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Changing the Order of Election


mjhmjh

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Say the officers of an organization are a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, listed in that order in the by-laws and, per RONR, elected in that order. However, following several rounds of balloting for vice-president, it becomes clear that the vice-presidential election will take much longer than expected, posing the risk that quorum will be lost (as members leave as the night drags on) before the last two elections can take place. Would it be in order to suspend the rules and elect the secretary and treasurer before the vice-president?

Edited by mjhmjh
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Why not just elect everybody on the same ballot - see page 439.  If the VP election is not complete, so be it, but that doesn't prevent the other elections to other offices from being completed.  The votes for each office are considered as a separate sub-section of the ballot, counted independently of the other parts.

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13 hours ago, mjhmjh said:

Say the officers of an organization are a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, listed in that order in the by-laws and, per RONR, elected in that order. However, following several rounds of balloting for vice-president, it becomes clear that the vice-presidential election will take much longer than expected, posing the risk that quorum will be lost (as members leave as the night drags on) before the last two elections can take place. Would it be in order to suspend the rules and elect the secretary and treasurer before the vice-president?

A motion to Suspend the Rules for this purpose would be in order. A motion to Postpone to a Certain Time would also be in order.

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The only danger I would see in electing offices out of order is if you have a candidate running for two offices but only able to hold one/ I have seen this before and it seems customary to elect from the top down so that the member who wins a higher office then withdraws from the lower elections. If that member won a lower office then also won a higher office and elected to keep the higher office it would force a special election for the lower office. 

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1 hour ago, AFS1970 said:

The only danger I would see in electing offices out of order is if you have a candidate running for two offices but only able to hold one/ I have seen this before and it seems customary to elect from the top down so that the member who wins a higher office then withdraws from the lower elections. If that member won a lower office then also won a higher office and elected to keep the higher office it would force a special election for the lower office. 

RONR provides on page 440 that if a person is elected to two offices on the same ballot  , the member must decide at the time the results are announced which position he will take. A new ballot is then taken on the other position. Unless the bylaws prohibit dual office holding, the member is still eligible to be elected again to the other office on a separate ballot

Edited by Richard Brown
Edited to correct an incorrect statement
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1 hour ago, Richard Brown said:

RONR provides on page 440 that if a person is elected to two offices on the same ballot  , the member must decide at the time the results are announced which position he will take. A new ballot is then taken on the other position. Unless the bylaws prohibit dual office holding, the member is still eligible to be elected again to the other office on a separate ballot

Judging by the original post, it seems to me that they're doing a separate ballot for each position, which explains why mjhmjh is worried about losing a quorum before they get around to completing the election for the remaining offices.

Edited by George Mervosh
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On 3/5/2018 at 9:53 AM, Josh Martin said:

A motion to Suspend the Rules for this purpose would be in order. A motion to Postpone to a Certain Time would also be in order.

Instead of either of those two methods, would it be in order to adopt an agenda at the beginning of the meeting with an alternate election order?

Edit: Or to table the election of a certain officer and take it from the table later in the meeting?

Edited by mjhmjh
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On 3/4/2018 at 8:26 PM, mjhmjh said:

Say the officers of an organization are a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, listed in that order in the by-laws and, per RONR, elected in that order. However, following several rounds of balloting for vice-president, it becomes clear that the vice-presidential election will take much longer than expected, posing the risk that quorum will be lost (as members leave as the night drags on) before the last two elections can take place. Would it be in order to suspend the rules and elect the secretary and treasurer before the vice-president?

You could also lay the election of the vice president on the table, while that is pending. 

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34 minutes ago, J. J. said:

You could also lay the election of the vice president on the table, while that is pending. 

It is my understanding that a motion can only be taken from the table under the class of business it was originally made (in the case of elections, special orders). Would the motion to take the election of the vice president from the table have to be made following all other elections? Or could it be made, say, between the election of the secretary and treasurer?

Edited by mjhmjh
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1 minute ago, mjhmjh said:

It is my understanding that a motion can only be taken from the table under the class of business it was originally made (in the case of elections, special orders). Would the motion to take the election of the vice president from the table have to be made following all other elections? Or could it be made, say, between the election of the secretary and treasurer?

A motion may be taken off the table under the class of business of the original motion, or under unfinished, general orders, or under new business (pp. 300-1).

It could be taken from the table between the elections of other officers, as that would still be under special orders.

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