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2009 School Board Caucus Rules
2009 Democratic School Board Endorsement Update
Under the School Board Caucus rules ACDC adopted on December 3, 2008, today, Monday, March 9, 2009 at 5 PM, was the deadline for candidates to file seeking to obtain the 2009 Democratic endorsement for the one seat on the Arlington School Board which is up for election on November 3, 2009. As of that 5 PM deadline, only one candidate, James Lander, had filed seeking that Democratic endorsement.
Accordingly, ACDC will now proceed in accordance with Section 1) e) of our rules. In summary, the actions that ACDC now will take are:
- ACDC will cancel the School Board caucus previously scheduled for May 7 and May 9, 2009.
- The ACDC Steering Committee, at its regularly-scheduled meeting on March 25, 2009, will vote on whether to recommend James Lander as the candidate to receive the Democratic endorsement for Arlington School Board. If the Steering Committee votes to recommend that James Lander receive that endorsement, then:
- The full voting membership of ACDC will vote at our regularly-scheduled April 1, 2009 meeting on whether to endorse James Lander as our candidate for Arlington School Board.
Rules for the 2009
Thursday, May 7 (7
p.m. to 9 p.m.) and Saturday, May 9,
2009
11:00 a.m. to 7:00
p.m.
at National Rural
Electric Cooperative Association on May 7
and
I)
Candidate filing
requirements:
a) In order to be eligible for endorsement by the participants in the unassembled Caucus, candidates for Arlington County School Board must file a letter of intent to seek the Democratic endorsement with the Chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee, or his designated representative, at Arlington County Democratic Headquarters, 2009 14th St. N, Suite 612 Arlington, VA 22201 by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 9, 2009.
b) Each letter of intent must include:
i) An affirmation that the candidate is legally eligible to run for Arlington County School Board; a Democrat; a resident of and registered to vote in Arlington County, Virginia; that he or she does not intend to run against -- or support, endorse or assist any candidate who is opposed to -- a Democratic nominee or endorsee in the general election; that he or she is not a member of any other political party; that he or she has not participated and will not participate in the nomination process of any other political party for the general election; and that he or she has read, understood and agrees to abide by the Rules of the Caucus.
ii) An original signature (faxed letter of intent is not sufficient).
c) Candidate filings must be received by not later than 5 p.m. on Monday, March 9, 2009. Candidates may file through a designated agent, but such action in no way alters the responsibility of the candidate nor extends the 5 p.m. Monday, March 9, 2009 filing deadline. Candidates and/or their agents must be present at Arlington County Democratic Headquarters at 5 p.m. to draw lots for choice of ballot placement. Campaigns not present at that time will be given the remaining slots in random order, determined by lot under the supervision of the Chair in the presence of the candidates/agents present.
d) Only those candidates who have properly filed by 5 p.m. on Monday, March 9, 2009, will be listed on the official ballot and be eligible for endorsement. A candidate may request a receipt from the Chair confirming acceptance of a valid filing. At any time before 5 p.m. Monday, April 27 the Party Chair may rule ineligible for endorsement any candidate making false or misleading statements on his or her Candidate filing, or failing to pay the filing fee. The candidate may file an appeal to overrule the Chair to the ACDC Appeals Committee as provided in rule VIII. In the event a candidate is declared ineligible, the provisions of rule III-b will apply as if the candidate had withdrawn.
e) In the event that exactly one candidate has made a valid filing by the Monday, March 9, 2009 deadline, the Caucus will be canceled and those individuals will be considered proposed for the ACDC endorsement for School Board, and the list of possible candidates will be considered closed. At the April 1, 2009 meeting, ACDC will vote to determine whether the proposed candidate would effectively represent the principles of the Democratic Party. Unless otherwise determined by the Steering Committee, debate on the motion will be limited to 10 minutes after a 5-minute statement by the proposed candidate, unless extended by a 2/3 vote of ACDC. The Steering Committee may issue special rules for debate of such a motion, except that:
i) One motion per candidate to endorse that proposed candidate will automatically be considered in order, and not subject to amendment by less than a 2/3 vote of ACDC; and
ii) A majority vote in favor of the motion to endorse the School Board candidate will be necessary for that motion to endorse to pass. A failure of a endorsing motion to be made and pass will result in the application of rule I-f as if no candidate had filed for the position.
f) In the event that no candidate has made a valid filing by the Monday, March 9, 2009 deadline, the Caucus will be canceled and the Steering Committee will have the sole power to determine when and/or whether a motion to endorse a School Board candidate at a subsequent meeting of ACDC will be in order. The Steering Committee may issue special rules for debate of such motion, if made in order.
g) To constitute a valid Candidate filing, a non-refundable fee of four hundred and thirty-two dollars and 16 cents ($432.16) (two percent of the starting salary of a School Board member) in the form of and made payable the Arlington County Democratic Committee must accompany the letter of intent.
