Election Policy
Policy for managing student leadership elections via Intranet.
Introduction
The Intranet Team administers various student leaderships elections at TJ, including Student Government Association (SGA) and Class Council elections. This policy governs the administration of elections by the Sysadmins to ensure election integrity. The Sysadmins also serve as a check on the integrity of the results of the election. From the 2021-2022 school year, elections are conducted using ranked-choice voting.
Policy
Election Administrators
The Intranet Lead shall serve as Election Administrator for student leadership elections. If there are more than one Intranet Leads, they or, in the case of a deadlock, the Sysadmin Leadership Team shall select one Intranet admin to serve as Election Administrator.
The Election Administrator may designate an Intranet admin to serve as Deputy Election Administrator. In the absence of the Election Administrator, the Deputy Election Administrator, if any, shall act in the Election Administrator's stead. "Intranet admins" are all Sysadmins with access to the production Ion server or to administrative interfaces of Ion.
Conflict of Interest
A "Disqualified Person" is any person serving in the SGA, running in the election, or an immediate family member of another Disqualified Person. A Disqualified Person shall also include anyone whose interests, duties, obligations or activities, or those of an immediate family member are, or may be, in conflict or incompatible with the interests of the integrity of the election. No Intranet admin may exercise their Intranet administrative power while meeting the qualifications of a Disqualified Person.
Any Intranet admin who becomes a Disqualified Person or believes may be a Disqualified Person should notify the Election Administrator of such, immediately. The Election Administrator shall determine whether such person is a Disqualified Person or elevate the issue to the Faculty Sponsor who shall make a determination. If the Election Administrator is the affected admin, the Administrator shall elevate the issue to the Faculty Sponsor.
If the Election Administrator or Faculty Sponsor judges an Intranet admin to be a Disqualified Person, the affected admin shall cease exercising any administrative power over Ion and recuse themselves from election matters for a period beginning at the start of the election and ending twenty-four hours after the announcement of the election results. If the affected admin is an Election Administrator or Deputy Election Administrator, they shall step down from that role. The Intranet Lead or designee should remove access to administrative functions for the affected admin for the designated period.
Prohibited Activities
No Intranet admin may actively campaign for a candidate for an election administered by the Intranet team.
No Intranet admin or Intranet developer shall deploy any change that affects the election codebase during an election without permission from the Election Administrator or Faculty Sponsor.
No person except the Election Administrator or Faculty Sponsor shall attempt to access or access the results of the election until the election results have been publicly announced. Any access by the Election Administrator or Faculty Sponsor shall be for a legitimate election purpose. Any access not by the Election Administrator or Faculty Sponsor must be fully investigated and reported to the Faculty Sponsor.
No Intranet admin shall deliberately interfere in the normal operation of elections.
No Intranet admin may release the results of any election except to the results Recipients defined below.
Rules
Any student leadership election shall be governed as per the SGA Constitution and the rules imposed in pursuance with such Constitution.
Results release
The Election Administrator shall report the official results of the election via email to following individuals (collectively, the "Recipients"):
The designated student representatives of the SGA.
The SGA faculty sponsors.
All Intranet admins.
The Sysadmin Faculty Sponsor.
Any other TJHSST staff member or administrator upon request.
The results shall include the elected candidate(s) for each position. The results may, at the Election Administrator's discretion, include the ranking of unelected candidates.
The Election Administrator may not release election vote counts or totals to the SGA student representatives, unless they are needed to properly determine the results of the election, such as in the case of vote penalties to be assessed by the SGA. The Election Administrator shall require notice of all vote adjustments of any kind to be reported in detail, including exact vote adjustment numbers or percentages, by the SGA to the Recipients prior to releasing vote counts. The Election Administrator may then release only those vote counts necessary to accommodate vote adjustments.
The Election Administrator shall release election vote counts to the SGA faculty sponsors, the Sysadmin Faculty Sponsor, and TJHSST staff members and administrators upon request. The SGA faculty sponsors may disclose vote counts to the SGA student representatives at their discretion.
Individual voters' choices in elections are confidential and may not be disclosed to any party unless with extraordinary and compelling reason or the authorization of the TJHSST administration.
If the Election Administrator becomes aware of any discrepancy between the results released by the Election Administrator and the results released by the SGA, the Election Administrator shall take action through communication to the Recipients to resolve the cause of the discrepancy.
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