Vote tally not told to membership

[Guest Marie]

I belong to a group that will be taking a vote of the membership but we are told we will not be told the vote outcome. Is this legal?

We might as well not vote because any decision could be made and we won't know if this is truthful or not. So if you need 2/3 vote and a majority of the members refuse to vote in protest of not knowing the outcome-will the outcome vote be void?

[Kim Goldsworthy]

I belong to a group that will be taking a vote of the membership but we are told we will not be told the vote outcome.

Is this legal?

Forget "legal". -- We don't practice law.

Is it consistent with Robert's Rules of Order?

"No."

Q. Who will know the outcome, if not the body who did the voting?

Q. Will it be a secret forever?

Q. Who told you this? Who is controlling this?

We might as well not vote because any decision could be made and we won't know if this is truthful or not.

So if you need 2/3 vote and a majority of the members refuse to vote in protest of not knowing the outcome-will the outcome vote be void?

Will WHAT be void? -- The ballots? The decision?

Who is conducting this vote, if not the voters themselves?

Why don't you reject the controllers, and just conduct the vote yourselves?

Where is your chair or president, during all this?

[Larry Cisar]

I belong to a group that will be taking a vote of the membership but we are told we will not be told the vote outcome. Is this legal?

We might as well not vote because any decision could be made and we won't know if this is truthful or not. So if you need 2/3 vote and a majority of the members refuse to vote in protest of not knowing the outcome-will the outcome vote be void?

What do your bylaws say about reporting votes? If they are silent, the membership can order the vote reported unless the bylaws give the board the authority over the membership. As you can see, there can be a lot of ifs, ands, or buts depending upon what your bylaws actually say. Up to your organization to interpret what they actually mean.

[hmtcastle]

What do your bylaws say about reporting votes? If they are silent, the membership can order the vote reported unless the bylaws give the board the authority over the membership.

I think we can risk being a bit more assertive than that.

For one thing, there's been no mention of the existence of a board, let alone one that can control a general election. Secondly, the bylaws would have to be more than merely silent. They'd have to somehow restrict the reporting of votes, in contradiction not only to RONR but to any common sense of fair play. Thirdly, the membership need not order the reporting of the vote count, it's reported by default (assuming it's a counted vote which, if a two-thirds vote is required, it seems likely to be).

I'd ask those who are threatening to exercise such control to point to the rule that says they can do what they say they're going to do. And, absent a satisfactory answer, follow Mr. Goldsworthy's advice.

[jstackpo]

Indeed it is the proper thing to do, to read out the numerical vote results for the members to hear -- see p. 404, line 11 ff. - and to include them in the minutes

Consider some possibilities:

1) The winner got nearly all the votes and the loser has had a long history of fruitlessly running for office. Reading the vote count might send him a message, that it is time to quit making a fool of himself.

2) The vote is "reasonably" close. This way the loser will be encouraged to try again, as it seems, by the vote, that he has a good deal of potential, and many friends, but just went up against a better person this time. This may help to keep a good candidate in the game.

3) The vote is "extremely" close - one or two votes different. The assembly may very well want to order a recount (RONR p. 404) just to be sure of the result. This way there are no (or fewer) hard feelings.

4) The president, when declaring who won, makes a simple mistake and names the wrong person, or he does not understand the vote required to adopt the motion (majority, 2/3, &c.) and states the "wrong" outcome.

5) The tellers make an error. Reading the results out loud may not help to catch this but studying the printed documentation in the minutes at leisure probably would. The documentation would also serve as evidence if there were serious questions about the outcome.

Without the teller having read the numbers, how will anybody (except the teller, if he is paying attention) know to correct this?

6) The winner of the election (or partisans of the winning side of a critical issue) could weigh the numerical results in terms of whether they have a "mandate" to proceed at full bore, or whether there might be some fence mending to look after first.

If the vote results were not made immediately available to the membership, none of the above good things could happen.

And this list doesn't even mention the possibilities for fraud or knavery.

[hmtcastle]

And this list doesn't even mention the possibilities for fraud or knavery.

Knavery, indeed.

And

.

"All those swindlin' lodges and social clubs and money-grabbin' auxiliaries . . . ".