Election of GIJN Board — 2015

The Current GIJN Board

Board Election Rules (Bylaws)
Candidates for Board of Directors
Results from 2014 Election

This October, the membership of the Global Investigative Journalism Network will vote to elect members of the GIJN Board of Directors. The board consists of 15 members. Of these, seven seats are now up for election — all for a period of two years.

These are the board members whose seats are now up for election:

Brant Houston, Fernando Rodrigues and Rana Sabbagh (regional).

Marina Walker, Mzilikazi wa Africa, Jan Gunnar Furuly and Paul Radu (at-large).

The election committee, consisting of Nils Mulvad, Margo Smit, and John Bones, will accept nominations of board candidates until September 8, 2015.

Board Election Rules

To be eligible to run, candidates must belong to a GIJN member organization and their candidacy must have the support of that organization. Candidates are required to send to Nils Mulvad a photo, a short bio (300 words or less), and a statement about why they want to join the GIJN board (500 words or less). Candidate bios and statements will be posted here.

One board-member position is reserved for a representative of the host organization for the next global conference, which will be decided on the same ballot as the election of board members.

We have divided board members into the following regions and two election groups:

Group 1: North America, Latin America/Caribbean, Middle East/North Africa.

Group 2: Europe, Asia/Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa.

This year we will vote on the regional members from Group 1 and four at-large board-members.

For the three regions in Group 1, voters will choose one member to represent that region. Voting will be open only to members based in that region, and members can vote for only one candidate.

If only one candidate, or no candidates, run for the board in that region, no election will be held for that region. If only one is running, he or she will be elected. If two or more candidates get equal votes, the election committee will decide by flipping a coin.

Representatives of the full GIJN membership are entitled to vote for election of the four at-large members. Here each membership organization can vote for a maximum of 4 board-members.

If an individual has already been elected as a regional representative, he or she shall be removed from the list of elected at large representatives. Similarly, if an individual’s election would mean one region exceeds the allowable amount of four at-large representatives, he or she shall be removed from the list of at-large representatives.

The four candidates with the most votes are elected, unless it will conflict with the two rules mentioned above. If there is a tie in the voting, the decision will be made by the election committee flipping a coin.

The board member for the organization hosting the next global conference does not count in the calculation on maximum five members in the board from one region.

If there are more candidates than seats, we will hold an election using electronic voting. It will open 9 am, Thursday, October 8 and end Saturday, 7 pm, October 10, 2015, Norwegian time. The voters are the designated representatives of GIJN member organizations. Each organization receives one vote.

We will soon send out an email to every representative to ask them to confirm who is representing their organization in the voting.

John Bones of SKUP, who is not in the board, will oversee the voting process.

The results of the electronic voting will be announced at the GIJC15 closing ceremony on Sunday, October 11. Immediately after, the new board members will replace the previous members.

GIJN Membership Meeting

A GIJN membership meeting will take place at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference on Friday, October 9, 2015, from 5 pm to 8 pm, in Lillehammer, Norway.

Decisions at the membership meeting will be made by majority vote. Each designated representative of our member organizations at the meeting will have one vote. Absent members can give their voting right, or proxy, to another GIJN member representative, but this must be registered, either beforehand by sending an email to Nils Mulvad or by a written and signed statement accepted by Margo Smit or Nils Mulvad at the start of the meeting.

Voting to elect board members and to choose the site of GIJC17 will be done electronically, to ensure that GIJN member organizations worldwide can participate.