STUDENT COUNCIL GENERAL ELECTION information

Article IV Section 5 of our Constitution:

5. The General Election will be held by secret preferential ballot through homerooms each April. The ballots will be delivered to the Advisor for counting, the winners to be notified within three days of the election. In case of a tie vote, a runoff election excluding all other candidates will be held within five days.

The winners will become associate members of the Executive Board to assure a smooth transition, but will not gain full membership in it until the term of the departing Executive Board has ended.
If an Officer-elect becomes unable to take their office before their term begins, the second place finisher for that office will be elevated to it and the third place finisher for that office will take their vacated seat on the Board of Directors. If there are less than three candidates for the office in question, the President-elect may appoint an unsuccessful candidate for another office in the same grade to fill any remaining vacancy, with consent of the Advisor.
If a Board of Director-elect becomes unable to take their seat before their term begins, the third place finisher for the office that person was originally a candidate for will be elevated to the Board of Directors. If there are less than three candidates for the office in question, the President-elect may appoint an unsuccessful candidate for another office in the same grade to fill any remaining vacancy, with consent of the Advisor.
The Advisor will provide all candidates the opportunity to view the final vote counts, but will not post, publish, or otherwise announce them except to the current Executive Board. All ballots will be sealed and kept for at least one year following the date of the election.

The Brooklawn Student Council uses
PREFERENTIAL BALLOTING

In the General Election students complete FOUR BALLOTS, one for each office (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer)...

On each of these ballots, they will RANK their top three choices: "1" for their first preference, "2" for their second preference, and "3" for their third preference...

Students cannot just cast a single vote, they must now CAREFULLY THINK about who they prefer to serve as their Student Council Officers...

The Concept of Preferential Balloting

Preferential Balloting is a system of voting where candidates need to receive an absolute majority (50% + 1 vote) of the total ballots cast to be elected. We adopted and implemented this system (with slight modifications*) in September 2003, for the Representative Elections in September and the General Election in April.

Our intents are:

To ensure that the winning candidate has a broad range of support from the students voting, especially in an election with several candidates.
To ensure that students think carefully about which candidates they will support, as they are now making preference decisions about multiple candidates rather than a single selection.

*The Brooklawn Student Council actually uses a Partial Preferential Balloting system - the voter is required to name their top THREE preferences on the election ballot.

The Preferential Vote Count

On Election Day...
We sort and count the ballots according to the first preferences named on them. This is called the FIRST Count - if no candidate receives an absolute majority (50% + 1 vote) of the total first preferences, then subsequent preferences have to be redistributed through a SECOND and maybe even a THIRD Count...

Distributing Ballots - The FIRST Count

FIRST Count
Ballots are counted according to where the voter placed the first preference (number ”1”) for each candidate...

In this example there are 100 ballots. The absolute majority is (50% + 1 vote), so 51 votes are needed to win.

Graphic Image ©2003 Electoral Council of Australia

Sally

33 first preferences

21 first preferences

Lee

16 first preferences

Lee has the lowest number of ballots, and is now excluded.

Paul

30 first preferences

Redistributing Ballots - The SECOND and THIRD Counts

SECOND Count
Since no candidate received an absolute majority in the first count, the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is excluded (in this case Lee) and their ballots are redistributed to the remaining candidates according to the next available preference. In this case, this is where voters placed their number “2” preference...

Sally

33
+ 7 from Lee
40 ballots

21
+4 from Lee
25 ballots

Jo has the lowest number of ballots, and is now excluded.

Paul

30
+5 from Lee
35 ballots

THIRD Count
Still no candidate has an absolute majority, so the counting procedure continues. Again the candidate with the lowest number of ballots is excluded (in this case Jo) and their ballots are redistributed to the remaining candidates according to the next available preference for the candidates remaining in the count. This could be a number "2" preference, or a number "3" preference if the number "2" preference has already been excluded...

Sally

40
+6 from Jo
46 ballots

Paul

35
+19 from Jo
54 ballots

Paul is elected, as he has now received a majority of the ballots.

*In the Partial Preferential Balloting system, there is no FOURTH Count - the candidate with the most ballots after the THIRD Count is declared the winner, even if he or she does not have a full majority.

What if there's a tie?

A tie can happen in one of two ways...

After the Third Count, there is a tie for first or second place:

Article IV Section 4 of the Student Council Constitution requires a run-off election between only those candidates tied for the contested Office (or seat on the Board of Directors). This run-off will be done within 5 school days of the General Election, and will be a straight vote - no preferences.
If the tie is for first place, the winner of the run-off will receive the Office, and the second place finisher will receive a seat on the Board of Directors.
If the tie is for second place, the winner of the run-off will receive a seat on the Board of Directors.

Two (or more) candidates are tied for second place after the First or Second Count, and eliminating them would leave no other candidates:

The Office is awarded to the first place candidate.
Article IV Section 4 of the Student Council Constitution requires a run-off election between only those candidates tied for second place. This run-off will be done within 5 school days of the General Election, and will be a straight vote - no preferences.
The winner of this run-off election will receive a seat on the Board of Directors.

This web page was adapted from an explanation of Preferential Balloting given by the Electoral Council of Australia (ECA), located at www.eca.gov.au. We thank them for this simple explanation of the Preferential Balloting process.

You can contact the ECA at the address and phone number listed below:
Electoral Council of Australia
Level 22, 2 Lonsdale Street Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: (03) 9285 7108
Fax: (03) 9285 7153