II)
Candidate
Forum
ACDC will sponsor a candidate forum in April 2009 to be conducted by the Caucus Director, to which all qualified candidates will be invited. The forum will provide all candidates an equal opportunity to present their views, and the order of speaking will be determined by lot.
III)
Ballots
a) A ballot will be prepared that lists the names of all qualified candidates in an order determined according to rule I-c. Candidates' names will appear as they are intended or expected to appear on the General Election ballot.
b) If a candidate wishes to withdraw from consideration by the Caucus participants, he or she must notify the Party Chair in writing by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 6, 2009. If enough candidates withdraw before 5 p.m. Monday, May 4, 2009 such that there are one or fewer candidates remaining, the Caucus will be cancelled and the provisions of rule I-e or I-f will apply, respectively, except that the May 6, 2009 ACDC meeting will be substituted for the April 1, 2009 ACDC meeting. Candidates that withdraw prior to 5 p.m. Monday, May 4, 2009 will not appear on the ballot. Otherwise, withdrawn candidates will remain on the ballot, but votes for the candidate will not be counted toward that candidate and a list of those candidates that have withdrawn will be posted in a prominent place at the Caucus location.
c) A participant may not vote for more than one candidate. The ballot will instruct participants to vote for one candidate.
IV)
Caucus
Officials and other authorized persons
and activities
a) The Chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee will serve as Chair of the Caucus.
b) The Secretary of the Arlington County Democratic Committee will serve as the Secretary of the Caucus.
c) The Sergeant-at-Arms of the Arlington County Democratic Committee will serve as the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Caucus.
d) The Parliamentarian of the Arlington County Democratic Committee, or his designee, will serve as the Parliamentarian of the Caucus.
e) If for any reason, any of the Officers named in IV-a through IV-d are unable or unwilling to serve as an Officer of the Caucus, he or she shall notify the Caucus Director in writing, and the Caucus Director may appoint a substitute.
f) Prior to the approval of these rules, the Chair, in consultation with the Sergeant-at-Arms, will appoint and the ACDC Steering Committee will approve, a Caucus Director to manage the Caucus event. The Chair may also exercise all duties of the Director in the absence of the Director.
g) An Assistant Director, appointed by the Director, will be responsible for volunteer recruitment and outreach to the Young Democrats.
h) A Curbside Voting Official, appointed by the Director, will be responsible for accepting curbside ballots from mobility impaired voters.
i) A Caucus Database Manager, appointed by the Director, will be responsible for obtaining a registered voter list and for supervising the checking of all voters against that list.
j) The Director will appoint (or remove) any and all Caucus officials as necessary for the operation of the Caucus except the Director may not appoint substitute members of the Arbitration Committee. On the day of the Caucus, the Director may act as Caucus Chair, Secretary of the Caucus and/or Sergeant-at-Arms of the Caucus, or appoint persons to act in those positions, during any period that the persons holding those offices may be absent from the Caucus or are ineligible under rule IV-p.
k) All Caucus officials must wear credentials so identifying them. No Caucus official may engage in partisan activity (i.e. activity supporting or opposing a particular candidate) while performing the duties of a Caucus official, or while wearing official credentials.
l) Each candidate (or campaign) may designate up to two (2) poll watchers. With the permission of the Director, a campaign may "swap out" one poll watcher for another. Each poll watcher must wear credentials identifying him or her as such. No person will be allowed to serve as a poll watcher and a Caucus official at the same time. No individual may engage in partisan activity while performing the duties of a poll watcher, or while wearing official credentials. No poll watcher may initiate a conversation with any voter (though he or she may assist a voter who requests it) without the permission of the Director, nor may a poll watcher interfere with the privacy of individual voters casting ballots.
m) Representatives from the press and other media outlets will be issued credentials as observers. Those issued credentials must not interfere with the voting process or the privacy of individual voters.
n) The Director may request the Sergeant-at-Arms to eject any person from the Caucus whose behavior is disruptive to the good order, conduct, fairness, effectiveness, security and/or decorum of the Caucus. Such request will result in the immediate and automatic loss of whatever rights, privileges or actions to which the person might otherwise have thereafter been entitled (e.g. to apply for a ballot, cast a ballot, or observe the election), and to any organization the person may represent. Readmission to the Caucus (if at all) of the person or represented organization, and/or restoration of any lost right, privilege or entitled action will thereafter be in the discretion of the Director. For purposes of this rule "the Caucus" includes all parts of the facility and surrounding property on which the Caucus is conducted.
