Uninstalled President Resigns

[Guest Renee]

Our bylaws state our membership year is from June 1st to May 31st on any given year.

Our newly voted and elected President, resigned but has not been installed yet.(next week,prior to the 31st) So the current President is still acting President until May 31, 2014 along with all board members.

Who fills the newly elected Presidents space? The newly elected VP?(who also has resigned, but may want to unresign) How is all this handled? Do we need a new election? 

The bylaws seem clear cut when an office is vacated during the year prior or after  election and voting takes places.

(i.e.. a vacancy of any office during the fiscal year shall be filled by Presidential appointment,except for the office of President, which is automatically filled by the V.P.)

So which V.P. automatically fills the position of President? The newly elected one(that resigned) or the current one(May 31st)?

Thanks, in need of answers.

[jstackpo]

Start by looking at this topic/thread

 

http://robertsrules.forumflash.com/index.php?/topic/22218-elections-and-resignations-before-installation/

 

Similar problem.

[Gary c Tesser]

First:  Robert's Rules gives no standing to formal installation of officers: what counts is being elected, and taking office.  If your organization's own rules give the installing process itself some real standing -- generally, it's a formality -- you'll have to take that into account.

 

Second.  Your membership year is not involved here.  What's key is the term of office, as defined in the bylaws.  (Is that what you meant?  If so, never mind.  We just have to be clear.  The two might not be exactly the same.)  I'm going to assume that the current officers serve through May 31, and the newly-elected officers take office (with or without any installation) the next day.

 

3. (As The Goon Show put it about sixty years ago:  here's where the story really begins.)  RONR doesn't deal much with these delayed elections.  So some of what I'm going to say is not RONR:  it's my own sensibility (in the old-fashioned sense) informed by what The Book says.

 

4.  (Now here's where the story really begins.)  Your situation's complications seem to me to be really chaff.  As far as your basic question is concerned,  I'm pretty sure that nothing about the currently serving officers is relevant, at all.  (If the terms of the officers are May 31 - June 1, then the current president is still the real president, and he would have been regardless of the resignation of the newly-elected:  there is no "acting" about it).  All that we're concerned with is June The First and going forward.

 

5.  So the president, as of June 1, has resigned, effective June 1.  (Take note that a resignation in a parliamentary sense, not like an employee resigning from a job, is a request to be excused from a duty, and has to be accepted before it is effective.  I'll assume your organization is taking care of this:  it's not inconsequential, nor a mere formality.)  It seems to me a slam-dunk that the person who will be the vice-president, as of June 1 also, will automatically become the president, at the same moment.

 

If he un-resigns -- that is, if he withdraws his resignation -- before that moment, then there's no difficulty about his assuming the presidency; and, per your bylaws (if I understand your snippet correctly -- always worth mentioning about snippets), he then turns around and appoints someone to the vacant vice-presidency. 

 

If he stays resigned ...

O Great Steaming Cobnuts.

Your bylaws have a specific vacancy-filling provision. And it cannot apply.

If this were 17th-Century Japan, we could all commit ritual seppuku, and let the peasants take over.  At least according to Shogun, which I finished last year.  But your bylaws don't allow for that.  Nor, I suspect, does RONR.

[Gary c Tesser]

Great Steaming Cobnuts, John, you make things so complicated.

 

[Edited to delete an offensive invective with a more loathsome one.]

[Guest Saint Cad]

Here's my question.  Can the body accept a resignation before the person actually takes on that duty?  If so, why not accept all of the pending resignations and conduct elections again?

[Gary Novosielski]

Because resigning from office doesn't necessarily require elections, depending upon what body is authorized to fill vacancies that may occur during a term.

[SaintCad]

But they havn't taken office yet.  But be that as it may let's ask why the body cannot accept the resignation pre-installation and then fill the upcoming vacancy by whatever method the bylaws prescribe?

[Gary Novosielski]

I'd say if the body is willing to accept the resignation pre-installation, there's no rule in RONR that would say they can't.  Your bylaws may vary.