Wiki source for AdvancingElectedtoOffice
===Advancing Elected Officials into Office===
Advancing elected officials into office may be done by the Research Department or the PCT Department, based on their respective resources and experience. Please sort out who will do what prior to starting.
After the election, a new office should be created for the challengers who won, with their office status "elected." This should automatically be created as part of advancing election results, but verify to make sure this is being done properly. Incumbents' offices will not change until you advance everyone into office.
After a major election, advancing elected officials into office should mostly be done via import, with the rest handled manually. Consult the previous year's advancing import for an example.
The import should generally include the following information:
State: (For example: Alaska)
Office: (For example: State House)
Office as listed in Bio: (For example: Representative, Alaska State House of Representatives)
First took office date: mm/dd/yyyy. Offices typically have different swearing-in dates(which can be found 1,000 other places). However, all federal offices, regardless of state (with the exception of special elections), should have the same swearing-in day. Contact the elected office's clerk to confirm these dates.
Next elect date: yyyy (2011)
Term Length: The number of years (For example: 4)
Term Limits: The number of years, not the number of terms, if the office is not term limited, leave blank (For example: 8)
1) DETERMINING NEXT ELECT (TERM END) DATES
Open the document "first_next_last"
While not comprehensive, this will serve as your foundation for "next elect" dates. Feel free to fill in and update this document (resources for this: [[http://wiki.votesmart.org/TermsofOffice Terms of Office]]). Be particularly careful this year and probably up until 2014- with redistricting, some states may have different term lengths this year than usual (for example, NJ State Senate and FL State Senate). There may be some states that have this same issue, but this information is not easy to find, so good luck. Judicial candidates' next-elect date will vary even within a state. See here for resources to help you determine each newly-elected person's next-elect date: [[http://wiki.votesmart.org/Judicial Judicial]] (judicialselection.us will probably be your best bet). Be cautious with statewide officials as well.
2) DETERMINING FIRST TOOK OFFICE DATES
Copy and paste the the first-next-last document into a new document and then just add a "First Took Office Dates" column (be sure to add the territories and DC as well). If no incumbent lost and no challenger one for a given state and office (for example, if all Judicial candidates were retained in AL), put "advance now" in lieu of a "first took office" date. If there are multiple "first took office" dates within a given state and office, take care of these manually and note that in the spreadsheet.
Open the "QC Info Gathered" document for that year.
If you scroll to the right you will find a column "When will those elected in the general election be sworn-in to office? (Remember to get this for all offices we cover)" with some information already filled in. I wouldn't trust information that's not broken down by office (it's possible that all state officials will have the same swear-in date, but not common). Also, judicial candidates will likely have different dates from everybody else, and even from other judicial candidates in their state. All federal offices, regardless of state (with the exception of special elections), should have the same swearing-in day. To fill in the blanks, contact the elected office's clerk (for example, the Alaska State Senate's office) and ask. It is probably a good idea to also ask these offices when and where a list of contact info will be available for the new officials, and if that could be provided to you in a csv or Excel Document.
3) MASS ADVANCING ELECTED OFFICIALS INTO OFFICE
Submit this document with "first took office" dates to IT when complete.
Elected officials should be advanced on the day that they take office. It will be helpful to send IT reminders the day before.
Once officials have been advanced into office by IT, verify that the mass changes have been done correctly:
~-For New Officials, a new office will be created. For this office, they should all say "Elected" rather than "Appointed." First Elect Dates and Last Elect Dates will be the Date of the Election. The Next Elect Dates and "First Took Office" dates should match what you have given them. Verify that Office Title, Political Party, State, and District transfer exactly from that official's Election. Status should be "active" and the person should be listed as "live" on the Bio page. On the Bio Page, under Political Experience, their new office should be added- verify that it is formatted properly and there isn't any duplication. The start year on the bio will match the year of the election, even if they didn't actually take office until January of the next year.
~-For Incumbents who are Re-Elected, a new office should not be created, but their current office slightly updated. First Elect Dates, office titles, political parties, states, districts, and statuses should not change. Last Elected dates should change to the date of the General Election, and Next Elect dates should match what you give IT, and should say "Term Limited" for those who are not eligible for another reelection. Nothing should change on the Bio page.
~-Incumbents who are Not Re-Elected should have their offices deactivated (office status changed to "inactive") with their "Left Office" date the same as the "First Took Office" for that office's newly elected officials. Their next-elect dates should be cleared. On the Bio page, their previous office should now have an end year that matches the year of the election, even if they did not actually leave office until January of the next year.
~-For Incumbents who are Elected to a Different Office, their old office should be dealt with as if they were an "Incumbent who was not Re-Elected," while their new office should appear like those of "New Officials." Pay particular attention to their Bio information.
~-During mass advancing, IT will also make changes to the bios of those incumbents that lost the most recent election. For example, for an incumbent that loses an election, IT will automatically generate the bio entry to change '####-present' to ####-#### (for the year that they lost the election). You will need to spot check bio entries to make sure this step was completed. If not, notify IT and let them know that those incumbents which lost the election need to have their bio entries match the office data (left office date).