o) Any and all decisions by any Caucus official (including those of the Director but excluding certifications by the Teller, Arbitration, and Provisional Teller Committees) may be appealed to the Director, and then to the Chair. Except as otherwise provided in rule VIII, the decision of the Chair will be final.
p) The following individuals may not publicly endorse or support any candidate seeking the school board endorsement:
- Party
Chair
- Party Deputy
Chair
- Caucus
Director
- Caucus Assistant
Director
- Curbside Voting
Official
- Caucus Database
Manager
- Head
Teller
- Tellers (other than campaign-designated)
The
Chair shall remain neutral except in
extraordinary circumstances
where the Chair together with a 2/3 vote of
the
ACDC Steering Committee perceives that a
candidate is not a Democrat or
that a candidate's behavior violates the tenets
of the Arlington County
Democratic Committee.
V)
Caucus
Procedures
a) No more than 1 hour before the start of each day of the election, the Director will, in the presence of the Chair, and any candidate representatives, open a ballot box to ensure that it is empty, and seal the box in a manner that makes it impractical to open without evidence of tamper. During the course of the Caucus, if a second or subsequent ballot box is required, it will be opened and then sealed using the same procedure.
b) At 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 7, 2009, the Director will open the doors to the Caucus at National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and declare that the Caucus has begun. The vote will be held from 7:00 p.m. until the last person in line to vote at 9:00 p.m. has cast his or her ballot.
c) At 9:00 p.m. the ballot box must be sealed and secured until the resumption of voting at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 9, 2009. The Director will be responsible for ballot security during this interval.
d)
At 11 a.m.
on Saturday May 9, 2009, the Director
will open the doors to the Caucus at
e) The Secretary will maintain a formal record of the proceedings, including the certifications indicated in rule VI and rule VII.
f) No campaigning or other partisan activities will be permitted inside either Caucus building, and all campaigning and partisan activities are prohibited within forty (40) feet outside any entrance to the building. The use of any amplified audio system will not be permitted within three hundred (300) feet of the building.
g) At the door of the Caucus, the participants will receive the Democratic Party declaration form, which will require each participant's full name and address, and a location for the participant to sign the following pledge:
I
certify that I am a resident of and registered
to
vote in
h) The fact that a voter participated in the Caucus will be considered a public act, and ACDC has the right to disclose to any person the fact that a person has participated in the Caucus. However, a participant may request that information provided on the declaration form not be used by ACDC for purposes unrelated to the School Board election (e.g. that it not be used by ACDC for mailings in future elections).
i) After participants have completed and signed the declaration form, they will submit the form to a Caucus official who will ensure that the form is completed in full, including signature, after which a Caucus official will check the information against the Registered Voter List ("RVL.") A form identified by a Caucus official as not having been completed accurately and in full, as not including a signature, or as containing alterations to the pledge, will be rejected, although the participant will be eligible to complete a new form.
j) Each candidate may designate in writing poll watchers to observe, but not interfere with the validation process. Any question regarding the eligibility of a voter should be taken immediately to the Database Manager or the Caucus Director. Poll watchers may have access to the completed registration forms, for the purposes of checkoff, under terms and conditions set by the Caucus Director to avoid interference with registration and to provide equitable access to the data for all candidates.
k)
A person
fulfilling the requirements of rule V-g, above is eligible to vote if
the
person is validly registered by the Arlington
County Voter Registrar on or
before the close of business on May 6 2009, for
persons seeking to vote on May 7,
and on or before the close of business on May
8, 2009, for persons seeking to
vote on May 9. Each
participant with a
properly completed declaration form will be
checked against the Caucus copy of
the RVL to ascertain his or her voting
eligibility. If an
individual is not listed on the Caucus
copy of the RVL, the voter may offer a
certificate of voting eligibility (i.e.
a voter registration card) issued by the
Arlington Voter Registrar on or after April
1, 2009, in which case the individual will be
allowed to vote in the ordinary
fashion. If the
voter believes he or she
is registered to vote in Arlington, but is not
on the RVL and does not have a
certificate of voting eligibility from the
Registrar (DMV receipts do not
count), and his or her registration cannot be
confirmed by the Registrar's
office by phone, the Director will instruct a
Caucus official to provide the
individual with a provisional ballot which must
be marked and returned to the
Director, who will seal the ballot and affix to
the sealing instrument the
voter's identifying information. The Arlington
Registrar of Voters will verify
whether those individuals who cast provisional
ballots were registered voters
as of the above deadlines on Monday, May 11,
2009. Those
verified as registered voters of
l) Participants who successfully register to participate in the Caucus will be given a vote ticket and instructed to proceed towards the area where the ballots are located.
