Election teller

[Guest Tee]

Is Teller only person that read an election result?

[Guest Edgar]

Is Teller only person that read an election result?

Sort of. But since the tellers' report is read aloud (and entered in full into the minutes), and since it contains the specific vote count for each and every candidate, all the members present (and many who aren't) will soon know as much as the tellers.

[Gary Novosielski]

The tellers compile a report of the counting, and that report is read to the assembly when the count is complete. The chair then repeats the contents of the tellers report and, based upon that, announces the result(s) of the election. That means that the minutes should also contain all the information from the tellers report.

So a lot of people could end up reading the results.

[David A Foulkes]

Or if you're referring to comedy team Penn & Teller, then it would be Penn who reads it (out loud, anyway).

[George Mervosh]

The tellers compile a report of the counting, and that report is read to the assembly when the count is complete. The chair then repeats the contents of the tellers report and, based upon that, announces the result(s) of the election. That means that the minutes should also contain all the information from the tellers report.

So a lot of people could end up reading the results.

An really crucial step often missed my groups.

[jstackpo]

And here are some reasons why it can be critical...

Indeed it is the proper thing to do, to read out the numerical vote results for the members to hear -- see p. 417, line 18 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. 410 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 listing doesn't even mention the myriad possibilities for knavery or outright fraud that are available when vote counts are kept secret.