Confirm that campaign contact information does not appear on the website for candidates whose offices have been advanced. If it is still showing up, notify IT.
4) MANUALLY ADVANCING OFFICIALS INTO OFFICE
Because the next-elect dates and swearing in dates vary by individual candidate, Judicial officials and other statewide officials should be advance manually.
Have QC notify you of any changes to election results, races that are still too close to call, and runoff elections- you will want to make sure that these people are accounted for, as if they are manually added officials.
Follow these instructions:
~-[[RemovingSomeoneFromOffice Removing those not Re-elected Manually in Admin]]
~-[[AddingSomeoneintoOfficeManually Add New Officials into Office Manually]]
5) IMMEDIATE UPDATES TO NEW OFFICIALS
~1) If a state has redistricted for this election, things will turn out quite messy. You will want to immediately go through the whole roster and make the appropriate corrections.
~1) have a member do a full roster webcheck of name/office/district/party- make corrections if necessary. Keep a list of Vacancies created by someone being elected to a different office- find out replacement information and add it to Google Calendar. Also, make sure newly-elected/appointed U.S. Senators get marked as "Jr.," unless the other seat is open. Look up the other U.S. Senator in that state and be sure to change this other Senator's office information ("district") to read "Sr." You might also need to update Web Import IDs manually. Web Import ID should be left blank unless it is a member of Congress or the U.S. Senate. The format of web ID's for the U.S. Senate is: "[last name] ([party initial]-[state abbreviation])" An example would be: "Kaufman (D-DE)." For U.S. House, their Web Import ID's tend to be just their last name. However, if multiple people have the same last name, this will not be so. To verify their ID, look to see how they are listed on Thomas' Roll Call Votes. If you have any questions, consult the Key Votes Director.
~1) see if we can import new office contact information for all of a state's officials (see outdated instructions here: http://wiki.votesmart.org/CreatingExceltoImport and http://wiki.votesmart.org/CheckingImports
~1) once it is available for the new officials on the state website, add and update the following:
~~-check the political experience on bios
~~-contact information
~~-committee assignments
~~-leadership assignments
~~-photos
~~-possibly a full bio update, at the discretion of your supervisor
OTHER END OF THE YEAR TASKS:
~-make master list of elections for the next election cycle (sources for collecting election dates: http://wiki.votesmart.org/CollectingElectionDates), stay on top of daily readings, and begin other pre-primary prep
Advancing elected officials into office may be done by the Research Department or the PCT Department, based on their respective resources and experience. Please sort out who will do what prior to starting.
After the election, a new office should be created for the challengers who won, with their office status "elected." This should automatically be created as part of advancing election results, but verify to make sure this is being done properly. Incumbents' offices will not change until you advance everyone into office.
After a major election, advancing elected officials into office should mostly be done via import, with the rest handled manually. Consult the previous year's advancing import for an example.
The import should generally include the following information:
State: (For example: Alaska)
Office: (For example: State House)
Office as listed in Bio: (For example: Representative, Alaska State House of Representatives)
First took office date: mm/dd/yyyy. Offices typically have different swearing-in dates(which can be found 1,000 other places). However, all federal offices, regardless of state (with the exception of special elections), should have the same swearing-in day. Contact the elected office's clerk to confirm these dates.
Next elect date: yyyy (2011)
Term Length: The number of years (For example: 4)
Term Limits: The number of years, not the number of terms, if the office is not term limited, leave blank (For example: 8)
1) DETERMINING NEXT ELECT (TERM END) DATES
Open the document "first_next_last"
While not comprehensive, this will serve as your foundation for "next elect" dates. Feel free to fill in and update this document (resources for this: [[http://wiki.votesmart.org/TermsofOffice Terms of Office]]). Be particularly careful this year and probably up until 2014- with redistricting, some states may have different term lengths this year than usual (for example, NJ State Senate and FL State Senate). There may be some states that have this same issue, but this information is not easy to find, so good luck. Judicial candidates' next-elect date will vary even within a state. See here for resources to help you determine each newly-elected person's next-elect date: [[http://wiki.votesmart.org/Judicial Judicial]] (judicialselection.us will probably be your best bet). Be cautious with statewide officials as well.
2) DETERMINING FIRST TOOK OFFICE DATES
Copy and paste the the first-next-last document into a new document and then just add a "First Took Office Dates" column (be sure to add the territories and DC as well). If no incumbent lost and no challenger one for a given state and office (for example, if all Judicial candidates were retained in AL), put "advance now" in lieu of a "first took office" date. If there are multiple "first took office" dates within a given state and office, take care of these manually and note that in the spreadsheet.
Open the "QC Info Gathered" document for that year.
