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Ineligible Candidate With Lots of Votes


Dan Honemann

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During the annual meeting of a Society whose bylaws are the same as the bylaws on pages 583-88 of RONR, (11th ed.), the assembly is in the process of electing four Directors to serve for the coming year. When the ballots are counted, it is determined that A, B, C, D, and E all received a majority of the votes cast, with E receiving the least number of votes.

While the ballots were being counted, D woke up and realized that he was ineligible to serve another term in the office of Director (since it would be his third consecutive term in that office), and he so advises the chair, who confirmed to his own satisfaction that this was indeed the fact (the records are quite clear).

Upon receiving the report of the tellers, which does not reflect the fact that the votes cast for D were illegal votes, what should the chair do?

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I think he should announce that A,B,C were elected and then rule that although the report shows D being elected he actually has reached his term limit and thus is not eligible to serve another term. There would be an incomplete election for the 4th seat which would need to be completed.

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A non parliamentary question and just wondering: if I'm doing the math properly, is it possible that D can actually receive a majority if A, B and C have also received more than half the votes cast?

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Definitely possible. As an example, assume there are only 7 voters participating, and each is allowed to vote for up to 4 candidates. Six candidates (creatively named A through F) are running. A majority would be 4 votes.

voter

1....... A C E F

2........A B C E

3........A B C D

4........A B C D

5........A B C D

6........A B D E

7....... B D E

Candidate A ended up with 6 votes, B with 6 votes, C with 5, D with 5, E with 4, and F with 1.

[This worried me also when a similar scenario was suggested in the thread that preceded this one -- it sounded implausible at first that so many candidates could actually get a majority, so I started making lists of possible vote outcomes, like the one above.]

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I think he should announce that A,B,C were elected and then rule that although the report shows D being elected he actually has reached his term limit and thus is not eligible to serve another term. There would be an incomplete election for the 4th seat which would need to be completed.

I don't agree. I think that A, B, C, and E have been elected, and that no further balloting is required.

Using Trina's scenario, the tellers' report should be as follows:

Number of votes cast......................................................................7

Necessary for election....................................................................4

A received.....................................................................................6

B received.....................................................................................6

C received.....................................................................................5

E received.....................................................................................4

F received.....................................................................................1

Illegal Votes

D (ineligible)..................................................................................5

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Since the teller's report in post #1 was not in the above form [>> "Upon receiving the report of the tellers, which does not reflect the fact that the votes cast for D were illegal votes..." <<], should the chair first request that the teller's report be corrected before announcing the result?

Or, was that your question in the first place?

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I don't agree. I think that A, B, C, and E have been elected, and that no further balloting is required.

I would have to disagree with your disagreement. :) If D had not been on the ballot in the first place those 5 votes could have gone to F (or a write in candidate) pushing E out of the running or they could have been spread among the other candidates pushing someone else out of the running. It seems to me that since those 5 votes could have affected the results of the 4th seat that it would be incomplete. Also, this scenario seems pretty similar to the scenarios we get asked about fairly often where the winner declines the office and we are asked if the guy who got the second most votes would then win.

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Since the teller's report in post #1 was not in the above form [>> "Upon receiving the report of the tellers, which does not reflect the fact that the votes cast for D were illegal votes..." <<], should the chair first request that the teller's report be corrected before announcing the result?

Or, was that your question in the first place?

Well, no, that wasn't really my question. I am mostly concerned with the end result.

I suppose that, in the original scenario, the chair, in reading the teller's report and declaring the result, might say, when he gets down to D, something such as "D received 5 votes. The chair rules that D is ineligible for election because ...., and D is, therefore, not elected. E received 4 votes, and is elected to the office of Director."

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I would have to disagree with your disagreement. :) If D had not been on the ballot in the first place those 5 votes could have gone to F (or a write in candidate) pushing E out of the running or they could have been spread among the other candidates pushing someone else out of the running. It seems to me that since those 5 votes could have affected the results of the 4th seat that it would be incomplete. Also, this scenario seems pretty similar to the scenarios we get asked about fairly often where the winner declines the office and we are asked if the guy who got the second most votes would then win.

But Chris, ballots cast for an “ineligible candidate are treated as illegal votes – that is, they are counted as votes cast but are not credited to any candidate.” (RONR, 11th ed., p. 416, ll. 2-5).

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[This worried me also when a similar scenario was suggested in the thread that preceded this one -- it sounded implausible at first that so many candidates could actually get a majority, so I started making lists of possible vote outcomes, like the one above.]

Thank you, you're kindness is appreciated.

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I guess the thing that concerns me here, and I have no idea how it may or may not come into play, is that when voters were casting their ballots, they apparently had no idea that D was ineligible, and therefore that they were casting illegal votes. Does this play any role in the outcome?

No, I don't think so.

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I guess the thing that concerns me here, and I have no idea how it may or may not come into play, is that when voters were casting their ballots, they apparently had no idea that D was ineligible, and therefore that they were casting illegal votes. Does this play any role in the outcome?

No, I don't think so.

But if D had been properly eliminated before voting began, those five supporters might have cast their votes for F (resulting in his election) thus having the potential to have affected the result. That doesn't hold any sway in the matter?

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Edited to add the underline letters above. Dam spill chuck (even in Chrome!).

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Looking back at post #1, the organization in question does not use absentee voting. Thus, the ballots being counted were cast (for the most part, anyway) by members who would still be in the meeting room.

