Appendix 2

Appendix 2 to the Operating Paper of the Faculty and the Faculty Senate

Preferential Voting in the Election of Officers
[approved April 10, 2001]

The Faculty Senate Operating Paper (II.B.2.c.) specifies: "If there are at most two nominees for an office, election shall be by majority vote of the members present and voting. If there are more than two nominees for an office, the election shall be conducted on the basis of a preferential voting system."

It was determined that the most efficient way to specify a preferential voting system is through adopting a special rule of order, outside of the operating paper (by-laws), which specifies a method and remains in effect from session to session, once adopted by a two-thirds vote and unless suspended (like other rules of order) with a two-thirds vote.

In elections requiring a preferential voting system, the Faculty Senate has approved the Borda Count method of preferential voting, with the following instructions to be given to voters before the vote is taken:

Instructions for voters: Voters write the name of each of the candidates followed by a ranking from 1 (most preferred) through (least preferred). For a ballot to be valid, each candidate must be ranked 1 through n and no ranking used more than once.

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Instructions for tabulators: For each valid ballot, the lowest ranked candidate is given 1 point, the second lowest is given 2 points and so on up to the highest ranked candidate who gets n points. The points for each candidate are totaled giving the Borda count for the candidate. The winner is the candidate with the highest Borda count.

In the case of a tie, subsequent ballots between the candidates receiving the highest number of votes shall be conducted and decided by a plurality of the vote.