Pre-Campaign Reports (Major Candidates)

Reminder: pre-campaign budgets and rosters are due by Monday at 5:00. Please submit these ONLINE ONLY at
http://election.tamu.edu/precampaign

Email me with questions.

Performance Review information

I have posted information about the now-public Performance Review Committee on the elections website (election.tamu.edu/performancereview).  I have decided to post these documents in an effort to make public an objective account of these events, and it is without reservation that I prefer the people associated with these elections and this University be able to observe such an impartial account in order to make their own determinations and judgements.

In two documents, I have censored names of persons whose privacy and confidentiality I will continue to respect.  No other information has been censored or edited.

Please contact me at tamuelection@gmail.com with questions or comments.

Contacting me

Please contact me with any campaign questions through email.  Do not call my personal line before you have emailed me, or but only if the question is very urgent.

Candidate Guide reminder & No Facebook Pages

Reminder: a candidate guide (bio/platform and picture) are due tomorrow (Friday) by 5:00 PM at election.tamu.edu/guide and any late submissions will not be accepted.  Major candidates need to submit this guide as well, but because Facebook Pages are no longer going to be used I will grant an extension to those candidates to Sunday by midnight.

As I said, after a bit more discussion on the matter I have decided to not allow Facebook pages before March 16 at noon.  At that time, any candidate may create and update a page or other item on Facebook.  Websites may still have a static frontpage as discussed earlier, but no other online campaigning may occur, including links or any information about campaigning on your personal Facebook profile.

Please email me with questions.

Pre-Campaign Reports

Mandatory Candidates Only

Next Monday, March 3rd, Pre-Campaign Budgets and Rosters are due online.

Please visit election.tamu.edu/precampaign for more information and the online form to submit these documents at the same time.

Listservs (!!IMPORTANT!!)

Inadvertently, I didn’t add the electionlistserv@gmail.com address to my Apple Mail correctly, and because of this I was getting a bit annoyed that no one had added it to their listservs yet.  However, now that I’ve corrected the mistake I would like to take this opportunity to remind every candidate of something very important.

The only people that should be on your listservs right now (or even who you should be talking to on a regular basis) are those people helping you “research a platform, and help the candidate prepare for the campaigning period.” [IV,C,ii,26] This means that each and every person must have a specific job, position, etc., and that there may not be “general members” of your staff.

This is a final warning to all campaigns.  If your staff size or listserv is very large, you must scale it back to include only those people vital to helping you prepare.  Major candidates will be submitting Pre-Campaign Staff Rosters next week (more information here) and those rosters must include anyone previously on a listserv.  For example, if your listserv has 100 people on it–what I see as very near the upper limit–you must submit at least 100 names and emails in your roster.

Again, this is the one and final warning I will give on this matter.  Email me if you have any questions.

Facebook Pages

Major Candidates (SBP, Yell, Class President & RHA President) are going to be able to have a version of the candidate guide available on Facebook in the form of Pages (see an example here).  The Election Commission will create a page for each of these candidates, then allow candidates to edit the information on these pages over a weekend before retaining custody.

These pages will be a candidate guide for the 21st Century, allowing us to give voters a more information- and multimedia-rich experience when researching candidates.  Once campaign time begins, candidates will take control over these pages and be able to use them as they like without restrictions.

Instead of adding your Page as a friend, members of Facebook will be able to say they “support” you.  You can then send messages to all of your supporters (during campaign time).

Also, users that follow a link to your Page (as the link above does) do not have to be members of Facebook to view its content.  However, being a Facebook member allows them to write on your wall, start discussions, say they are supporting you, etc.

If you are a major candidate, you will be given custody of your page this Friday by 5:00 PM and I will remove your admin privledges (i.e. your editing should be finished) by this Sunday at 11:59 PM.

If you have questions, email me

Campaign Reminders

Here are some reminders for everyone:

Candidate Guide

- Head over to this page to submit your candidate guide online. This must be done before Friday, February 29 at 5:00 PM

Miscellaneous

- If you have a listserv, Google Group, etc., please add electionlistserv@gmail.com to your list.

- Websites may go live only with a frontpage that lacks content (see example here)