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December 4, 2003
• The SSA Competition Rules sub-Committee is a part of the Contest Committee. The chair of the Contest Committee is appointed by the SSA Board of Directors and serves as one of the five members of the sub-committee (usually referred to as the “Rules Committee”). The other four members are elected by the pilots on the SSA Pilot Ranking List via an electronic ballot conducted each summer.
• One elected position is up for election each year. Each elected position carries a 4 year term.
• Nominations for the elected positions come from the Regional Directors. Each region may nominate one candidate. In the cases where there is more than one Director within a region, those Directors should get together and make one nomination. The nominee must be from that Director's region.
• The nomination should be made and seconded by pilots on the Ranking List from within the director's region. It is up to regional directors to establish the nomination system specific to their region.
• Requirement for nomination is that the individual must be listed on the latest ranking list or has served as Contest Manager/Competition Director at a National or Regional contest within the last three years. Candidates must be US citizens or Permanent Resident Aliens.
• In April, the Rules Committee Chairman submits two notices to SOARING magazine: 1) for publishing in the June issue of the magazine, a notice requesting that contest pilots submit nominations to their Regional Directors, and 2) for publishing in the August issue of the magazine, a notice announcing the web-based election which will take place in September.
• In early May, the Rules Committee Chairman starts the election process by asking the Regional Directors for nominations and bios of the candidates and by posting a notice on rec.aviation.soaring and appropriate portions of the SSA website.
• Nominations are sent from the Regional Directors to the Contest Committee Chairman between May 1 and July 1. The deadline for nominations to be received by the Contest Committee Chairman is July 1.
• Contest Committee Chairman will send a list of the nominees to the Regional directors shortly after July 1. Directors should confirm that their nominee is on the list.
• The election opens on September 1 and closes on September 15. The election is conducted electronically through the SSA webpage.
• Votes are tabulated using a weighted ballot method similar to the standard method used in other SSA votes. The weight is determined by reversing the ranking position number of the candidate (i.e. if there are three candidates, the candidate ranked first by a voter has a weight of 3, the second 2, and the third 1.) The weighted count values are determined by multiplying the counts for that candidate by the weights. The candidate who receives the largest weighted count value is elected to the Rules Committee to replace the outgoing member on October 1. [Note that in the standard SSA voting method the weight is set equal to the rank, rather than the reverse of the rank (i.e., the candidate ranked first by a voter has a weight of 1, the second 2, and the third 3, and the candidate who receives the smallest weighted count value is elected.) In that standard SSA voting method a blank entry on the ballot for candidate effectively becomes an unintentional vote for that candidate. Given the electronic vote tabulation method used in the web-based voting, reversing the ranking position solves this problem.]
• Results of the election will be announced by the Rules Committee Chairman on the SSA web page and on rec.aviation.soaring by September 22 and will be submitted to SOARING magazine for publishing as soon as practical.