No nomination for president

[PCanon]

We will be having our second month of nominations for officers.  Last month no one accepted a nomination for president of our club.  What happens if no one accepts during this second (and last) round of nominations?  Our elections are next month.

[Hieu H. Huynh]

Hold the elections.

[Gary Novosielski]

It is not strictly necessary to "accept" nominations.  If someone nominates you, you are nominated.  You can decline it, but if the person nominating you refuses to withdraw the nomination, there's not much you can do.

If it should happen that you have reached the time of elections and have no nominees (or even if you have) just make sure the ballots have space to write in the name(s) of any eligible person.  If, on the first ballot, nobody gets a majority (more than half the ballots cast for that office, i.e. more than every one else put together)  you keep voting without dropping any names until someone wins.  

If a voter expresses no preference, e.g., leaves an office blank, that is not counted as a ballot cast for that office.

Very often, those who have expressed no interest in holding office will surprise you and accept, if they are actually elected.

[jstackpo]

Or you can take a much gloomier view...

First check the bylaws.  Officers (current ones) may be in office "until the election of their successors" - if no election, they STAY in (at least until they quit or you finally do complete the election).

Or....

Announce that because of a lack of leadership interest, the organization will dissolve itself and go out of business.  Really.  Organizations don't last forever, and it is much better to close up shop formally than just drift along, and then wonder what happened to the bank account, far too long after the fact to do anything about it.

Often enough a threat like this one will shake some people out of the woodwork who will be willing to serve after all.  But if it doesn't, there is a message there...

You might also consider WHY no one wants to be president. Perhaps you're asking too much of that position. Perhaps the past presidents have made the job appear more difficult than it has to be. Perhaps the members are making it harder on the president than they should.

Perhaps the board should be doing more. After all, the only essential role of the president is to preside at meetings. Some or all administrative responsibilities could be delegated to, or distributed among, the board members.