Should the chair, after receiving the teller's report, announce the ineligibility of D? And, if he does that, isn't it likely that the members who voted for D would ask to change their votes? Even if the chair goes ahead and announces the result, the members who voted for D could still ask for unanimous consent to change their votes, couldn't they? (RONR 11th ed. p. 408 ll. 21-26).

I feel like I'm missing something obvious here... but, since I'm missing it, I don't know what it is <_< .

I realize the scenario could be reconstructed (vote by mail, for example) so that most members would not be on scene to promptly ask to change their votes...

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Looking back at post #1, the organization in question does not use absentee voting. Thus, the ballots being counted were cast (for the most part, anyway) by members who would still be in the meeting room.

Should the chair, after receiving the teller's report, announce the ineligibility of D? And, if he does that, isn't it likely that the members who voted for D would ask to change their votes? Even if the chair goes ahead and announces the result, the members who voted for D could still ask for unanimous consent to change their votes, couldn't they? (RONR 11th ed. p. 408 ll. 21-26).

I feel like I'm missing something obvious here... but, since I'm missing it, I don't know what it is <_< .

I realize the scenario could be reconstructed (vote by mail, for example) so that most members would not be on scene to promptly ask to change their votes...

I don't think that members can change their votes when a ballot vote has been taken.

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I don't think that members can change their votes when a ballot vote has been taken.

Is that just because it is hard to devise a practical way to do so, while still maintaining the secrecy of how people voted? Or is there a citation saying (even by implication) that the rule on p. 408 ll. 21-26 does not apply to ballot votes?

Would the rule on p. 409 ll 15-20 (ASSEMBLY'S PREROGATIVE IN JUDGING VOTING PROCEDURES) perhaps come into play in the situation described in your original post? In the case where the members are still gathered in the room, might the assembly order that people who voted for D get another chance to vote? I'm not quite sure how that could be done fairly, but would the assembly have that right?

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Is that just because it is hard to devise a practical way to do so, while still maintaining the secrecy of how people voted? Or is there a citation saying (even by implication) that the rule on p. 408 ll. 21-26 does not apply to ballot votes?

Would the rule on p. 409 ll 15-20 (ASSEMBLY'S PREROGATIVE IN JUDGING VOTING PROCEDURES) perhaps come into play in the situation described in your original post? In the case where the members are still gathered in the room, might the assembly order that people who voted for D get another chance to vote? I'm not quite sure how that could be done fairly, but would the assembly have that right?

Well, there's http://robertsrules....__1 and a number of other threads dealing with the question of a member's right to change his ballot vote, so let's not discuss that here, and I'm sure that there are lots of things that an assembly can do when it wants to get around the rules (including the one at the top of page 413), but speculating about them isn't helpful or relevant.

Let's stick to the question at hand. :)

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I would agree E met the requirement to be elected (p. 441). If the was an F, the members could have voted for him.

Trina does have an F in her example. :)

Looking just at the original question, you can assume, if you want to, that there were several other candidates who received some votes (but less than a majority).

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Well, there's http://robertsrules....__1 and a number of other threads dealing with the question of a member's right to change his ballot vote, so let's not discuss that here, and I'm sure that there are lots of things that an assembly can do when it wants to get around the rules (including the one at the top of page 413), but speculating about them isn't helpful or relevant.

Let's stick to the question at hand. :)

Thank you for the link to the other thread.

As for the question at hand, as you define it, if I imagine a vote by mail (where most members are not present to try to take things into their own hands) then I agree that the chair is correct in announcing the election of E, as per the citations from p. 416 and p. 441. Even at an in-person meeting, the chair would be correct by the book, but who knows whether the membership would accept that correctness, depending on the circumstances that led to the last-minute recognition of the ineligibility of one or more popular candidates.

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I wonder if the timing matters -- i.e. the exact moment at which the candidate became ineligible. In the example in this thread, candidate D was ineligible at the time votes were cast for him, so those votes are clearly illegal, as per p. 416 ll. 2-5. If candidate D was eligible when votes were cast, but became ineligible before the announcement of the results (say by resigning from membership in the society, or by dropping dead of a heart attack), would the situation be different, in terms of determining if votes for D are illegal votes and not to be credited to any candidate?

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I wonder if the timing matters -- i.e. the exact moment at which the candidate became ineligible. In the example in this thread, candidate D was ineligible at the time votes were cast for him, so those votes are clearly illegal, as per p. 416 ll. 2-5. If candidate D was eligible when votes were cast, but became ineligible before the announcement of the results (say by resigning from membership in the society, or by dropping dead of a heart attack), would the situation be different, in terms of determining if votes for D are illegal votes and not to be credited to any candidate?

No, I don't think so, but let's stick to the question at hand, at least until the answer is clear, and then we can move on to other things.

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...

Upon receiving the report of the tellers, which does not reflect the fact that the votes cast for D were illegal votes, what should the chair do?

...

I suppose that, in the original scenario, the chair, in reading the teller's report and declaring the result, might say, when he gets down to D, something such as "D received 5 votes. The chair rules that D is ineligible for election because ...., and D is, therefore, not elected. E received 4 votes, and is elected to the office of Director."

When the chair is standing there reviewing the teller's report, does he have any other proper option, other than proceeding with the announcement in approximately the way you suggest?

In other words, granting that the announcement that E is elected is indeed correct, is it the only right answer under the circumstances?

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