Elections of Non-Country Committee Representatives

Posted by Elizabeth Voss
February 26, 2025

Chair, Basel Chapter; DPCA Voting Representative, Switzerland

The content of this page is excerpted from the Elections of Non-Country Committee Representatives document found on the Non-CC Voting Rep Elections page of the DA Wiki.

Summary

The following election procedures are the minimum standards for the fair and transparent elections of DA Non-Country Committee (NCC) Representatives based on the election practices of the Democratic Party Committee Abroad (DPCA or simply ‘Democrats Abroad’) and the Democratic Party of the United States (Democratic National Committee or DNC).

This document describes the procedures and rules to be followed by Regional Vice Chairs (RVC) and the DA Non-Country Committee (NCC) Nominations and Elections Committee (NEC) in preparing, announcing, and running elections for NCC Representatives.

Elected Positions

The election of the Non-Country Committee (NCC) Representative will be conducted at a regional Election Meeting in the first quarter of each odd-numbered year.
Each of DA’s three Regions shall elect one NCC Representative to represent their interests to the DPCA, including at meetings of the DPCA and by voting as allowed by the DA Charter.
A Region’s NCC Representative shall, under supervision of the RVC, be elected by registered NCC general members residing within the respective Region (regional NCC electors).

Term of Office

An NCC Representative shall serve a term of two years and may not serve more than two consecutive terms in the same office.
In the event that there is no candidate for an NCC Representative, an office-holder who has served previous consecutive terms in that office may be elected to another term by a two-thirds (2/3) majority of votes cast in
accordance with the procedures established by the NEC.
An NCC Representative who was elected mid-term and has served for over a year and a day is deemed to have served a full term.

Non-Country Committee Status and Eligibility

NCC status has a direct effect on candidate and voter eligibility as follows:

To be eligible to run or vote in an NCC election, a general member must be a registered member of Democrats Abroad residing in a country, territory, or a committee-in-formation, without a recognized Democrats Abroad Country Committee (NCC general member).
NCC general members residing within a designated Region shall be eligible to run for office and vote in their Region’s NCC election.
NCC general members within out-of-compliance Democrats Abroad Country Committees shall be considered ineligible to run and vote in these elections.

Candidate Eligibility

A candidate must be a member of DA no less than 17 days prior to the election meeting.
Eligible candidates participating in Non-Country Committee (NCC) Representative elections must be an NCC general member in the designated Region in which they run.

Registration Requirements

Determining country/territory residency:

Membership in a particular Non-Country Committee automatically ceases when a Democrats Abroad member no longer resides within the relevant NCC country. Career, family, and other circumstances of many Democrats Abroad members require that they may travel, have temporary work assignments in other countries, or have more than one residence. To ensure that candidates and voters have legitimate contacts with the jurisdiction in which they seek office and/or vote, the totality of the circumstances should be evaluated in determining a candidate’s or voter’s overseas residence or domicile. The NEC may act under the assumption that DA registration accurately reflects a candidate's or voter's residency. Judgments for candidate residency may be subject to challenge as provided [in the complete Elections of Non-Country Committee Representatives document].

Additional information can be found on the NCC Voting Rep Elections page of the DA Wiki.