Voting Process / Balloting / Voting Results

[Guest Board Member 101]

The Executive Board (Officers) voted to have their annual elections for the New Club term (1Year term). The Officers did not want their names placed on the ballot - the elected officers voted to Only have the elected Executive Board positions placed on the ballot. It is a unanimous vote 4-0 for the positions only ballot. An announcement was posted for two (2) months prior to the elections on our website for all of the positions and for the members to make their intentions known. No inquiries or interest by any members were acknowledged by the current Executive Board. The Elected President made a public announcement during a public forum (Year-end Dinner) to ask if any member(s) would like to be candidates. All positions were open to all members and candidates could campaign during the public forum. The elections took place and members of the club verbally campaigned for each position they wanted to run for. The members wrote-in the name(s) of the candidate(s) they wanted for the position(s). The voting ended and the ballots are collected. Ballots then were tallied and all of the positions were decided with the candidate with the most votes winning that position.

Question: Was this proper for the Executive Board to have a ballot with only positions of office? Or should the Executive Board gone out to seek candidates via telephone calling, emailing, Texting and face-to-face conversations to place potential candidate names on our ballot?

[Gary Novosielski]

This would depend on what your bylaws say. In many groups, the directors are elected by the membership, and then the board itself elects its own officers. But if that's the way it should be in your society, then that should be laid out in your bylaws. If your bylaws say that the membership elects the officers directly, then that's how it must be done.

The board probably should have had nothing to do with running the election, but again, that's a matter your bylaws might have something to say about. If the election was held at a properly called meeting at which a quorum was present, then it is probably valid. Blank ballots are an acceptable way of voting.

There could be a problem with the "most votes" criterion. Unless a candidate gets a majority (more than half) of all ballots cast for that position, that's not enough to elect, and you have to vote again (unless your bylaws allow plurality voting, which is prohibited by RONR.)

As long as there was proper notice for the election itself, the board had no obligation to beat the bushes for candidates. Presumably all voters had the opportunity to write in the name of anyone they might favor, so the lack of nominees would not be a major issue. But with such an election the use of majority voting as outlined above becomes even more important. If everyone writes in a name, and a dozen people each get three or four votes each, that's no way to decide on the leadership.

[David A Foulkes]

In case this helps anyone like me, who will soon upgrade their reading glasses from 1.25's to 1.50's.

The Executive Board (Officers) voted to have their annual elections for the New Club term (1Year term). The Officers did not want their names placed on the ballot - the elected officers voted to Only have the elected Executive Board positions placed on the ballot. It is a unanimous vote 4-0 for the positions only ballot. An announcement was posted for two (2) months prior to the elections on our website for all of the positions and for the members to make their intentions known. No inquiries or interest by any members were acknowledged by the current Executive Board. The Elected President made a public announcement during a public forum (Year-end Dinner) to ask if any member(s) would like to be candidates. All positions were open to all members and candidates could campaign during the public forum. The elections took place and members of the club verbally campaigned for each position they wanted to run for. The members wrote-in the name(s) of the candidate(s) they wanted for the position(s). The voting ended and the ballots are collected. Ballots then were tallied and all of the positions were decided with the candidate with the most votes winning that position.

Question: Was this proper for the Executive Board to have a ballot with only positions of office? Or should the Executive Board gone out to seek candidates via telephone calling, emailing, Texting and face-to-face conversations to place potential candidate names on our ballot?

[sMargaret]

Question: Was this proper for the Executive Board to have a ballot with only positions of office? Or should the Executive Board gone out to seek candidates via telephone calling, emailing, Texting and face-to-face conversations to place potential candidate names on our ballot?

There is no requirement in Robert's Rules of Order to ask the incumbent board to text members to see if they wish their names placed on a ballot.

Your bylaws may differ.

Do your bylaws have any requirement for a nominating committee?

I personally prefer having a blank ballot, with spaces to write in names. Even more, I prefer having blank ballots for each position, and elections held separately for each position .

Your question seems to imply that you don't think it was proper to have a ballot with only positions of office - why is that?

[Guest Board Member 101]

There is no requirement in Robert's Rules of Order to ask the incumbent board to text members to see if they wish their names placed on a ballot.

Your bylaws may differ.

Do your bylaws have any requirement for a nominating committee?

I personally prefer having a blank ballot, with spaces to write in names. Even more, I prefer having blank ballots for each position, and elections held separately for each position .

Your question seems to imply that you don't think it was proper to have a ballot with only positions of office - why is that?

Our Elected Board voted unanimously based on a motion not to have their names placed on the ballot, and to have ALL Executive offices open to everyone. We wanted to have an open and fair election that would not exclude any of the members that were present at our annual year-end meeting. The question; should the Executive board go out of their way to personally invite members to be a candidate via telephone calling, Emailing, Texting? We publicly had a notification via our website and a Year-end flier and made a public address to the member during our year-end meeting. If a member wants to be a candidate, it was up to them to choose to stand up and announce their candidacy during our public forum.

[Guest Board Member 101]

There is no requirement in Robert's Rules of Order to ask the incumbent board to text members to see if they wish their names placed on a ballot.

Your bylaws may differ.

Do your bylaws have any requirement for a nominating committee?

I personally prefer having a blank ballot, with spaces to write in names. Even more, I prefer having blank ballots for each position, and elections held separately for each position .

Your question seems to imply that you don't think it was proper to have a ballot with only positions of office - why is that?

No, Our By-Laws do not have specific rules for nonminating, Texting of calling members to be a candidate for Executive Offices. Just that we hold an Annual Meeting during our Year-end Meeting / Banquet.

Yes, Our Ballots had blank spaces for anyone to be a write-in. Everyone who attended the Meeting/dinner received a ballot and were told to vote for any member, including themselves, if they wanted to be a candidate.

[Guest Guest]

There is no requirement in Robert's Rules of Order to ask the incumbent board to text members to see if they wish their names placed on a ballot.

Your bylaws may differ.

Do your bylaws have any requirement for a nominating committee?

I personally prefer having a blank ballot, with spaces to write in names. Even more, I prefer having blank ballots for each position, and elections held separately for each position .

Your question seems to imply that you don't think it was proper to have a ballot with only positions of office - why is that?

No, Our By-Laws do not have specific rules for nonminating, Texting of calling members to be a candidate for Executive Offices. Just that we hold an Annual Meeting during our Year-end Meeting / Banquet.

Yes, Our Ballots had blank spaces for anyone to be a write-in. Everyone who attended the Meeting/dinner received a ballot and were told to vote for any member, including themselves, if they wanted to be a candidate.

[Gary Novosielski]

No, Our By-Laws do not have specific rules for nonminating, Texting of calling members to be a candidate for Executive Offices. Just that we hold an Annual Meeting during our Year-end Meeting / Banquet.

Yes, Our Ballots had blank spaces for anyone to be a write-in. Everyone who attended the Meeting/dinner received a ballot and were told to vote for any member, including themselves, if they wanted to be a candidate.

Nothing wrong with that, but as I noted above that make it even more important to stick to the majority requirement. If nobody gets a majority of the votes for that position, you have to continue balloting until someone does. Nobody is dropped from the ballot, and it will eventually happen that someone gets a majority, depending how stubborn your members are. Simply getting the most votes is not sufficient, if the rules in RONR apply.