How to treat blank votes

[Guest Steve]

Hello,

My organisation's rules stipulate that candidates hoping to be elected to a specific position need the support of 75% of active members 'present and voting'.  What if members submit a blank ballot, not Yes or No?  Our rules are silent about how these votes should be treated.  If a ballot is blank, would we need to include it in the total vote tally, even if we count it as a '0' (zero)?  Wouldn't doing this have the same effect as counting the blank ballot as a NO vote?  Is this fair to the other voters who made a clear selection either for or against?  Should blank votes be treated as abstentions and not included in the total vote tally as either yes or no?

 

Am finding this difficult to understand.

 

Thank you,

Steve

[Richard Brown]

You do not count blank ballots.  They are abstentions.... they are not votes.  You ignore them.  It is as if they don't exist.  If your organization has 100 members and 75 members are present, and candidate A has 40 votes, candidate B has 10 votes, and you have 25 blank votes ballots, Candidate A wins because he/she has over 75 percent of the votes CAST by members present and voting.  Only 50 votes were cast.  You ignore the 25 abstentions... the blank ballots.  75 percent of 50 is  37.5.  Since you can't have a fraction of a vote here, you round up to 38.  38 votes are needed to win if 50 votes are cast.  37 votes are not enough.  RONR, page 400. 

 

Edited to add:  Also  see pages 415-416.

Edited again to correct "25 blank votes" to "25 blank ballots". 

[Guest Steve]

Thanks Richard.  That's really helpful.  Much clearer now.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

... need the support of 75% of active members 'present and voting'. 

 

Q. Should blank votes be treated as abstentions

and not included in the total vote tally as either yes or no?

 

Correct.

Blank ballots are treated as abstentions.

Blank ballots are not included in the tally for either side (affirmative nor negative) because a blank ballot is not classified as being a "vote cast" under Robert's Rules of Order, where the standard used is "present and voting."

 

"Present and voting" means (a.) physically present, and (b.) casting a vote.

Being present isn't enough.

 

And, to be complete, "casting a vote" when you are not present, is not enough, likewise.

It is a two-pronged rule.