The Ad Hoc Committee on Elections, chaired by Dan Buie, worked over the past year to develop guidelines for elections and campaigning. The Executive Council, acting on the recommendations of this committee, created a Committee on Elections and Election Campaigns and established a set of guidelines for the conduct of elections. The eight councilors-at-large will serve as committee members, and Allan Compton has been selected as chair. This committee will monitor and moderate all aspects of the conduct of elections and election campaigns within The American and will report to the Executive Committee and the Executive Council.

The new committee will receive all questions and complaints from the membership about the practices and procedures of candidates for office; it will also be responsible for addressing technical problems that may arise (e.g., non-receipt of a ballot). Issues that are not covered in the guidelines as well as issues of noncompliance with the guidelines will be taken up with the Executive Committee for action and reported to the Executive Council. The Committee may also report to the Committee on Ethics, should it find a member in violation of the Association's Principles of Ethics.

The guidelines adopted by the Executive Council formalize a set of rules for election procedures and for the conduct of candidates during their campaigns. The guidelines cover such subjects as resources to be used, the number of permissible mailings to the membership, other permissible communications, campaign visits, and the form of balloting to be used when multiple candidates are to be chosen from a slate. No guidelines have yet been approved for electronic communications. The Executive Council also decided to forbid the elected officers of The American as well as the editors of JAPA and TAP from taking part in IPA election campaigns.