Society hopes for increased participation in Council election this year
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is encouraging members to take part in this year's Council election and hopes to see an upturn in the proportion of voting papers returned.
The proportion of members voting has declined slowly over many years.
Last year the percentage was 21.8, compared with 22.8 in 2004 and 22.4
in 2003.
However, the Society believes that the complex nature of last year’s
multiconstituency election may have deterred some pharmacists from voting.
The election was an unusually complicated one because it was the first
election to the new, enlarged Council. It involved a total of 30 candidates
seeking election to the 14 unreserved places for pharmacists and/or to
one of the three national seats for England (with the Isle of Man and
the Channel Islands), Scotland and Wales.
The Society hopes that this year’s single constituency ballot — involving
the selection of up to five names from a list of only eight candidates — will
attract more voters.
An Official Notice reminding pharmacists about the election appears on
p489.
After the original voting papers posted on 31 March were declared invalid
because of an administrative error, new papers were sent out to members
on 7 April by first class post (or the equivalent for overseas addresses)
to ensure that they reached members in good time. (The Society’s
regulations require voting papers to be sent out at least 14 days before
the election’s closing date.). Completed ballot papers must reach
Electoral Reform Services, which manages the election on behalf of the
Society, by noon on 5 May.
Members who have already voted using the original grey voting paper will
need to vote again because those votes will not be counted. The new ballot
papers are printed on salmon-coloured paper.
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Pharmaceutical Journal