I’m curious as to what safeguards can be used to prevent election hijacking (e.g. a lot of new members signing up for the sole purpose of voting). I’ve been trying to figure out a way to do it, but it seems nearly impossible. The best solutions I can come up with are things like only xx% of voting members can be new members, or you can’t vote until you’ve been in the organization for 1 year, etc. Other ideas I have center around just making it easier for the membership to remove members.
Some organizations have in their charter provisions that people must be a member for some minimum time period in order to vote. 3 months seems typical, though I’ve seen it be as long as 13 months. (The USCF now requires voters to be current members as of May 31st of that year.)
I’ve also seen a provision which said that officer candidates must have been CONTINUOUS members of the organization for at least 2 years, and in one case longer than that.
The Oklahoma Chess Association recently changed its rules so that to vote in its elections you must both be a member of the USCF and either have been an OCA member for two weeks (I think) before the election or have played in at least one round of the state championship. (The elections are generally held before the fourth round of the state championship.) There have been proposals to set a minimum age as well, but that portion of the electorate is understandably reluctant to give up its vote.
Alex Relyea
One wonders whether, if those rules had been in place two years ago, the current leadership of the OCA would have been able to vote themselves into office.