Guest Rick Carter Posted June 20, 2012 at 08:31 PM Report Share Posted June 20, 2012 at 08:31 PM Recently, our 501c3 group set up our annual Board of Directors election by secret mail-in ballot. Our membership is world wide. We had this set up for 2 months ago, but our Election Chairman had to be removed for impropriorities after the ballots were being returned to him. A couple of days ago, we found out that one of the people on the ballot had obtained the "old" ballots and opened them to see how many votes he had received. The person that opened the ballots lives with the old Election Chairman and the ballots were being sent to his home for counting.The current BOD did not request the old ballots when they replaced the Election Chairman. A new Chairman was elected and has reissued new ballots to the membership.What should be done in this situation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Harrison Posted June 20, 2012 at 08:41 PM Report Share Posted June 20, 2012 at 08:41 PM Nothing. The old ballots are worth the paper they are written on and no more. Just have someone (or a few someones) you all can trust receive and count the new ballots and whatever they (the ballots) say is the result. However, I am assuming that your bylaws specifically provides for voting by mail otherwise you can't do it (RONR pp. 423-424). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trina Posted June 21, 2012 at 02:45 PM Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 at 02:45 PM Recently, our 501c3 group set up our annual Board of Directors election by secret mail-in ballot. Our membership is world wide. We had this set up for 2 months ago, but our Election Chairman had to be removed for impropriorities after the ballots were being returned to him. A couple of days ago, we found out that one of the people on the ballot had obtained the "old" ballots and opened them to see how many votes he had received. The person that opened the ballots lives with the old Election Chairman and the ballots were being sent to his home for counting.The current BOD did not request the old ballots when they replaced the Election Chairman. A new Chairman was elected and has reissued new ballots to the membership.What should be done in this situation?Just curious how you 'found out' -- did the person who opened the old ballots publicize the 'results' of his count? Does he assume there is any significance to those numbers? Whether the opening of the old (no-longer-meaningful) ballots has any significance would depend on the rules of your organization, and (if the word of his actions gets around) on how the voters feel about what he did. As Chris H. said, no rule in RONR is broken by opening envelopes which contain scraps of paper that used to be ballots. It does seem to me that the old ballots are still the property of the organization, and that an unauthorized person shouldn't be opening them to satisfy his personal curiosity; however, I haven't yet found anything in RONR to support that feeling... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary c Tesser Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:03 PM Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:03 PM Nothing. The old ballots are worth the paper they are written on and no more. ..Chris and Trina, I don't see how they invalidated the first balloting. What do you see, or infer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Novosielski Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:08 PM Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:08 PM Chris and Trina, I don't see how they invalidated the first balloting. What do you see, or infer?That would seem to depend upon the exact nature of the "improprieties". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Harrison Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:27 PM Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:27 PM Chris and Trina, I don't see how they invalidated the first balloting. What do you see, or infer?My guess is that the fact that a candidate improperly opened up the ballot envelopes and read the votes reeked too much of 3 week old salmon to consider them untainted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary c Tesser Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:44 PM Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 at 09:44 PM My guess is that the fact that a candidate improperly opened up the ballot envelopes and read the votes reeked too much of 3 week old salmon to consider them untainted.Not to be a nag, but is this on p. 445-446, 251, or 263? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Harrison Posted June 21, 2012 at 10:18 PM Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 at 10:18 PM Not to be a nag, but is this on p. 445-446, 251, or 263?Nag nag nag!! I would say that p. 446 ll. 4-17 is applicable*. I am not so sure that I would have argued that the ballots should be thrown out unless there was further evidence that the ballots security were compromised. But the voting body apparently decided that they should be so here we are.* However, it is a bit unclear who tossed out the first set of ballots. If it were the Membership and they were the electing body then there would be no issue as far as p. 446 is concerned. On the other hand if the Membership was the electing body and the Board tossed the ballots out (and they didn't have bylaw granted authority to do so) then the second election probably would be null and void (RONR p. 251[a]) though the Membership probably would need to order a new round of ballots sent out since the first one is probably now as unsecure as a jewelry store left with the door wide open at midnight in a rough part of the city). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trina Posted June 21, 2012 at 11:32 PM Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 at 11:32 PM Chris and Trina, I don't see how they invalidated the first balloting. What do you see, or infer?Ah... I think you've put your finger on something that was nagging at me. Did the BOD actually have the authority to replace the Election Chairman and throw out the first round of balloting? The way the original post is written, this is all a fait accompli; however, if the board did not actually have that authority, the whole situation is murkier. Since this is described as an organization with world wide membership, it is quite possible the board does have such discretion (how else would election problems reasonably be handled in such an organization?).Mr. Carter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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