Voting Ballot with written inscription "under duress"

[Guest Bob Buker]

Our association has a 2/3 supermajority secret voting rule in our bylaws. We voted on what the board titled the last offer from the county which was a mediated proposal. This proposal was titled "status quo" even though the language would agree to the association accepting the liablity of a pension penality, insurance cap language, MOU language imposed through the previouis contract negotiations. These issues make this definetly not a status quo propsal and the membership was miss lead by the board and a couple department supervisors in support of it. After the vote, The proposal did not pass. The board posted an email that they could not get the proposal pass and sought out members who did not cast a vote. The proposal was then reissued as the "Last Best Final Offer from the county and the association board put it to vote again. (There was no changes to the language at all) On of the supervisors also posted an email that everyone should accept this as the best we can do....

The LBF offer was put to vote and by one vote passes (after the browbeating of those who hadn't voted last time and the misleading by our leadership)

The ISSUE: One vote cast maked in support had written on it "under duress"

I requeseted a legal determination of the ballot.

The Association Board returned that there is no provisions in our By Laws to discredit a ballot

Question: Can this ballot be counted or should it be null and void?

[Chris Harrison]

Question: Can this ballot be counted or should it be null and void?

Nothing in RONR would support declaring a ballot illegal just because the voter(s) were pressured to cast a vote.

[jstackpo]

But another question: do your bylaws (or any laws that may apply to your organization) authorize the use of "absentee votes", i.e. votes taken outside of a regular meeting of your association?

And another: under what authority did the board "reopen" the polls for those "pressured" voters to cast ballots? The proposal simply lost on the first vote (assuming that absentee vote was proper in the first place) and that would be the end of it (until another session came around - but sessions involve discrete meetings, not repeated voting.)