Philosophy of the Election Process

The strength and success of the ACLU of PA has been built upon the extraordinary leadership of members past and present. Over the last several years, we have engaged in a detailed, serious process of studying how we can best accomplish our mission of defending and expanding civil liberties throughout Pennsylvania. We recognized that our Affiliate has grown, and we have amended our bylaws which describe how we govern ourselves accordingly.

In this effort, we dedicated ourselves to broadening our commitments to a unified, statewide vision and to a multidimensional balance and diversity in leadership. As part of this commitment, under new bylaws approved and adopted in late 2006, we are expanding our state affiliate board by 12 seats to be elected at-large by the members from across Pennsylvania. The other 13 seats, as before, comprise representatives of our chapters. Of these 13, three are elected to represent all of the approximately 24% of our members who reside within the areas covered by the eight lower-membership chapters. (These three board members thus represent all of the members of the eight lower-membership chapters, and are not "delegates" or "representatives" of their own particular chapters.) The remaining ten are elected by the boards of the three largest chapters to provide proportional representation of the 76% of our members who are in those chapters.

The overarching theme of this Board expansion is diversity of representation in the following areas:

• Geographic balance
• Racial/ethnic/sexual identity diversity
• Age and gender balance
• Persons with disabilities
• Varied and useful skill-sets

The at-large slate selected by the Board's Nominating Committee represents the fruits of an extensive effort to achieve all of these objectives, for the common benefit of our entire statewide ACLU. In light of this serious and extensive effort, it is critical that members be aware that this will build a Board with a unified, statewide commitment and view. Individuals nominated for at-large seats were not selected to "represent" specific constituencies, chapters or regions. Rather, they were selected to provide a diverse, balanced, dedicated and talented leadership for the state as a whole.

We thank you for honoring the spirit of diversity and statewide vision in this voting process by avoiding campaigning on the basis of chapter or region membership.

The Question of Campaign Electioneering

We recognize our members' right to speak out on behalf of an individual candidacy, and we have worked to balance that right with the policy embodied in our new Bylaws to expand the truly statewide perspective of our State Board. Accordingly:

1. All candidates were invited to submit biographical information followed by a short election statement for distribution to all ACLU-PA members through email to chapter presidents, posting on the website and on the membership listserve. The election statements will also be published in the fall newsletter which includes the ballots.
2. No individuals or chapters will be provided directly with membership mailing lists for use in promoting individual candidates.
3. Except as set forth elsewhere in this policy, no staff time will be committed toany electioneering activity, or to support or facilitate any electioneering activity, that is designed to promote one candidate over another.
4. If a candidate for an at-large seat chooses to campaign by mailing anything to the membership beyond the procedures set forth above in Paragraph #1, materials may be submitted to staff through the appropriate regional office and these materials will be passed through to a mailing house for distribution to the entire state-wide membership and not to any subset of the membership. If a candidate for election to represent the lower-membership chapters chooses to campaign beyond the procedures set forth above in Paragraph #1, the staff will pass on any such materials to the mailing house for distribution to all members in all eight of the lower-membership chapters, and not to any subset of that membership. The individual candidate must cover the full cost of this mailing.

Finally:

Chapters are encouraged to inform members about the election and to help get out the vote. However, chapters and individual candidates are discouraged from acting in any way inconsistent with the above.

Respectfully,

Michael Louik
President, ACLU of Pennsylvania