IAHR Ecohydraulic Technical Committee Biennial Elections

The IAHR Ecohydraulics Technical Committee (ETC) leadership team (L)T shall consist of a Chair, Vice Chair, and Past Chair along with up to 3 representatives from each of 6 geographic regions, yielding a maximum LT membership of 21 people. This size of a committee was selected to represent the diverse global ecohydraulics community with an inclusive and equitable foundation.

ETC LT elections shall take place every other year, yielding 2-year terms. The timing of an election should aim to align with the end of a 2-year term for the existing LT, but depending on circumstances and logistics, it can be briefly delayed while issues are being worked out. As a result, there is no fixed date for election timing.

LT elections are typically held online to maximize participation opportunities.

1. ETC LT Voters…Who Can Vote?

Only people officially listed as ETC members before the date that the election opens may vote in the election. Anyone who joins during the election itself may not vote, but may vote in the next election 2 years later. Thus, it is important for everyone who wants to vote to insure they are on the membership list. If unsure, an individual may contact an LT member and ask them to verify that they are on the official ETC membership list.

The Ecohydraulics Technical Committee is unique in IAHR, because it is approved to allow non-IAHR members to be involved in the ETC and vote in ETC elections. Therefore, the pool of voters for the ETC elections consists of the following three groups of people:

• IAHR members who have selected the ETC as their primary TC get a full vote.
• IAHR members who have selected the ETC as their secondary TC get a half vote.
• Non-IAHR members of the ETC get a full vote

All voters may cast a vote for open Vice Chair and/or Chair positions.

2. Regions

The best way to insure diverse representation of viewpoints is to establish voting regions, with each region receiving an equal number of LT member positions, which shall be 3 positions. The voting of LT members to represent a region is limited to only voters from that region. Therefore, each voter must designate their region based on their location of workplace. The Chair and Vice Chair positions do not count toward the number of representatives per region, and those two leaders can come from any region, with all global members voting on them.

The six regions shall be as follows (in alphabetical order): Africa+Middle East, Asia, Europe, North American, Oceania (per Wikipedia, that is Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia), and South+Central America.

3. ETC Election Candidates.. Who Can Serve on the ETC LT?

IAHR only allows IAHR members to serve on the LT of a TC. Thus, even though non-IAHR members of the ETC can vote in LT elections and participate in TC activities, they would have to join IAHR to run for an LT position.

4. Term Limits

4.1. LT member Term Limit

Elected LT members can serve up to 6 years total, consisting of three 2-year terms that may be back-to-back or separate by one or more election cycles.

As the end of a 2-year term approaches, existing LT members who have served < 6 years may choose whether they want to stay on for another 2-year term or step down. Thus, once initially elected, an existing LT member may stay in their position for up to three consecutive 2-year terms.

4.2. Vice Chair Term Limit

A new Vice Chair is elected for a 2-year term during every biennial election.

If a Vice Chair completes a 2-year term and then chooses whether to continue on as Chair in the next term or not, then that person becomes Chair for the next term. If the Vice Chair either steps down during their term or chooses not to serve as Chair in the subsequent term, then there will be an open election for both a Vice Chair and Chair.

4.3. Chair Term Limit

A Chair serves for a 2-year term and then chooses whether to continue on as Past Chair in the next term or not. If the Chair either steps down during their term or chooses not to serve as Past Chair in the subsequent term, then the position is left vacant for that term.

4.4. Past Chair Term Limit

A Past Chair serves for a 2-year term. At this point, the person has served 3 consecutive terms totaling 6 years. At this point they rotate off the ETC LT. If they have not served a total of 8 years on the LT (considering possible previous 2-year terms as regular LT members), then they are able to seek election to serve one more time as a regular LT member at some point in the future for a final 2 year term.

5. Election Preparatory Stages

5.1. Preliminary Planning

As the end of a 2-year term approaches, the Chair will query LT members who have not reached their term limits to see if they wish to stay on or not. Based on the feedback, the Chair then finalizes the number of open positions that require election.

The LT will review the current version of this document to recall what to do. The Chair will contact their IAHR staff liaison and determine the best procedure and tool(s) for actually handling the online voting. This will be reviewed by the LT t have the plan set before moving forward.

Based on the technology selected for running the election and who has access to that technology, the LT will select the person best positioned to use that technology to run the election at the direction of the LT Chair. It is preferable to use IAHR technology and staff to run the election, but if the LT decides to use a different system, then they can do that, but they have to designate the person who is officially running the election, and that person will be responsible for setting up the election decision tree following all the voter rules and tallying votes.

