UUA Elections Policies and Official Information

At its April 2007 meeting, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Board of Trustees passed the following motion:

The UUA Executive Team shall implement a plan to provide timely, high quality information to congregations regarding At-Large candidates and their perspective on issues pertaining to the focus and mission of the Association.  Planning for the Association's information technology systems shall include strategies to support congregational participation in our democratic process.

In response to this motion, members of the UUA staff developed a set of communications protocols for UUA elections which were reviewed and affirmed by the UUA Board at its October 2007 meeting.

In general, the new policies recognize the changes in communications vehicles and technologies over the past several years. UU World is now a quarterly publication, and uuworld.org, our weekly online magazine, now provides another medium for communicating election-related content.

UUA.org offers increased opportunities for informing congregations by the use of technologies such as streaming video, video posting, podcasts, and online chats. The Office of Electronic Communication will continue, as it has done in past election cycles, to oversee use of email lists related to the election.

Candidates for the offices of President, Moderator, and Financial Advisor will also be afforded the opportunity to include a one-page flyer in a monthly UUA Congregational Bulletin. For inquiries and deadline schedules please email: info @ uua.org

For purposes of these policies, the decision for determining whether a person is an “announced candidate” shall be that of the Secretary of the Association, secretary @ uua.org. Furthermore, while the UUA will use all communications vehicles at its disposal to inform Unitarian Universalists about the election, only UU World and uuworld.org may cover election campaigns as news.

We are confident that these innovative strategies for communication about UUA elections will enhance congregational involvement in the election process.

• UU World and uuworld.org Election Policies (Word) (PDF, 2 pages)
• UUA.org Election Policies (Word) (PDF, 3 pages)
• Candidate Access to Mailing List Labels

Contact the UUA Election Campaign Practices Committee at ecp @ uua.org with additional questions.