Revision to Bylaw

[J H Smith]

Questions: Can this Amendment to the Bylaws ever be considered?

If the office of President and Vice President are vacant, the duties of the President revert to the Board of Directors. The Board may elect to appoint someone to the position or may elect to take over the duties of the President of the association.The Board would determine how they would proceed to run the association.

It appears that the members would be subordinate to the BOD, instead of the BOD subordinate the the membership.

How should this amendment be written, if indeed no member wanted to be nominated therefore not elected to the positions mentioned?

[Gary Novosielski]

Questions: Can this Amendment to the Bylaws ever be considered?

If the office of President and Vice President are vacant, the duties of the President revert to the Board of Directors. The Board may elect to appoint someone to the position or may elect to take over the duties of the President of the association.The Board would determine how they would proceed to run the association.

It appears that the members would be subordinate to the BOD, instead of the BOD subordinate the the membership.

How should this amendment be written, if indeed no member wanted to be nominated therefore not elected to the positions mentioned?

Your use of the word "therefore" is not appropriate. Just because no member wishes to be nominated does not mean that no one can be elected. The two are independent. Voters may write in the name of any eligible person, whether nominated or not.

If no one receives a majority of the votes for that office or the person elected declines the position, you do not have a vacancy, you have an incomplete election. Even if you were to adopt that amendment (a critique of which would be lengthy--suffice to say it would be a Bad Idea), it still would not apply to an incomplete election. What happens then is that you have to complete it--i.e., keep voting until all the positions are filled.

Vacancies occur when someone already in office vacates that office due to death, resignation, or removal. That's not the case at election time.

Your only option at election time is to elect. Elect people to the required positions. If nobody wants to be nominated, pass out blank ballots and have the members write in names. If you want to amend the bylaws to deal with this situation, you might consider an amendment to make holding office, if elected, a mandatory duty.

Or you might consider simply dissolving the organization. When no one cares enough to assume a leadership role, it is often the case that the days of the society are numbered anyway.

[Josh Martin]

Questions: Can this Amendment to the Bylaws ever be considered?

Unless it conflicts with some even higher-level rule, sure.

How should this amendment be written, if indeed no member wanted to be nominated therefore not elected to the positions mentioned?

Discussion of language for proposed Bylaws amendments is beyond the scope of this forum, but I will say that if your problem is that you can't get anyone to run for President or Vice President I think your best option is to reexamine what is expected of those positions (either by rule or by custom) rather than finding wacky alternatives to filling them. In other words, I'd scrap this proposal entirely and consider redistributing the duties of the President and VP. Consider creating a 2nd Vice President position if you need to.

If you want to amend the bylaws to deal with this situation, you might consider an amendment to make holding office, if elected, a mandatory duty.

I think the society is likely to just end up with officers who do nothing if they did that. A better option seems to be to look at why no one wants to be President or Vice President. In my experience, interest in officer positions usually dries up when the position seems like too much work.