Intro Activities/IcebreakersEducationalsTabletopicsSlate Election
Many Toastmasters find slate elections to be quite confusing. Here is a brief explanation how they work and why they are used. (They are not performed in the Immigrant Session.)
Slate elections allow a panel of pre-determined VP roles to be elected all at once, instead of individual roles being filled one at a time. This is done so that the participants do not feel singled out – if they lose the election, they all lose together, and there is no sense that any one participant is better than the other (as may occur when participants are pitted against each other for a role and only one may win).
The slate election works as follows:
1. There are two slates, which each have candidates for the President, Vice President, Sergeant-At-Arms, and Secretary positions.
2. Each slate must have a participant running for each position.
3. The participants take turns giving 30 second ‘election speeches’ to explain why they deserve the role. These may count towards their graduation criteria as tabletopics.
4. Everyone votes for either Slate 1, or Slate 2.
5. The candidates of the winning slate takes on the roles as pre-assigned.