Announcement, News

Code of Conduct

Code of Conduct for the 2019 Elections of the Board of Directors and Officers of Nepalese Association in Southeast America (NASeA)

 

This Code of Conduct shall be applicable from the day of its publication to until the results are announced on September 1, 2019.

It shall be MANDATORY for all candidates and voters to comply with the Code of Conduct. Anything not mentioned below, but should the Election Committee, at its own discretion, feel it necessary to enact new such codes to discharge its duly, may modify the Code of Conduct.

1.       Candidates or voters shall conduct themselves in accordance with the ideals and practices outlined in the bylaws of NASeA. At no times, candidates or voters shall claim to speak for the Election Committee.

2.       Candidates or voters shall not be involved in personal attacks toward other candidates, voters, or their close families.

3.       Candidates or voters shall not intimidate, pressure, force, exert undue influence, or monetarily compensate voters or potential voters, and other candidates or potential candidates, to win their votes.

4.       Candidates or voters shall not accept commissions, gifts, payments, loans, and promises of future benefits or other items of value from anyone who has or may seek some benefit from NASeA in return, other than normal gifts that are in keeping with friendship and/or family relationship.

5.       Quiet Period: Candidates or voters shall not conduct any election campaigns, solicitation of votes on the day of election within and outside the venue of the election starting at 5 am – until the results are announced.

6.       The Executive Board or any individual member of the Executive Board shall not interfere or exert any undue influence on the Election Committee.

7.   A candidate or voter shall have the right to file a complaint with evidence against another candidate or voter to the Election Committee if he/she believes that the other candidate or voter is in violation of the Code of Conduct. The complaint and evidence(s) may be emailed to the Election Committee at its email address election@naseaonline.org . On the day of the election, complaints must be made in person along with evidence to one of the election commissioners who will. The Election Committee shall investigate the complaint and declare its final verdict based on majority, which shall be binding to all concerned individuals.

8.   On the day of the, Election Committee shall not take any action simply based on complaints about any candidate or voter based in information published in social media, magazines, newspapers or websites. Only written complaints filed with evidence presented to one (or all) of the Election Commissioners present on site will be considered. Election commission will follow its internal protocol for resolution of such matter as promptly as possible and will render its verdict which will be final and binding.

9.   If the Election Committee determines that a candidate or voter is in violation of the Code of Conduct, it may, according to the severity of violation as determined by the Election Committee, issue a warning to the candidate or voter, ask the candidate or voter to issue a public apology, or debar the candidate or voter from contesting or voting in the election.

10. In the event of equal votes for a position, candidates with equal votes will be called and election chair will use coin toss or other unbiased and fair method to determine winner.

11. Election will occur from 8:00 AM EST – 4:00 PM EST on September 1st. Anyone in line by 4:00 PM EST will be allowed to cast their ballot.

12. Individuals must ensure correct voting the first time. They cannot claim error or cross the names and votes for second candidate or request for second ballot. Such crossed ballots will be deemed invalid.

13.
Officer Ballot: In the case of Officers ballot only the position in question will be invalid and votes will not be counted for that position only but all other valid position will be counted.  Example: If some one votes for both Presidents but correctly votes for other positions only the votes for President will be not be counted and all others will be counted.

Board Ballot: If more than allocated number of persons are marked then entire ballot will be invalid. Example: If someone checks 16 or more candidates in the board ballot then entire ballot will be invalid. However if instead of 15 , someone decides to select only 8 then all eight will be counted for appropriate candidates

14.   If any provision in the Code of Conduct is in violation of NASeA bylaws, or federal, local or state laws, such provision shall not prevail.

15. During and after vote counting, individuals with sensitive information or results are barred from passing information to the public.

16. If any election commissioner’s need to step away from the election venue, they will shall designate another individual to represent them with full authority.

17.   The Election Committee requests all candidates and voters to cooperate with it for completing the election in a transparent, democratic, free, and fair manner.

Respectfully, 
NASeA Election Committee-2019: 
Gyanendra Gadal, Chair 
Basu Phulara, Member 
Madhav Mainali, Member