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Guest Eli Morning

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Robert's rules has caused a dilemma. recently the general president and assistant general president were accused of misappropriations of funds both were brought up on charges, because they were members of the board their vote was the deciding factor not accept the charges. the general president recently re-signed making the assistant general president acting president. the board is convening now to elect a new general president. there were three nominees. instead of voting up or down on each nominee all three were presented and the board was asked to vote. due to the fact the assistant general president had five votes including his own, supporting one nominee, the other five votes had to be cast for one person. there were three votes taken resulting in three tie votes. Robert's rules states the acting general president and chair of the board shall act as a tie-breaking vote. it also states that as a member of the board the acting general president has a vote in may vote to cause a tie. please give me an answer to this to dilemma!!!

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Robert's rules has caused a dilemma. recently the general president and assistant general president were accused of misappropriations of funds both were brought up on charges, because they were members of the board their vote was the deciding factor not accept the charges. the general president recently re-signed making the assistant general president acting president. the board is convening now to elect a new general president. there were three nominees. instead of voting up or down on each nominee all three were presented and the board was asked to vote. due to the fact the assistant general president had five votes including his own, supporting one nominee, the other five votes had to be cast for one person. there were three votes taken resulting in three tie votes. Robert's rules states the acting general president and chair of the board shall act as a tie-breaking vote. it also states that as a member of the board the acting general president has a vote in may vote to cause a tie. please give me an answer to this to dilemma!!!

Well the assistant general president certainly does not ever get an additional vote to break a tie, if that is what you are implying.

In the case of an election, you should conduct additional rounds of voting until one candidate gets a majority. Perhaps someone will eventually leave the room. Perhaps a compromise candidate will eventually be nominated.

Why, by the way, is the assistant general president only the 'acting' president? Under the rules in RONR a vice president (which is what your assistant GP sounds like) automatically becomes president if/when the president resigns. Thus, one might expect that you would now need to fill the office of assistant general president. Do your bylaws specify that the board is to elect a new president in the event of a resignation from the presidency?

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Robert's rules states the acting general president and chair of the board shall act as a tie-breaking vote. it also states that as a member of the board the acting general president has a vote in may vote to cause a tie. please give me an answer to this to dilemma!!!

What RONR says is that the presiding officer (often also the President of the society, but not always, and sometimes referred to as the Chair) normally does not exercise his (ever-present, if a member) right to vote except when 1) by ballot, or 2) when his vote will affect the result, and is never required to vote in either circumstance. So yes, the Chair may vote to break or create a tie, if he hasn't voted yet, although is not required to.

Also, RONR states "one person one vote". So, if the Chair has voted and the result is a tie, he does not get to vote a second time to "break" the tie he in fact helped create.

RONR also states that at "small board meetings" (of about a dozen or fewer members in attendance), the Chair may vote right along with the other members on all motions. Still, he is not required to vote, and still gets only one vote.

Your rules may say otherwise.

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the chair has voted to cause the tie. I understand he does not get an other vote to break the tie. however the dilemma is we cannot break the tie vote. the chair has been brought up on charges and if he loses the vote and his candidate is not elected those charges will move forward and he will be removed as vice Pres. if his candidate is elected he will regain a majority vote of the board having the votes to reject the charges and will remain vice president

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According to RONR, you just keep voting until a tie vote is broken - you need a majority of votes cast (unless your bylaws specify differently, such as a plurality of votes). I know, it doesn't really seem to make sense, does it?

Here's a question - does your general membership have any say in this? Why is only your board voting? If the bylaws do state only the board votes for who the new president is, perhaps your board can agree that they can't agree, and take it to the general membership?

Or just proceed without a president for the remainder of the term - that is also an option.

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