If you scroll to the right you will find a column "When will those elected in the general election be sworn-in to office? (Remember to get this for all offices we cover)" with some information already filled in. I wouldn't trust information that's not broken down by office (it's possible that all state officials will have the same swear-in date, but not common). Also, judicial candidates will likely have different dates from everybody else, and even from other judicial candidates in their state. All federal offices, regardless of state (with the exception of special elections), should have the same swearing-in day. To fill in the blanks, contact the elected office's clerk (for example, the Alaska State Senate's office) and ask. It is probably a good idea to also ask these offices when and where a list of contact info will be available for the new officials, and if that could be provided to you in a csv or Excel Document.
3) MASS ADVANCING ELECTED OFFICIALS INTO OFFICE
Submit this document with "first took office" dates to IT when complete.
Elected officials should be advanced on the day that they take office. It will be helpful to send IT reminders the day before.
Once officials have been advanced into office by IT, verify that the mass changes have been done correctly:
~-For New Officials, a new office will be created. For this office, they should all say "Elected" rather than "Appointed." First Elect Dates and Last Elect Dates will be the Date of the Election. The Next Elect Dates and "First Took Office" dates should match what you have given them. Verify that Office Title, Political Party, State, and District transfer exactly from that official's Election. Status should be "active" and the person should be listed as "live" on the Bio page. On the Bio Page, under Political Experience, their new office should be added- verify that it is formatted properly and there isn't any duplication. The start year on the bio will match the year of the election, even if they didn't actually take office until January of the next year.
~-For Incumbents who are Re-Elected, a new office should not be created, but their current office slightly updated. First Elect Dates, office titles, political parties, states, districts, and statuses should not change. Last Elected dates should change to the date of the General Election, and Next Elect dates should match what you give IT, and should say "Term Limited" for those who are not eligible for another reelection. Nothing should change on the Bio page.
~-Incumbents who are Not Re-Elected should have their offices deactivated (office status changed to "inactive") with their "Left Office" date the same as the "First Took Office" for that office's newly elected officials. Their next-elect dates should be cleared. On the Bio page, their previous office should now have an end year that matches the year of the election, even if they did not actually leave office until January of the next year.
~-For Incumbents who are Elected to a Different Office, their old office should be dealt with as if they were an "Incumbent who was not Re-Elected," while their new office should appear like those of "New Officials." Pay particular attention to their Bio information.
~-During mass advancing, IT will also make changes to the bios of those incumbents that lost the most recent election. For example, for an incumbent that loses an election, IT will automatically generate the bio entry to change '####-present' to ####-#### (for the year that they lost the election). You will need to spot check bio entries to make sure this step was completed. If not, notify IT and let them know that those incumbents which lost the election need to have their bio entries match the office data (left office date).
Confirm that campaign contact information does not appear on the website for candidates whose offices have been advanced. If it is still showing up, notify IT.
4) MANUALLY ADVANCING OFFICIALS INTO OFFICE
Because the next-elect dates and swearing in dates vary by individual candidate, Judicial officials and other statewide officials should be advance manually.
Have QC notify you of any changes to election results, races that are still too close to call, and runoff elections- you will want to make sure that these people are accounted for, as if they are manually added officials.
Follow these instructions:
~-[[RemovingSomeoneFromOffice Removing those not Re-elected Manually in Admin]]
~-[[AddingSomeoneintoOfficeManually Add New Officials into Office Manually]]
5) IMMEDIATE UPDATES TO NEW OFFICIALS
~1) If a state has redistricted for this election, things will turn out quite messy. You will want to immediately go through the whole roster and make the appropriate corrections.
~1) have a member do a full roster webcheck of name/office/district/party- make corrections if necessary. Keep a list of Vacancies created by someone being elected to a different office- find out replacement information and add it to Google Calendar. Also, make sure newly-elected/appointed U.S. Senators get marked as "Jr.," unless the other seat is open. Look up the other U.S. Senator in that state and be sure to change this other Senator's office information ("district") to read "Sr." You might also need to update Web Import IDs manually. Web Import ID should be left blank unless it is a member of Congress or the U.S. Senate. The format of web ID's for the U.S. Senate is: "[last name] ([party initial]-[state abbreviation])" An example would be: "Kaufman (D-DE)." For U.S. House, their Web Import ID's tend to be just their last name. However, if multiple people have the same last name, this will not be so. To verify their ID, look to see how they are listed on Thomas' Roll Call Votes. If you have any questions, consult the Key Votes Director.
~1) see if we can import new office contact information for all of a state's officials (see outdated instructions here: http://wiki.votesmart.org/CreatingExceltoImport and http://wiki.votesmart.org/CheckingImports
~1) once it is available for the new officials on the state website, add and update the following:
~~-check the political experience on bios
~~-contact information
~~-committee assignments
~~-leadership assignments
~~-photos
~~-possibly a full bio update, at the discretion of your supervisor
OTHER END OF THE YEAR TASKS:
~-make master list of elections for the next election cycle (sources for collecting election dates: http://wiki.votesmart.org/CollectingElectionDates), stay on top of daily readings, and begin other pre-primary prep
