Last spring, when the Sun City Elections Advisory Committee was planning the 2018 board of directors election, the ballots were planned to be “random.”
Now, as the committee and board finalize those plans, the ballots are “rotating.”
It’s actually two different ways to accomplish the same thing – make sure this year’s election is not decided primarily by ballot position. Remember the background: In 2017, there were 10 candidates for four open positions on the board. The order of candidate names on all the ballots was determined in a lottery drawing before the ballots were mailed to residents.
Elected last fall were Vito Benigno, Bob Wainscott, Steve Bytnar, and Russ Howard. Their names were the top four in a vertical list on all of the ballots. The board of directors and Elections Committee agreed that ballot position played too big a role in who was elected.
Early this year, the board and committee asked Sun City’s election service company to recommend a random order system of printing the ballot. The service company said they could provide a maximum of four different ballots. Names would be in different random order on each of the four ballots. On March 28, by a majority vote, the board approved this random system.
However, based on additional information received recently from the election service, the company said it could provide as many different ballots as the number of candidates. The Elections Committee requested that the random order be changed to a rotating order of candidate names. The board approved this change on June 27.
According to Elections Committee chairman Gene Harrison, this will include the following steps: 1) the order of candidate names will be selected at the candidate breakfast in early August, as in the past. 2) Names on the ballots will be rotated in order as many times as there are candidates (for example, five candidates would mean five versions of the ballot with candidate names rotated five times with each candidate name appearing in each of the five positions on the ballot. 3) Ballot mailing will be sent out alphabetically (instead of by neighborhood) to provide a more random distribution of the ballots.
This year, the following board members’ terms end on December 31: Vito Benigno, Marilynn Berendt, Dennis O’Leary, and Robert McGouey. All four of them may run again for a board seat in 2019, according to the community’s election rules. They may be elected to one or two-year terms. They must announce their intentions to continue on the board or not by 4 p.m. on July 31, the same date that all candidates in the election must file their applications.
Holdover candidates not on the ballot this year are Steve Bytnar, Russ Howard, and Bob Wainscott.
The candidate meet & greet will be held on August 15, the candidate forum will be held on August 28, and a special candidate forum and spotlight will take place on September 24. Ballots will be mailed to all households in October.
In the June Lifestyles, Executive Director Deanna Loughran said, “Talk to your neighbors to encourage those who would be good leaders for the community to apply – or consider running for the board yourself!”
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