m) When participants with a vote ticket arrive at the location where ballots are located, a pair of Caucus officials will hand them one official paper ballot in exchange for the vote ticket, with a procedure ensuring only one ballot is given to each participant. The Caucus officials will take the participant's vote ticket, provide any needed voting instruction, and direct the voter to the location where he or she may make his or her ballot selection.
n) Voters will mark their ballots in a setting that permits observation by Caucus officials, but also permits voter privacy and confidentiality of voter choice.
o) Upon marking his or her ballot, each voter may fold the ballot and must place the ballot into the ballot box. A vote is not considered cast until it has been placed into the box.
p) A participant with a physical disability may request the physical assistance of one or more Caucus officials to execute any of the tasks listed in this section (e.g. to read and/or mark any form and/or place a ballot in the ballot box). "Curbside" voting is permitted with the permission of either the Curbside Voting Official or the Director if necessary to accommodate a disabled participant, but such ballots will be cast in the same format as a provisional ballot and delivered to the Curbside Voting Official or to the Director. In the case of a curbside vote, a Caucus official must deliver all materials to the voter, observe the declaration, registration verification, and delivery and marking of such a ballot, and must return the ballot to the Curbside Voting Official or to the Director. The Curbside Voting Official or the Director must place each curbside ballot into the ballot box at some time before the ballot box is removed for counting, and publicly announce his action in the presence of the person(s) watching the ballot box.
q) Five minutes before the appointed end time of each day, the Director or his designee will step outside the doors of the Caucus room and again outside the Caucus building to announce that the Caucus voting will end at the appointed time and at that time the doors to the Caucus will be closed. All persons in line at the entrance doors at the appointed end time will be allowed to vote. Any person not in line by the appointed time will not be allowed to vote.
r) On Friday, May 8, 2009 for not less than a two-hour period designated by the ACDC Chair, declaration forms completed on Thursday, May 7, 2009 will be made available for inspection by any candidate representative.
s) The Director may, in consultation with the candidates/campaigns, make reasonable adjustments to the procedures in this rule for reasons including public safety, force majeure, unavailability of necessary resources or facilities or other unforeseen events.
t) The Director may rent tables located between the voting area and the exit of the caucus to Democratic-related organizations for a fee of $50.
VI) Determination of Endorsees: Counting Votes; Certification; Announcement of Results.
a) Except in accordance with this paragraph no ballots will be counted until all eligible voters have cast their votes. In the event that:
1. a suitable sequestration area is available in the Caucus location, and
2. the Teller Committee is present,
the Director may, no earlier than noon Saturday, May 9, 2009, permit filled ballot boxes to be counted. Otherwise, ballots will be counted immediately at the conclusion of voting on Saturday, May 9, 2009.
b) The Director will appoint a Teller Committee to count the votes. This committee will be comprised of one or more representatives of each candidate (provided that the same number are appointed from each campaign), as well as a Head Teller and up to three other Caucus Officials as designated by the Director.
c) The Head Teller and all other tellers that are not candidate representatives must not have publicly endorsed any School Board candidate. All members of the Teller Committee must agree to be sequestered and not to communicate with the outside world from the time the first ballot box is unsealed until the time that the results are certified, and must surrender electronic communications devices during this period to the Sergeant-at-Arms. The Director will make suitable arrangements for escorting tellers incommunicado outside the sequestration area for reasons of acute personal need.
d) Prior to counting votes therein, each ballot box will be examined outside the sequestration area by candidate representatives and Director. The Director will then deliver each box to the Teller Committee and open it in their presence.
e) Director, Assistant Director, Caucus Chair, Caucus Sergeant-at-Arms, and Caucus Secretary may observe the activities of the Teller Committee. Only these individuals and the Head Teller may enter the sequestration area or leave it unescorted, and must all agree not to disclose information about the ballot counting to any person other than the Director.
f) The Teller Committee will tally, record, and verify the results of the Caucus voting. The Teller Committee must agree upon the results and affix their signatures upon the written certification of the results. After consultation with the campaign representatives and the Head Teller, the Director may approve modifications to the procedure outlined below if they will, under the conditions then existing, improve the fairness, accuracy, and/or confidence in the result of balloting. All activities of the Teller Committee will occur under the direction of the Head Teller.