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Most efficient method -manual vote count in election


Guest D. Llama

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Nominations must be made for the election of Directors at an annual meeting . Three positions are open and five nominations  are expected . The meeting will run two hours and the results need to be announced prior to meeting adjournment . The organization doe not have the resources to rent an electronic counting device , and 500 members are expected .

Apart from specifics in RONR concerning elections , counting , and vote presentation what is the most efficient method of counting votes in such a circumstance and what manner of written  ballot is best able to achieve  the  greatest efficiency .? 

All suggestions welcome and appreciated . 

 

D.Llama

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Since your question is one which is looking for a practical answer, hold the election early (as RONR suggests) and have enough tellers, and make sure another set (or two) of ballots exist because there's a good chance you'll need them. Unless the facility is going to force you to leave the room in 2 hours, any pre-assigned time for adjournment can be extended by the assembly.  A blank ballot is probably best if you can project the names of the nominees on a screen for all to see.  

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This could be so - in the past they have invariably by custom applied preferential voting as the method -  a majority has not been required . They only consider RONR as a guide - and  do not bind themselves to any specific rules  set . 

DL 

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Not to get snarky or anything....  but if you don't follow RONR why bother with elections at all?

And now, in a spirit of contrition for snarkyness, to try to be helpful...

Get (appoint) LOTS of tellers so that you can divvy up your 500 ballots into five (or some other number) batches and have a set of tellers (minimum three) do each batch of ballots in "parallel" in five separate counting rooms.  Then just total results.  Should be finished some five times faster.

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5 hours ago, Guest D. Llama said:

This could be so - in the past they have invariably by custom applied preferential voting as the method -  a majority has not been required . They only consider RONR as a guide - and  do not bind themselves to any specific rules  set .

Do you mean to say that they use plurality voting? Preferential voting is "ranked voting." A majority vote is still required.

4 hours ago, jstackpo said:

Not to get snarky or anything....  but if you don't follow RONR why bother with elections at all?

Well, apparently they have not adopted RONR or any parliamentary authority so they can do things like use plurality voting for the election of officers with simply a custom.

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I vaguely recall a thread here a long time ago about preferential balloting that concluded that preferential balloting, as described on pp. 425-428, can be used without a bylaws authorization as long as there is a requirement that each candidate selected have a majority of the (possibly transferred) votes. But I could be wrong.

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Alexis H sed:  "Without a bylaws authorization"

Well, maybe, but p. 405 lines 12-13 are pretty explicit that a bylaw provision is required to allow preferential voting (so called "transferable votes") to take place.

The use of the Borda count system is another possibility, but that is just my high horse.

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Thanks to all for these  responses and J.  Martin correct -" plurality "voting is used- not as stated above " preferential  . And also RONR is not adopted - it's considered a resource  guide when the please but no more than that . They follow their own custom and practice - and like  for many no parliamentary  authority is identified in the bylaws  They are afraid  to follow RONR  given its size - too daunting ,and RONRIB is likewise considered unsatisfactory . They lurch from annual meeting to annual meeting and some-how to  have  survived after many years -  to this point . But now the game is up because  their membership is severely divided and they are in crisis  mode . This seems to be not uncommon for many organizations that fail to apply resources where needed -and anticipate  no  serious problem ever arising . 

Much  Obliged to all responders ! 

D.Llama 

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