Even with normal Alpha operations on pause, officer elections and transitions must continue! Fortunately, there are a few ways to handle online elections and some good strategies for transitioning from the old position-holder to the new. It may seem daunting given all that goes into an election, but with the modern tools available, it can actually be quite easy. Try this when your Alpha's elections come up:

Speeches

• Use Zoom to invite the entire Alpha to the election event
• Spotlight the video of the candidate that is giving his speech
• Place all other candidates for the position in the Zoom waiting room throughout the others' speeches

 Questions

• Following each candidate's speech, open the floor for questions from the Alpha
• Let the candidate call on people, who have used the "raise hand" feature on Zoom to indicate that they have a question

 Discussion and Voting

• After each candidate has given his speech and taken questions, place them all in the Zoom waiting room
• The rest of the Alpha can discuss the candidates for each position
• If your University has a voting tool on their website, you can use that
• Or, Zoom does allow for polls itself and should show results anonymously

 Results

• Once the votes have been tallied and winners chosen, have the existing #1 bring everyone back into the room to announce the new officers
• It might help to have prepared remarks where you can just insert the names, so it sounds professional and unbiased

 Transitioning

• Once the new officers are selected, have the outgoing position-holders (or one designated member of your EC) set up a Zoom meeting between the old and new officer of each position
• You should have transition manuals or documents that are kept securely stored and consistently updated that can be traded to the new position-holder
• If not, make sure the meeting is productive in the sense that the new position-holder is getting ALL of the information available
• The incoming position-holder should have adequate time during the meeting to ask any questions he has about the position
• Lastly, the outgoing position-holder should give his personal advice and recommendations for the coming year (what worked, what he could have done better, what he would have changed about his term, etc.)

 Other Tips 

• Reach out to every candidate before elections to make sure they understand the process and answer any questions they have - remember, this is a new way of doing things for everyone involved
• If you don't already have the aforementioned transition materials, this is a perfect opportunity to create them; in the transition meetings, the new and old position-holders can work together to create one