It's back! The board of publications is again hosting an Internet candidates' page on www.acb.org.
The candidates' page is a read-only web page where people who want to run for office can allow the ACB membership to get to know them. All candidates will be asked to respond to the same set of questions. This page will also allow ACB chapters and affiliates to have more information at their disposal before they send delegates to the national convention. Over the past several years, a number of chapters have provided copies of the candidates' responses to their members in braille or had all the responses read aloud at membership meetings. Lively discussions ensued, and many members have told us how much they appreciated the opportunity to participate more actively in ACB's democracy because of the early dissemination of information which the online forum was able to facilitate.
This year, the elections are for officers: president, first and second vice president, secretary, and treasurer. As it stands, the officers who may run for re-election are the two vice presidents and the treasurer; the president and the secretary are at the ends of their terms. In a meeting March 15, the board of publications developed a set of questions for officer candidates, as follows.
1. What office are you seeking, and what qualifications do you possess which make you qualified to serve in that office?
2. What would you do to strengthen the relationship between the ACB national board and affiliates?
3. How can long-term financial stability be achieved for ACB?
4. What strategies could ACB implement to make its advocacy efforts more effective?
5. Identify the issues which you think are most important to the welfare of ACB and the blindness community as a whole.
6. Tell the membership anything you think they should know when considering your candidacy.
Answer each question with a maximum of 300 words. Submit answers in any accessible, readable media, i.e., in print, or braille, on paper, computer disk (in ASCII text, WordPerfect 5.1, or Microsoft Word formats), or via e-mail. Pasting the text into an e-mail message is preferable to sending attachments, but attachments in ASCII text, Microsoft Word or WordPerfect 5.1 will be accepted. Submissions will not be accepted via telephone, voice mail, audiocassette, or in handwriting. Note that we will not edit submissions for spelling, grammar, or content. The only change which will occur to submissions is conversion to the HTML code to facilitate online posting. Note further that it is our webmaster's role to convert documents into HTML; we will not accept submissions which you have coded in this format yourself.
When submitting your answers, please place your name, address, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and employer and job title at the top of each page. Center each item. The top of your page should look like this:
Jane Smith
1234 Main Street
Anytown, AnyState 00000
(555) 222-3333 (home)
(555) 000-4444 (work)
E-mail: [email protected]
Writer/Editor at AnyJob, Inc.
Write each question, and then place your corresponding answer underneath. Please number your pages. Send your completed submissions to the following address: American Council of the Blind Candidates' Page, 1155 15th Street NW, Suite 1004, Washington, DC 20005. Responses may be submitted by e-mail, according to the guidelines noted above, to [email protected].
Submissions should be mailed, either by postal delivery or electronic mail, so that they reach the ACB national office no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on May 31, 2007. When we receive a declared candidate's materials, we will check the membership database to ensure that he or she is a member in good standing. We hope to have the online candidates' page available at the ACB web site as soon after we have received all the submissions as possible, so that members will have access to the information in time for June membership meetings of local chapters. The pages will be available online no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, June 8, and will remain online at http://www.acb.org until the conclusion of convention. We encourage ACB members who have computer access to share the contents of the candidates' page with members who do not. We will notify members on the day that the page goes live online on all the ACB e-mailing lists.
When official campaigns begin in earnest at the ACB national convention, declared candidates will present at formal and informal state and special-interest caucuses. In addition, the board of publications will sponsor a live question-and-answer Candidates' Forum, which will be held on Thursday of convention week. The board of publications encourages all ACB members to submit written questions to be considered for this forum to the convention communications center. More details about this and other aspects of communications center operations will be included in the June issue.