nominations from the floor

[Leo]

An organization elects its officers by mail ballot with space for write in candidates.

A nominating committee submits the list of nominees to the board of directors to be mailed to the members.

Is it proper for the board of directors to open the floor, at a board meeting, for nominations?

[Josh Martin]

47 minutes ago, Leo said:

An organization elects its officers by mail ballot with space for write in candidates.

A nominating committee submits the list of nominees to the board of directors to be mailed to the members.

Is it proper for the board of directors to open the floor, at a board meeting, for nominations?

At least so far as RONR is concerned, I do not think it is proper to open nominations from the floor at a board meeting when the election is conducted by the general membership. It would be proper to take such nominations from the floor at a meeting of the general membership, if such a meeting takes place prior to the vote.

With that said, it appears that the organization's rules require the nominating committee to submit its nominations to the board before mailing them to the members. There is presumably some reason for this requirement, and that reason might be to permit the board members to make additional nominations. This is, however, a question of interpreting your organization's rules, which is up to your organization.

[Leo]

Thank you and I agree with you. I was looking for something to support the argument in RONR. It just seems to be the norm that nominations are open at a meeting where the members who are also the ones to elect the officers are present.

The organization has a rules saying the nomination committee gives the list of nominees to the board. They could just as easily give the list to the secretary for mailing.

The organization has no rule prohibiting the board from making nominations and there is no rule saying the board does anything with the list when it receives it.

 

 

[jstackpo]

Also agree that there should NOT be any in-meeting floor nominations.  No point, really, since all the ballots have been cast; also how could the absentee (mail-in) voters vote for a floor nomination that they didn't know about?

What should happen is this (copied from advice sent to organizations (I work for) contemplating starting mail vote elections):

A (possibly substantial) problem with your election process:  There is no opportunity for the equivalent of “floor nominations”. Suppose that the NomCom generates a list of candidates some of whom, upon consideration, turn out to be turkeys (or are all, suspiciously, cronies of the President).  According to your proposed timing that list goes out to the membership an unspecified time before the start time of the actual election.  The members then have X (also unspecified) days  to send in their ballots.  This leaves no real opportunity to get up a campaign for some other candidate, as a write-in.  This all means that you have given the Nominating Committee the power, essentially, to name all the people to take whatever offices are up for election.  The requirement that the NomCom produce two names per vacancy doesn’t help much and they both could be “unsatisfactory” to a fair number of your members.  The availability of floor nominations serves as a safety valve that may discourage the NomCom from going off the deep end and gives the members the opportunity to put forth candidate(s) more to their liking.

May I suggest a revision to your election schedule:

Require that NomCom produce its list of nominees some 90 days, or so, before the election start date. Then send that list (not as a “ballot”) to all the members and invite them to submit “floor” nominations for any of the offices. You might want to require a couple of members to join together to present a “floor” nominee; this might help to avoid “off-the-cuff” nominations.  But don’t require a large number on a nominating petition since, after all, it only requires one person to make a nomination (no second required) in a “real” meeting. You might also require an “I’m willing to serve” statement from any “floor” nominees to make sure that you aren’t wasting ballots.  Then include the “floor” nominees on the official ballot sent out, or posted, some 45 days (or fewer) prior to the voting start date.