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Committee Elections

Candidates for Edinburgh Branch Committee (2023-2024)

Download a PDF document of all candidate statements and lists of roles they are contesting.

OR

Read statements from each individual candidate and the roles they are contesting below:

Voting for committee positions will be open from 12 June to 22 June. Members will be sent an email from Opavote with a voting link. Results will be announced at the AGM on 29 June 2023.

Running for Committee

Find out more about the Committee | Find out how to submit your nomination

The following Committee positions are available:

  • Co-Convener (x2) *
  • Secretary (a)
  • Treasurer * (a)
  • Welfare and Conduct Officer * (a)
  • Access and Incusion Officer (a)
  • Elections Agent
  • Sub-branches and Member Support Officer* (x2)
  • Campaigns Officer (x2)
  • Communications Officer (x2)
  • Events and Fundraising Officer (x2)
  • Ordinary Member - Sub-branches and Member Support Group (x4)
  • Ordinary Member - Campaigns Group (x4)
  • Ordinary Member - Communications Group (x4)
  • Ordinary Member - Events and Fundraising Group (x4)

*to run for these roles, you need to have been a member of the party for one year. If you do not meet this criteria, please contact convenors.edin@scottishgreens.org.uk and we can discuss options to resolve this.

  • We are electing a gender-balanced committee. To do this, roles will be elected in pairs or groups of four as listed above. Each pair will require at least one woman to be elected. Each group of 4 will require at least two women to be elected. We are electing an odd number of roles and the role of Elections Agent is open to any gender. Note: if you are non-binary, we will be in contact to ask how you want to be treated in regard to gender balancing.
  • Interested in one of the roles above? Read the role descriptions for the above positions; and see also more information about the committee. Please contact the branch co-conveners on convenors.edin@scottishgreens.org.uk to discuss further.
  • If you are interested in standing, please see here for more information on how to submit your nomination. Please note that the deadline for submitting your nomination is 8 June 2023.

How we handle the count

In this election we encourage candidates to run for many positions. We've also enforcing gender balance rules. Here's a brief outline of the process. Candidates will be elected to their positions as follows:

  1. Candidates list the positions they’re standing for in order of preference.

  2. We run an election for each position in order to get our members’ ranked preferences among the candidates for each position.

  3. Where one candidate wins multiple positions and can’t hold them simultaneously, they take their preferred one, leaving other positions they won vacant for the moment.

  4. So long as there are vacant positions and candidates running for them, we continue down the members’ vote rankings making more offers, with candidates’ preferences deciding the toss whenever they have more than one offer open to them.

  5. This can mean that candidates lined up for one position get offered another later in the process if the voters want them for it: they’ll “trade up” if they prefer the new offer, in which case their “old” position gets re-offered, to voters’ next favourite candidate.

  6. The result is that positions are filled in a way that best satisfies both our members’ and our candidates’ wishes.

Gender balance

To implement our gender balance rules (described in the committee roles document), we worked as follows:

  • We run the election process. If the result satisfies all gender balance rules, we’re done. If it doesn’t, we eliminate a man from one of the races and try again.

  • We eliminate the man blocking a woman from election who is “least appropriate” to his role, in the sense that somebody who ranked co-co as their #1 position and who was voted co-co #1 by members is very appropriate, while somebody in their #3 preferred position, voted there #2 by members, is less so.

  • We work from men triggering the most specific gender balance rules to the least specific ones, since fixing a very specific violation (like two male co-cos) may also help satisfy a less-specific rule (such as 50% of committee being female).

  • In some elections we shorten the slate when there are too few women standing: in those, men may be eliminated even if they’re not blocking a woman from election.

  • Non-binary candidates will be contacted individually to discuss how they would like to be treated in regard to gender balancing.

For full details of the process, please contact convenors.edin@scottishgreens.org.uk.

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