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Maureen WM

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  1. I would suggest that reporting a voter turn-out during an ongoing election biases other voters.
  2. Dear all, My question: During an ongoing election, is it ever appropriate to reveal to the group of voters how many ballots have been cast up to that time? I am referring specifically to the following, which was sent out to voters by the person who is conducting an election. "Thank you to the 361 faculty who have already participated in the election for the standing committees of the faculty of medicine. If you have not voted yet, the ballot will remain open until X" Maureen
  3. Hi again, I have another scenario: At a virtual meeting, a person (John) was nominated from the floor to serve as a candidate i.e. their name would have been on the ballot. John may or may not have heard this nomination from the floor at the time and there was not action taken to confirm John's willingness at the time. However, there was a follow up email to this individual, and no reply from John. The vacancy remained on the ballot and write ins were required.The results from the election indicated that John received votes as a write in candidate and received enough votes to win.Is this person an eligible candidate? Thanks for your interpretation.
  4. I hope everyone had a good weekend. I had to look through many months of emails to pull this together. Bylaws considerations and Robert's Rules aside, I had the feeling that expectations were not met with the May 20 emergency meeting. It turns out, there were three emergency meetings called since March 2020. The differences between the most recent meeting (May 20) and the others were 1) that the agenda was posted only 2 days in advance for the May 20 meeting (it was posted 3 days in advance for the ohers), 2) there was nothing explicitly noted regarding the intended item for business at the May 20 emergency meeting (the business was indicated for the others) and 3) there was nothing explicitly noted regarding the fact that information would appear on an agenda pending approval by another committee (it was noted for the others). In short, the May 20, 2021 meeting departed from the earlier practices that were used in calling emergency meetings.
  5. Many thanks for your opinions. This is where I am getting hung-up. It's in the section where special and emergency meetings are similar. "Item i. Order of Business - Special meetings and Emergency Meetings. The order of business at any special meeting or any emergency meeting shall be only the consideration of the matter or matters for which the meeting shall have been called." In trying to make sense of this, I looked at other bylaws (other orgs etc) and noted that the phrase "which the meeting shall have been called" appears most often in bylaws in the context of a meeting a quorum (If less than a quorum shall be in attendance at the time for which the meeting shall have been called, the meeting may be adjourned..). Time, in this case, is a condition established in advance. With this as a common point of reference, the text in our Bylaws "matter or matters for which the meeting shall have been called" refers to something ("matter or matters") that is a condition established in advance, and, if this is so, then calling a "emergency meeting" without also communicating its business is not consistent with the Bylaws.
  6. Dear all (again), I attached a scenario and the Bylaws from my organization. Here are my questions: Did the emergency meeting on May 20 satisfy the requirement from RRONR? Did the emergency meeting on May 20 satisfy the conditions in the Bylaws? I look forward to your input. Senate By-laws 2020-2021.pdf emergency meeting.pdf
  7. Dear everyone, I have a situation to share and then look forward to your opinions. Part 1: An individual (Person A) wrote an email that falsely represented the actions and character of an individual (Person C) who is a candidate in a university election. The email was sent to a known voter (Person D) in the election. The election is over tomorrow. Does Person A sending the email to the known voter (Person D) constitute an election irregularity? Part 2: The same email was intended for a larger audience when it was first written. Person D forwarded it to three other voters in the election. Does Person D sending the email to the other voters constitute an election irregularity? Thanks for your input. Does anyone have any suggestions for next steps? M
  8. Dear Forum Members, First let me say how happy I am to be here. I am on the Nominations and Elections Committee (NEC) for a university council of faculty, I would like to describe a sequence of events with you. My organization has Bylaws, but the Bylaws seem to be silent on some of the circumstances that came to light. The situation is this: an election of committee officers for this council was scheduled to take place and, because of Covid-19, face-to-face elections were unable to occur. Our Bylaws offer two methods for receiving and returning ballots: paper ballots that are handed out at the meeting (this are anonymous) and email ballots that can be returned in advance of the meeting (these are absentee ballots and contain identifying information). This year, the Chair wrote up a proposal based on what was used years before: ie. that all ballots will be printed out, names blacked out, and the anonymous emails sent to two counters, who would tally up the ballot results independently. The Chair decided to not be involved with handling or counting the ballots as he was a candidate for one of the vacancies in listed on the ballot. Before the ballots were emailed out, the administrator deleted one eligible voter from the email list of those who would receive a vote. The Chair of the NEC fixed that problem. Seemed simple enough. 58 representatives received their ballot, 47 ballots were returned, 44 within the defined window for voting, 3 after this window closed (within 22 hours after the balloting ended). It then became known (this is not chronologically)....Instead of removing the names, the administrator left the names revealed. Instead of compiling the ballots into one pdf to be forwarded, the administrator sent the ballots individually in 40+ emails. One voter did not receive his ballot, as it was sent to the wrong email address. He phoned in his vote, although there is no provision for this. Then.... One voter's "ballot" was originally counted as null by Teller A because an email with a question, and not the actual ballot, had been sent along to be counted by the administrator. This did not seem to be a problem for Teller B (who said he had it). When the actual ballot was finally located by the administrator, it was sent to bothTeller A and Teller B to be counted. Three late ballots were sent to Teller B by the administrator, but Teller A still did not have them even 48 hrs after they were originally received by the Administrator. The Chair of the NEC, upon finding out about these problems from Teller A, finally emails the administrator about the missing ballots. Meanwhile, the Chair of the NEC also email Teller B (who is also the Chairman of this entire university council) and brought to his attention that Teller A has not received the late ballots. Then Teller B emails the Chair of the NEC to tell him that he (Teller B) took care of this by sending the late ballots in his possession directly to Teller A. The most important election on this ballot came down to a one-vote difference, and it was the third late vote that broke the tie. The balloting was closed and the results were compared. The Chair of the NEC, who has been increasingly concerned about everything listed above, comes into possession of the election results which were never anonymized in the first place, and attempts to sign off on the accuracy of the tabulation by looking to see how his own ballot choices are registered. Teller B reacts to this by saying that the Chair of the NEC has breached confidentiality by looking at the spreadsheet after the balloting was over, and the results determined. (I'm sorry this is so long) How many problems do you see? Where did this go off the rails?? Thanks for your replies in advance. M
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