Report on the 2013 Election of a Speaker of the ECPR Council

Introduction

In 2012 the ECPR Constitution was amended to create a position of Speaker of the ECPR Council (Article 13). The responsibilities of the Speaker are:

• to chair meetings of Council;
• to liaise with the Executive Committee over business matters and the formulation of the agenda for Council meetings;
• to serve as Senior Returning Officer for Executive Committee elections;
• to serve as general liaison point for members of Council vis-à-vis the ECPR; and
• to draft and propose revisions to the Standing Orders of Council for approval by the Council.

The Speaker will be elected for a three-year term, not concurrent with the term of the Executive Committee, and can be re-elected once.

Rules

The Constitution stipulates that the Speaker shall be elected by and from Official Representatives of full-member institutions 'in a manner akin to that of the Executive Committee'. Rules for Electing the Speaker of the ECPR Council were drawn up by the Executive Committee in consultation with the ECPR Senior Returning Officer (Appendix 1). The stages in the election process are similar to those for electing the Executive Committee: self-nomination, endorsement, voting. The nominations are restricted to Official Representatives. The election of a single Speaker differs from the election of several Members of the Executive Committee. This has consequences for the endorsement and voting stage. Official Representatives can endorse only one candidate. To gain access to the final ballot a candidate needs at least five endorsements including endorsements from Official Representatives of both genders and from at least two countries. It was decided to use the Alternative Vote system, as this is closest to the Single Transferable Vote system used for electing the Executive Committee

Process

The rules for electing the Speaker of the ECPR Council were posted on the ECPR website. All Official Representatives were notified by email of the forthcoming elections, the deadlines for the various stages, and the rules. Three Official Representatives nominated themselves: Professors David Farrell (University College Dublin), Hans Keman (Free University Amsterdam) and Shane Martin (City University Dublin).

As Professor Farrell was the ECPR Senior Returning Officer, the Executive Committee decided to appoint another Returning Officer to oversee this particular election: Professor Wolfgang C Müller (University of Vienna). The Executive Committee is most grateful to Professor Müller for stepping in at such short notice.

The Executive Committee also points out that in future the Speaker will act as Senior Returning Officer for Executive Committee elections, but that it may be inappropriate for the Speaker to oversee his or her own election. The future Standing Orders of Council will need to address this issue.

During the endorsement stage, Professor Shane Martin withdrew his nomination. The withdrawal was accepted by the Returning Officer. The two remaining candidates both received sufficient endorsements (also gender-wise and country-wise). Professor David Farrell received 46 endorsements; Professor Hans Keman 36 endorsements.

Given the number of nominations and of sufficiently endorsed candidates, the Returning Officer decided not to extend the periods of nomination and/or endorsements.

Outcome

A total of 91 Official Representatives have voted during the voting period from the 294 full-member institutions permitted to vote. The results are as follows:

Under the Alternative Vote system, voters are asked to rank-order the candidates (but voters were not required to rank-order a minimum or maximum number of candidates). However, given the fact that there were not more than two candidates on the ballot, the second preferences have played no role in the outcome.

Conclusion

Professor David Farrell received 51.6 per cent of the votes and is declared elected to serve as Speaker of the ECPR Council from 1 March 2013 to 29 February 2016.

This report has been accepted by the Returning Officer, Professor Wolfgang C Müller
1 March 2013