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Nominee (Who happens to be the Secretary) Reading the Ballots/Votes


modell4

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Background: At the last meeting (April 2012) of our HOA, nominations were held for the position of president. Officers are nominated and elected by the Board of Directors only. One person was nominated, then the current Secretary nominated herself. This self-nomination was discussed and was deemed appropriate.The nominations were closed with 2 nominees. A secret ballot was held (although upon review at that time of the By-Laws it was not indicated as required, the current president opted for it anyway).

After the folded paper ballots were cast into a hat, the current president asked the current Secretary to read and count the votes aloud. She did, and she did not win the election. Question: is it permissible in Robert's Rules to have a nominee read the ballots? We just received a draft of the April minutes and there is no indication that anyone either visually or verbally confirmed the Secretary's count of the votes either.

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I can't find the other post, so here are my thoughts:

Firstly, was this at a general membership (owners') meeting, or a Board meeting? You talk about it being a general meeting but state that the Board alone elects the Officers which would indicate that the vote would happened at a Board meeting.

At a general membership meeting, a group of tellers should be appointed to collect and tally (count) votes. Then the Chairman of of the Tellers provides their report (i.e. Joe received 10 votes, Sam received 4 votes) and passes their report along to the President/Chairman who confirms the numbers and declares if someone actually is elected or not (unless the By-laws state otherwise, election requires a majority vote.)

If it were a Board meeting, the President/Chairman could have counted the ballots. But unless someone objects, the President could pass responsibility to someone else. While having a candidate counting the votes appears to be a conflict, there is nothing wrong with what occurred as the Secretary lost anyway and if you (or any other member) had an issue then a Point of Order should have been made at the time. And if the results were questionable, there are other issues that could have resolved the issue, such as ordering a recount.

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I can't find the other post,...

It was tacked onto someone else's thread so I will post my response here as well.

Nothing in RONR prevents the President from appointing one of the nominees as a Teller. The Tellers should have created a Teller's Report with the tabulated results which would be read by the chair of the Teller's Committee and then by the President and then entered in full into the minutes (RONR pp. 412-419). However, even though this didn't occur the election results are still valid but if the ballots were securely retained the assembly could order a recount.

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