of campaign messages sent by e-mail (see A.3 below). The restrictions on the use of individual, institutional, or organizational Web sites and electronic bulletin boards have been lifted. In addition, APA list serves or secure list serves of other psychiatric organizations may be used.
APA's Web site will once again contain information about candidates, with hyperlinks to individual candidates' homepages.
The Elections Committee recognizes that there have been problems (and always will be) in implementing the guidelines and in creating guidelines that are inherently equitable, given the diversity of APA's membership and candidates. Generally, however, candidates have been satisfied with the guidelines, and members and candidates alike feel that the guidelines have achieved the objectives for which they were designed.
Should a serious violation of the guidelines occur, the Elections Committee may invoke the Elections Oversight Board, a group empowered by the Board of Trustees to impose sanctions when egregious violations occur.
The Elections Committee encourages members to get involved in the election process, to support the candidates of their choice, and to encourage others to do so by writing personal letters to friends and colleagues or by personal contact. The committee is open to any suggestions the membership has to improve or change the guidelines.
APA has contracted with Intelliscan Inc., a professional election management firm based in Bridgeport, Pa., in an effort to streamline the voting system and contain costs. The ballots will be formatted for counting votes by optical scanning equipment. The election issue of Psychiatric News (December 4) will contain more information on this new voting system.