General Communications Guidelines for Elections

Attachment: 4399/General_Communications_Guidelines_for_Elections_(1).pdf

v20240813

GENERAL COMMUNICATION GUIDELINES FOR ELECTIONS

We strongly encourage all staff and volunteers to be active in election campaigns as private individual
citizens using their own resources. As a nonprofit corporation, however, Convention of States (COS) is
subject to federal and state laws that uniquely regulate its communications related to candidates and
their campaigns.  When using COS resources (including your COS email account, your COS volunteer title,
the COS mailing list, COS Slack teams, COS social media pages, etc.), please follow the guidelines below.
Any exception to these guidelines must be approved in writing by the Legal Department.

DO



DO NOT

Do

encourage volunteers to get out and vote

E.g. do say “make sure to get out and vote.”

Do not

tell volunteers who to vote for

E.g. do not say “Re-elect our sponsor Sen. Patriot” or

“Vote for the pro-COS candidate”

Do

encourage general political activity in a

nonpartisan manner

E.g. do say “make sure you get involved with

candidates who support your values.”

Do not

encourage political activity in support

of a particular candidate or party

E.g.

do not say

“make sure you vote Republican.”

Do

use your personal resources to support

candidates of your choosing

E.g. do post in support of candidates you like on your

personal Facebook page.

Do not

use COS resources to support

candidates or political parties

E.g. do not post on the COS Facebook pages or send

out an email to the COS list for a particular candidate.

Do

lobby candidates to support our

application

E.g. do ask candidates to pledge to support our

application if elected.

Do not

mention candidates by name in COS

communications about the election.

E.g. do not say “get out vote this November. Sen.

Patriot is a big supporter and he’s up for reelection.”

Do

provide neutral, nonpartisan information

about the election and voting

E.g.

do say

“Here’s a link to a government website with

more information about the election and voting”

Do not

give special treatment to particular

candidates or parties

E.g. do not say “Here’s a link to Sen. Patriot’s re-

election page, check it out and get involved.”

Do

reach out to nonpartisan lists of like-

minded citizens to encourage voting

E.g. do reach out to the COS list, or a pro-life list telling

folks to go vote (but don’t tell them how to vote).

Do not

encourage a partisan list to vote or

ask for support of a particular political party.

E.g. do not reach out to a list of registered Republicans

and tell them to go vote.

Questions? Please contact the Legal Department a<t >

**[email protected]**

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Login Required to view?	No
Created:	2024-08-21 23:05 GMT
Updated:	2025-08-22 03:00 GMT
Published:	2024-08-21 07:00 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:33 GMT
Change Author:	Jakob Fay
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