Elections

[Guest O'Neill]

Our club is scheduled to hold annual election of officers next month. According to our by laws, in order to eligible for nominations you must have attended 50% of the membership meetings. Right now no one is eligible for nominations. The By laws state the President can fill the vacancies. Do we hold an elections or do we allow the President to fill the vacancies? or Can we make a tempory amendment to the by laws to allow for nominations?

[Chris Harrison]

Do we hold an elections

Yes, although if no one is truly eligible for nomination then you would be using strictly write-in votes.

or do we allow the President to fill the vacancies?

No. A vacancy is created by the officer dying, resigning, or being removed from office by disciplinary action none of which is the case here. When the term expires depending on how the bylaws define the term of office it might be that the officers continue on until someone is elected or it might be that the offices will fall vacant (though that doesn't constitute a vacancy as RONR uses the term). Of course, your bylaws may define a vacancy differently than RONR does.

or Can we make a tempory amendment to the by laws to allow for nominations?

Sure but you all will need to make sure that all of the requirements the bylaws spell out for their amendment are followed.

[Trina]

If there's time to give proper notice of bylaws amendments, you could amend the bylaws to make more people eligible for nomination. And then, go ahead and nominate them from the floor at the election meeting.

You can't use the organization's standard vacancy-filling procedures as a substitute for elections. A vacancy only occurs if someone holding an office leaves the office vacant during the term. An office that is empty because no one was elected is a different thing (not a vacancy, in the parliamentary sense). Now, if the bylaws specifically say the President can fill offices that are empty because no one was nominated or elected to them, then the President would indeed have the authority to appoint people.

If the bylaws restriction only speaks to eligibility for nomination (not to eligibility for serving in office), then you might be able to elect the poor attendees (you just can't nominate them). Deciding what the bylaws actually say is for you (your organization) to determine.