Liberal Youth elections: Returning Officer ruling no.1

As part of a move towards improving the transparency of elections within Liberal Youth, there follows the full text of my first communication to candidates...

Dear All,

Firstly, may I welcome you to the process of electing the new Officers and Executive Committee of Liberal Youth. As the Returning Officer, my job is to steer you all from close of nominations to declaration of the results on 31 March.

I attach a copy of the Constitution of Liberal Youth, and refer you to Article 9 which defines the framework within which these elections will be run. Failure to read them will not be accepted as an excuse if you breach the Rules, I fear, so do take the time to familiarise yourselves with them.

Now that nominations have closed, I must advise you as to a series of rulings that have been sought as follows:

Membership Lists, access to

It had been my intention to make these available to candidates, subject to completion and return of a data protection certificate. Unfortunately, Article 9.15 (a) forbids me from doing so. For the record, I believe that this restriction may have implications in terms of equality of access to information, but the Constitution is quite explicit. I may return to this point after the elections are completed.

Endorsements

I am currently involved in reviewing the Parliamentary Candidate Selection Rules, which gives me an opportunity to use you as guinea pigs. I intend to take that opportunity by declaring that the inclusion of Party 'celebrities' etc in photographs in manifestos is not deemed to represent endorsement unless explicitly stated. It is my intention that a statement be included prominently in the manifesto booklet to this effect.

Please note that there is one exception, the Liberal Youth Administrator, Paul Pettinger. It is the convention that Party staff remain neutral in internal Party elections, and it is my intention to protect that neutrality as far as I can.

Explicit endorsements shall be vouched and, if challenged, written evidence provided to me as Returning Officer. Any unverifiable endorsement shall be treated as a breach of Article 9.15 (h), and lead to disqualification.

This means that endorsements are allowed, especially given that the Constitution does not rule them out.

Facebook

Candidates may set up Facebook groups in support of their candidacy, and are asked to invite me to join, so that I might monitor them in the event of a complaint.

Hustings

I will rule tomorrow on the amount of time available for speeches following consultation with Paul, bearing in mind the availability of time within the agenda for the weekend.

That's it in terms of general rulings thus far. There are some other issues but I will take these up individually, as they are issues pertaining to accuracy, or application of a specific Rule.

If you have any questions, I can be reached by any of the means below. I would be grateful if you could keep contact during work hours to a minimum, as I do have a full-time job drinking blood and eating babies on behalf of HM Revenue & Customs...

Good luck to all of you. I will post a full list of candidates on my blog and on the Liberal Youth website in due course.