The LT shall review the TC membership list. The LT shall spread the word to get anyone who might be interested in voting in the election officially listed as a member of the ETC, so they can vote. People have to be on the list prior to the start of voting to be able to vote.

5.2. Call For Nominations

When the LT is ready, they will put out an open call for nominations to get LT candidates. The LT shall use as many means of outreach as possible to spread the word globally. IAHR’s staff should be asked to post messages to TC members via IAHR’s communications tools. The call for nomination should be posted on Ecohydraulics community website. LT member should post the call for nominations to their social media, email listservs, local professional communities, and other suitable audiences.

The call for nomination should NOT just be a passive process of putting information out and hoping for the best. The Chair or Vice Chair should take advantage of not only their IAHR staff liaison to announce the election through IAHR newsfeeds, but they should also contact the IAHR regional leaders and ask them to please nominate at least one person from their region to serve on the LT. Further, all LT members should actively pursue potential nominees, keeping in mind the important goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

5.3. Nominations due

Nominations shall be due three weeks after the call for nominations goes out. We want sufficient time to attract people but not so long that it slows everything down and we lose traction as a process.

Self-nominations permitted

If you want to nominate someone else, please communicate with them first and affirm they are willing to serve.

Nominations and/or self-nominations should be sent as a single email to three recipients: LT Chair, LT Vice Chair, and the designated IAHR staff liaison.

The LT Chair shall email the nominee to confirm their willingness to participate in the election and serve if elected.

5.4. Candidate statements due

Candidate statements shall be due two weeks after the deadline for nominations.

The content of a candidate statement is at the discretion of the candidate, but would typically state who you are and what you want to accomplish on the LT.

Regular LT candidate statements have a 250-word max. If longer, the chair should return it to the candidate for revision or simply truncate the statement at 250 words if no revision is provided by the deadline.

Vice chair candidate statements have a 500-word max. If longer, the chair should return it to the candidate for revision or simply truncate the statement at 500 words if no revision is provided by the deadline.

The IAHR staff liaison shall send the candidate statements to all TC members (including non-IAHR members) via IAHR’s communications tools.

Candidate statements shall be posted on the Ecohydraulics community website

6. Election System Requirements

Technology is constantly changing, so we should not specify exactly how the election is run and expect it to stay in place through time. Nevertheless, we can specify some of the critical features of the election process that any system to be used must meet.

All individual voters names and selected votes should be kept private/secret natively in the software/system used to handle the election, given the available technology used to run the election. The person running the election should not be able to see

The election technology must be able to handle the decision tree that limits voters to cast votes only in their designated region.

The election technology must only allow one vote per voter. In support of that, it must be able to issue an individual invitation to each voter. The invitation should provide a suitable means of accessing the vote, such as a URL code, username and password, etc. If a voter’s invitation has not been used already, then that voter should be able to request a second copy of their invitation that either deletes the first one and replaces it or re-issues the first one. Whatever the system does, it must insure only one vote per voter.

7. Election

7.1. Election opens

The online system for elections shall open for use by voters two weeks after the deadline for candidate statements.

The election period is open for two weeks.

7.2. Elections close

The election closes at the strike of midnight at the International Date Line at the end of 14 days, so everyone in the world has had 14 days to vote.

7.3. Election Tally

As soon as possible after the election ends, the person who set up the election system and ran it shall tally the votes using the tools in the election system without viewing any individually identifying information.

The vote tally shall include the total number of voters for each region, the number of votes for each candidate, and, if possible, the number of IAHR and non-IAHR voters overall to help understand the aggregate participation in the election process.

Election results shall be reported directly and privately to the LT Chair.

7.4. Election Results Announcements

The LT Chair will then report the results to the IAHR staff liaison and out-going LT members for public distribution.

8. Appeals Process

We cannot foresee what scenarios might arise in which an election could become contested. However, it is wise to put in place a procedure if someone believes there is an irregularity.

Within 2 weeks of an election, a candidate may contact the Chair to present a complaint about the election and appeal the process.

In such an event, the LT Chair will contact the IAHR Executive Director and the IAHR President. These three individuals will review the current version of this election procedure document, the details of the process used to carry out the election, and the basis of the complaint. At their discretion, they will decide what course of action to take based on that review.

9. New Term Begins 2 Weeks After Announcement

The new 2-year term for the LT begins 2 weeks after the announcement of the election results.

Candidate statements 2022

Position – Chair

TBD

Position – Vice chair

TBD

Position – Africa+Middle East LT Members

TBD

Position – Asia LT Members

TBD

Position – Europe LT Members

TBD

Position – North America LT Members

TBD

Position – Oceania LT Members

TBD

Position – South+Central America LT Members

TBD