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Suspend the Rules - Election Tiebreaker


Josh Martin

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Not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question, but if there is an election, with a tie vote between the only two candidates for one officer position, and there are 9 "at-large" positions, and 13 candidates for those 9 seats, and in the first round, the two Officer candidates are tied, and 6 of the "at-large" candidates receive the most votes and thus are elected, with 5 others tied for the remaining 3 positions and 2 others receiving fewer votes than the 5 who are tied, should a second ballot only include the two candidates for the Officer slot and the 5 names who were tied, with instructions to vote for 3 of the 5? Or should the second ballot include the names of the 7 candidates who did not receive the most votes, even though 2 of those 7 received fewer votes than the 5 who were tied with a higher number of votes?

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Not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question, but if there is an election, with a tie vote between the only two candidates for one officer position, and there are 9 "at-large" positions, and 13 candidates for those 9 seats, and in the first round, the two Officer candidates are tied, and 6 of the "at-large" candidates receive the most votes and thus are elected, with 5 others tied for the remaining 3 positions and 2 others receiving fewer votes than the 5 who are tied, should a second ballot only include the two candidates for the Officer slot and the 5 names who were tied, with instructions to vote for 3 of the 5? Or should the second ballot include the names of the 7 candidates who did not receive the most votes, even though 2 of those 7 received fewer votes than the 5 who were tied with a higher number of votes?

 

The second ballot should include the names of all 7 candidates for the remaining 3 "at-large" positions, even although 2 of those 7 received fewer votes than the 5 who were tied with a higher number of votes (RONR, 11th ed., p. 441).

 

And yes, this is the wrong place to post. Next time, please feel free to post any other questions you may have as new Topics in the General Discussion Forum. Thanks for participating. :)

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I agree with Mr. Honemann that it would not generally be out of order to suspend the rules to break the tie by coin toss, but I wonder, what if the bylaws require a vote by ballot? Does this change things?

 

Yes, and Dan clarifies this in Post #15.

 

A rule in the bylaws which requires a ballot vote cannot be suspended, unless the rule provides for its own suspension.

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