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Filling vacancy on Executive Committee


Guest lillette

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Is there a difference in the process of filling a vacancy on the Executive Committee by interim appointment and by an election? The bylaws state "Should the President-elect …vacate his/her office before the term is completed, the Executive Committee will fill the position by interim appointment." There are no other directions in the bylaws for filling this vacancy on the Executive Committee.

 

In this case, the President said that the meeting was open for discussion as to whom the Executive Committee wanted to appoint to fill the vacancy. Instead of discussion, one member nominated one individual and another member nominated a second individual. Members then voted by writing the name of the person they preferred on a piece of paper. The papers were counted and the person with the most votes was declared the winner. The President did not vote. He did not know that he had that option, which would have affected the result. 

 

Was this process incorrect? If so, can it be redone? Many people are upset by this power play since past custom had been that the President had appointed a person to fill the vacancy with the Executive Committee voting to approve or disapprove the nominee.

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Is there a difference in the process of filling a vacancy on the Executive Committee by interim appointment and by an election? ...

 

If the bylaws say that the Executive Committee, not the president, is to appoint someone to fill the vacancy, then it is for the executive committee to fill the vacancy, not the president.  It's that simple.  Either you have done it completely wrong in the past, in violation of your bylaws; or you may regard what was done as actually the president suggesting, or nominating, someone, and then the executive committee doing its job by appointing that person.  Since there were two candidates here, there's nothing wrong with choosing one of them by an election using ballots.  I don't see any power play at all, since the entire executive committee had the opportunity to vote.

 

The one possible fatal flaw that I see is that if previous notice of filling the vacancy was required (p.291), and if it it had not been given, then the action was void (p. 251 (e)).  [Please see edit below:]  But I can't tell from the facts provided in Guest_lillette's post whether previous notice had indeed been given, or whether the bylaw provisions, which don't mention previous notice, supersede the requirement for it that RONR prescribes*.  (That would be a question of interpreting the organization's bylaws, which the organization itself is best equipped to handle, and we aspiring virtual pundits on the Internet equipped not at all.)

 

The fact that the president could have voted, but did not because he did not know he could, is unfortunate, but it's too late to do anything about it now.

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*Edit:  My sentence here can be misread:  "But I can't tell from the facts provided in Guest_lillette's post whether previous notice had indeed been given, or whether the bylaw provisions, which don't mention previous notice, supersede the requirement for it that RONR prescribes." It can be read as if a choice must be made somehow between either previous notice or bylaw provisions's superseding.  It would have been clearer if I had written, say:  "... whether or not previous notice had indeed been given, nor whether or not the bylaw provisions ..."

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