Rules and Procedures for Elections of President and Executive Committee

  1. The Election for the President and the 10 posts of Executive committee (EC) of INSEE (Society, henceforth) should be held no later than 15th May of an even year.
  2. The Election Officer shall be nominated by the Executive Committee no later than 31st March of an even year. The name of the election officer will be proposed by a member of the EC and seconded by any other member. In case more than one name is proposed one of the candidates shall be selected by a simple majority vote.
  3. Election Officer shall not contest for any post.
  4. The Election Officer must be a life member of the Society.
  5. The Election Officer shall have full and complete powers as far as the conduct of elections are concerned. This shall include and not limited to the disqualification of candidates from contesting and of the voters from voting provided that reasons thereof shall be presented to the General Body within a reasonable time. The grounds for disqualification would be the following:
    1. Non-submission of nomination forms as per procedure specified Providing false information
    2. Providing false information
    3. Soliciting votes in an unacceptable manner
    4. Any other act that would be considered not befitting of an academic body’s election
  6. All decisions of the Election officer are final and binding on the Members.
  7. All communications including and not limited to announcement, nomination, withdrawal, voting, and declaration of lists and results shall take place only through electronic means, i.e. over email and INSEE website.
  8. The Election Officer will function within the purview of the following Rules and Procedures:
    1. Elections will be conducted for the post of President and 10 members of the Executive Committee.
    2. The Election Officer shall maintain neutrality at all points and shall not nominate or second any candidate nor influence voting choices in any manner.
    3. All members enrolled in the Society till the announcement of the Election will be eligible to vote. Exception: In the case of Institutional Members (both categories), the Director/Vice Chancellor/Convenor or any such person who is authorised to take a decision in this matter shall nominate the person eligible to vote on its behalf and communicate the same in writing to the Election Officer. Each institutional member shall also have the same voting privileges as life members but they cannot stand for elections.
    4. Election officer shall publish the list of members (under all categories) to this effect when announcing the schedule of elections. All date and time included in such a schedule will be as per Indian Standard Time (IST).
    5. All members can cast one vote for the President and maximum ten votes for EC. However, it will not be mandatory to cast all the votes. Illustration 1: A member can abstain from casting a vote for president. Illustration 2: A member can vote only for 2 posts in EC.
    6. Only life members can be nominated as candidates for the post of President and in the Executive committee.
    7. A member contesting for the post of President cannot simultaneously also contest for a post in the Executive Committee.
    8. A candidate can be nominated by any number of persons.
    9. Life, institutional, annual members (without any membership dues) and student members can propose or second candidates.
    10. A member can propose or second any number of candidates.
    11. Nomination shall be accepted only in the prescribed proforma (template in Annexure) only by electronic means, i.e. over email. It has to be duly proposed and seconded as per the proforma. The nomination form must be accompanied by a 200-300 words self-description of the candidate.
    12. The election officer shall provide no less than seven days for submission of nominations.
    13. On closure of nominations, the Election Officer shall scrutinise and prepare a list of valid nominations within 48 hours of the expiry of period of submission of nominations and publish the same. Illustration: deadline for submission of nomination—April 10, 17:30 hrs (IST)
    14. The election officer at the time of scrutiny must declare invalid any nomination submitted that is (a) not made as per the proforma, (b) without the description or (c) not in adherence to the declared election schedule .
    15. Following the preparation and publication of the list of valid nominations, the election officer shall provide no less than 48 hours for withdrawal of nominations by any candidate, in writing.
    16. Within 48 hours of the expiry of the nomination withdrawal period, the final list of candidates shall be published.
    17. In case the number of candidates is less than or equal to the number of posts (10 for EC and one for President) candidate/s will be declared elected uncontested.
    18. In case there is no valid nomination for President, the election officer shall re-start the process of calling for nominations for the President alone. Once one or more valid nominations are received, the election will be conducted as per the procedure but following a schedule different to the one already announced. The election for the posts in EC (provided there is at least one valid nomination) shall be conducted as per the announced schedule.
    19. In case there is no valid nomination for the posts in EC, the election officer shall re-start the process of calling for nominations for the posts in EC alone. Once one or more valid nominations are received, the election will be conducted as per the procedure but following a schedule different to the one already announced.
    20. The election for the post of President (provided there is at least one valid nomination) shall be conducted as per the announced schedule.
    21. All voting will take place only through electronic means. Voting by any other means is not permitted. It would be the members’ responsibility to bring to the notice of the INSEE office of any change in the member’s corresponding address, both physical (road, city, pin, etc.) and electronic (email).
    22. Upon declaration of the final list of candidates and the communication of user ID and password for voting to all INSEE members eligible to vote, no less than ten days time shall be provided for the members to cast their vote.
    23. In case there is a tie for the post of the President, the candidate with the highest number of life members’ votes shall be declared as the winner. In case the number of votes cast by life members’ are tied, then the candidate with the highest number of institutional members' (both categories together) votes shall be declared as the winner. In case the tie continues then the annual members' votes will be considered followed by the student members. In case the tie persists, the Election officer shall conduct a re-election for the post of President but without calling for any further nominations.
    24. In case there is a tie for the posts in the EC, the election officer shall follow the same process as for the tie on the post of President.
    25. The Election Officer shall declare the result within 48 hours from the expiry of the voting period.

Appendix: Instructions for sending nominations

1. The proposer should send an e-mail message to the seconder, which should be worded as follows:
"I (Name and membership number of the proposer) propose the name of ____________ with INSEE Life membership number ________for the post of _____________ of INSEE for the period 2018 to 2020"

2. The seconder in turn should FORWARD this e-mail message as received to the nominated person, along with the following text at the top of the message:
"I (Name and membership number of the seconder) second the name of ___________ for the post of _________ of INSEE for the period 2018 to 2020"

3. The nominated person should in turn FORWARD the above two e-mail messages, along with all the previous text, to the Election Officer (elect@ecoinsee.org), with the following text at the top of the message:
"I (Name and membership number of the nominated person) give my consent to being nominated for the post of __________ of INSEE for the period 2018 to 2020".

4. E-mail IDs of the Seconder, Proposer and the Candidate will be used to verify the nomination, seconding and consent based on the list of email IDs in the INSEE website.

5. E-mail received without the complete texts of proposing, seconding and consenting; names & addresses and e-mail headers of proposing, seconding and consenting persons; as well as those received by the election officer after the deadline as in 3 above, will not be considered as valid nominations
Illustration: The nomination email that reaches the Election Officer must be sent by the candidate, and in the text of the email (NOT as an attached .doc file or linked file or anything like that), it should also contain the forwarded messages from proposer to seconder and from seconder to candidate. The forwarded messages should clearly display the email IDs and other details contained in the emails sent by the proposer and the seconder (such as date, time, from, to, subject). This requires that they forward the full email correspondence, not just the text.