Voting for Executive Board Members

President-Elect: TMEA will email eligible members a link to their electronic ballot on February 8, 2024, following the General Session. Active Members, Retired Members, and Honorary Life Members are eligible to vote for the office of President-Elect. Eligible members are not required to attend the convention to vote. Electronic voting closes at 6 p.m. CT on February 9.

For TMEA to email you a link to your President-Elect ballot, your membership must be current by 2 p.m. on February 9. Those who become eligible after the initial email on February 8 will be sent an email after this 2 p.m. deadline on February 9. See below for more details on being prepared to vote.

Band and College Division Vice-Presidents: Elections will be declared by acclamation during their respective Division Business Meetings on February 8 at 5:15 pm (because each office has a single nominee).

Executive Board Candidates

According to the constitution, those nominated by four or more Regions at their fall Region meeting are official candidates. Additional President-Elect candidates can be nominated in writing, with a second, to the President and the TMEA Office. Additional Vice-President candidates can be nominated in writing, with a second, to the division Vice-President and the TMEA Office.

These additional nominations and seconds must be received by January 10 and be accepted by the nominee to be included on the ballot.

Executive Board Candidates

Prepare to Vote

Ensure You Receive the Emailed Link to Your Ballot:

  1. Ensure your membership is current. Go to my.tmea.org/membership-card to check.
  2. Ensure the primary email on your TMEA member record is accurate. Go to tmea.org/memberinfo. You can update and save a new email address in your record.
  3. Be sure you can access your Primary email account during the election.
  4. Add membership@tmea.org to your safe senders list to prevent the email from being blocked.
  5. Learn about the candidates so you are prepared to rank them in your preferred order on your ballot.

Support

For help with issues during the election period, visit the Registration Help Desk or email membership@tmea.org before 5 p.m. on February 9.

Voting Details

  • The electronic vote will be conducted using a third-party online voting system (OpaVote).
  • Votes are anonymous and no identifying information will be stored with the voting data.
  • A ballot link can only be used to submit one vote. The member cannot return to their ballot and change their vote.

To comply with the TMEA Constitution’s preferential voting requirement to prevent runoffs when using electronic ballots, the following rules will be used:

  • If there are two candidates: the voting method will be first past the post.
    A voter will select one candidate.
    In first past the post elections the candidate who gets more than 50% of the votes wins. This is the method commonly used for elections in the United States.
  • If there are three or more candidates: a Condorcet voting method will be used, switching to instant runoff method between tied candidates (in the case of a tie).
    A voter will be presented with a list of candidates and must rank them in order of preference.
    In Condorcet elections candidates are compared to every other candidate based on voter’s ranks and whoever beats all other candidates is the winner. It is possible for no candidate to beat all others or for multiple candidates to form a preference cycle (like the winning conditions in rock/paper/scissor). In these cases where there is not a single winner, an instant runoff election will be held (using the same ballots) between the group of candidates who beat all others not in the group (commonly known as the “Smith set”). Click here for more information about the Condorcet method.
    In the case of a second-round instant runoff election between the remaining candidates, the count of voters’ first ranked candidate is tallied and if a candidate gets more than 50% of the votes they win. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the votes, an elimination round commences where the candidate with the fewest votes and any candidate with 0 votes are eliminated and ballots which specified an eliminated candidate are reassigned to the next ranked candidate. If a candidate then has more than 50% of the votes they win, otherwise the elimination process repeats until there is a winner. Should there be a tie when eliminating candidates it will be broken by the results of the previous round (whoever had fewer votes will be eliminated), continuing back each round until the tie is broken or randomly if the tie cannot be broken by comparing previous rounds. Click here for more information about Instant Runoff Voting.

Election Certification

The TMEA President’s Election Committee and TMEA staff will inspect the election results. Candidates or their representative may also observe during this process. The Election Committee Chair is responsible for certifying the election.