2023 Board of Directors
The candidates for the Board of Directors are listed below. Click the links under their name to read the candidate’s statement and brief biography.
The terms of Javier Castillo, Jr. and Hilda Zavala-Shymanik will expire on June 3, 2023. Javier will not be seeking reelection, Hilda has termed out.
Introducing the Candidates
The NAJIT Board of Directors, together with the Nominations Committee, is proud to announce the candidates running to fill the open positions on the Board of Directors. This year there are two vacancies and two candidates in the election.
Our Board of Directors is responsible for setting policy and supervising the Association’s affairs, as well as laying out the path for NAJIT to follow today and in the future while it represents our interests.
To this end, the Nominations Committee seeks to provide a slate of candidates who are active and experienced volunteers, and represent the interests, needs, and profiles of NAJIT’s membership.
The candidates for this year’s election are:
To cast your vote you will need the voter key and voter id sent to you via email when the election is launched. The election will be launched by May 4, 2023.
Voting takes place electronically, and not during the Annual Business Meeting. All Active and Life Members can vote online using the link they will receive via email or requesting a mail-in ballot. If you would like a mail-in ballot, please request one from the Election Committee at elections@najit.org. This year, the deadline for voting online is June 2, 2023, at 11:59 PM ET. After this date, all votes will be tallied, and the results announced during the Annual Business Meeting on June 3, 2023.
This is your opportunity to shape the future of NAJIT. Make sure your voice is heard. Your vote and participation matter!
Elections Committee’s Mandate
The Board approved and appointed the 2023 Elections Committee. Our mandate under the NAJIT bylaws is to carry out the election and to count the votes and report on the results to the Membership at the Annual Business Meeting. The process followed by the Elections Committee protects the confidentiality of each voter’s choices and the integrity of the collection and reporting of votes.
As our bylaws stipulate, the voting methods are determined by the Board of Directors. Members have the choice of voting by mail ballot or online through a third-party election platform called Election Runner.
Note: When you submit an electronic ballot on Election Runner, a ballot receipt will appear on screen. Save or print it as Election Runner does not send an email confirmation.
Secure Web-Based Voting Platform
Our Elections Committee has been trained in the use of the Election Runner platform to fill the voter roster and have emails automatically sent to each voter to access an individualized voter key to use for voting online. Once the votes are cast, and prior to the close of the election, votes are completely confidential, the tally for any of the candidates cannot be monitored, and no active voter can vote more than once without a record being made of each name, email address, and voter key used to cast a duplicate vote.
Election Runner uses a traceable unique key for each voter to cast their vote electronically and allows for the generation of an anonymized report of the raw ballots received and tallied which can only be reviewed at the close of the election.
The anonymized report of raw ballots at the close of the election is an additional safeguard provided to the Elections Committee by the election platform so that we may fulfill our fiduciary duty of counting the votes without revealing the identity of the voter during this process.
Mail-in Ballots
Any mail-in ballots received by the cutoff date of June 2, will be included and documented in the vote tally reported by the Elections Committee to the Membership at the Annual Business Meeting. If you would like a mail-in ballot, please request one from the Election Committee at elections@najit.org.
Voting will be open until June 2, 2023, at 11:59 PM ET.
Respectfully yours,
The Elections Committee
Steven Mines, Chair, (Texas)
Ketta Foraker, (Texas)
Garrett Bradford, (Maryland)
Karola Rangel, (New Jersey)
Virginia Santamaria, (Florida)