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Posting Guidelines for Candidates for ACB, State, Special Interest and Local Chapter Offices

Adopted by the ACB Board of Publications 10/06/2014
 
Purpose:
The goal of these guidelines is to establish reasonable provisions which ensure that candidates for ACB national, state, special interest and local chapter office have the ability to announce their candidacy for office and that those candidates running for office at the national level have the opportunity to respond to questions from prospective voters. These guidelines assume that those wishing to run for any office at any level within the ACB have the ability to use other means (including but not limited to social media, affiliate-sponsored email lists, or email lists which the candidate can establish) for the purpose of engaging in ongoing communication with constituents. ACB List Moderators are available and able to provide information to any candidate about how to go about establishing an effective channel for communicating with his/her constituents upon request.
 
Rules for Candidates for ACB Board of Directors and Board of Publications

  1. It is the intent of the ACB that candidates for any position on the ACB Board of Directors or Board of Publications use the ACB Candidates Page, which is sponsored by the Board of Publications and housed on the ACB website, as the primary means of communicating his/her qualifications, plans and philosophies with the organization. However, it will be permissible for candidates for national ACB office to use ACB sponsored lists, such as the leadership list and ACB’s general lists, to make candidacy announcements and to provide brief answers to direct questions posed by ACB members.
  2. Any candidate, or his/her representative, may post an announcement to any or all ACB lists, announcing the candidate’s candidacy, providing contact information for any individual who wishes to communicate with the candidate about his/her campaign, information about any social media site, email list or other means of communication which the candidate has established for ongoing communication with individuals, and a summary of the candidate’s goals for running for office, vision for ACB, etc. The total length of this announcement may not exceed 200 words.
  3. A candidate or his/her representative may make subsequent campaign announcements on a biweekly (every two weeks) basis. The announcement may be a repeat of the candidate’s original announcement, or it may be updated. Any updated announcement must comply with the announcement provisions set forth herein.
  4. Any candidate may respond to a direct question from any list subscriber as long as both the question and the response are made in accordance with the rules and guidelines of the list upon which they appear. If a question is posed on multiple lists, the candidate may post his/her response to those same lists, but a candidate may not forward or cross post a response to any list where the original question was not posted.
  5. A candidate or his/her representative may not engage in a back-and-forth discussion with any supporter or detractor. In other words, if a list member asks a question, the candidate may provide a response. Any subsequent communications should be taken off list.
  6. Candidates and their supporters and representatives are requested to refrain from reposting candidate announcements and candidate responses to questions. Repeated posts of the same information (even if done by different subscribers) are considered a violation of these guidelines.
  7. Violations of these guidelines may result in a public admonition from the List Moderator and/or penalties in accordance with the rules and guidelines for the list(s) upon which the candidate’s posts appear.

 Rules for Candidates for Office in State and Special Interest Affiliates and Local Chapters

  1. Any candidate, or his/her representative, may post an announcement to any or all ACB lists, announcing the candidate’s candidacy, providing contact information for any individual who wishes to communicate with the candidate about his/her campaign, information about any social media site, email list or other means of communication which the candidate has established for ongoing communication with individuals, and a summary of the candidate’s goals for running for office, vision for the organization, etc. The total length of this announcement may not exceed 200 words.
  2. A candidate or his/her representative may make subsequent campaign announcements on a biweekly (every two weeks) basis. The announcement may be a repeat of the candidate’s original announcement, or it may be updated. Any updated announcement must comply with the announcement provisions set forth herein.
  3. Because the candidate is not running for a national office, all list members and all candidates, their supporters and representatives are requested to ask and answer questions either privately or off list, using any communications means which the candidate has established for direct communications with his/her affiliate, supporters or other parties.

Violations of these guidelines may result in a public admonition from the List Moderator and/or penalties in accordance with the rules and guidelines for the list(s) upon which the candidate’s posts appear.