Flawed Election

[Guest Slade Gellin]

Our organization is holding an electronic referendum where we have discovered that it is possible for a member to vote multiple times.

We know how to rectify the problem technically.

Are there any parliamentary procedures we need to follow to invalidate the first referendum and get the second referendum up an running ASAP?

[Robert B Fish]

First of all, unless your bylaws allow your organization to transact business by electronic means, you cannot do it. If it does, follow those procedures.

If it can be shown that the invalid votes could have affected the outcome of the election, you can invalidate it. Note that two proofs are needed: 1) that one or more votes were invalid and 2) that the number of invalid votes could have affected the outcome. Otherwise, teh election stands, even if you did not like the outcome.

-Bob

[Tim Wynn]

First of all, unless your bylaws allow your organization to transact business by electronic means, you cannot do it. If it does, follow those procedures.

If it can be shown that the invalid votes could have affected the outcome of the election, you can invalidate it. Note that two proofs are needed: 1) that one or more votes were invalid and 2) that the number of invalid votes could have affected the outcome. Otherwise, teh election stands, even if you did not like the outcome.

-Bob

One would think that the second proof could stand on its own.

Also, though the rules of ballot voting do not translate directly to electronic voting, if the rules of ballot voting were to be applied in this situation, all votes from a member who voted more than the legal number of times would be counted together as one illegal vote. So, if correctly tabulated, they could not affect the outcome in a way that would nullify the election.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

Our organization is holding an electronic referendum where we have discovered that it is possible for a member to vote multiple times.

We know how to rectify the problem technically.

Are there any parliamentary procedures we need to follow to invalidate the first referendum and get the second referendum up and running ASAP?

Doing it electronically (in absentee mode) is impossible, if you had to follow Robert's Rules of Order.

When an ordinary election (i.e., not electronically, not absentee) is held, and when there is discovered ballots which taint the election, then a motion is made so. Perhaps like so: "I move that this round of balloting be set aside, and that a second round of balloting be conducted."

Certainly no chair, no president, no board, can do this, unilaterally. -- It is serious business, and the organization has to decide it, and order it done.

How you are going to do it when the body making the decision isn't assembled in the same room, well, that is why I said it's impossible. It violates enough fundamental principles that a "simple fix" won't be so simple.

[Josh Martin]

Also, though the rules of ballot voting do not translate directly to electronic voting, if the rules of ballot voting were to be applied in this situation, all votes from a member who voted more than the legal number of times would be counted together as one illegal vote. So, if correctly tabulated, they could not affect the outcome in a way that would nullify the election.

I rather doubt that the voting system used is sophisticated enough to accomplish such a task. I have experience with systems that are that sophisticated, but such systems also usually prevent voters from casting multiple ballots, so this problem wouldn't rise in the first place.

I think it's highly likely that the situation will need to be treated similarly to a case in which unidentifiable ballots cast by illegal voters could have affected the result, but most likely, even that will be difficult to prove.