no confidence

[Guest Linda J]

At our annual meeting we elected our officers and trustees. A few people voted no confidence for the entire nominating list (We have one person at each position.) and quickly insisted that this be noted in the minutes. I informed them that this doesn't go in the minutes and that in fact you can't vote no because someone needs to be elected. It looks like I will have to defend this further. Should I just tell them that this is not defined anywhere in RONR as per question7? How do I better explain why this doesn't go in the minutes? 

[Gary Novosielski]

The votes of individuals are not reflected in the minutes unless the vote was a Roll-Call vote, which would be highly unusual in the case of an election.

In the usual case, where elections are carried out by ballot vote, the votes of members are secret, and could not be included in the minutes because they are unknown.

And in any case, it is not possible to vote for nobody.  The only way to vote against a candidate  is to vote for someone else.  Votes that do not express a preference for any candidate are treated as abstentions, and deemed to acquiesce in the decision reached  by a majority of those voting.

What does go in the minutes is the Teller's Report.

[Guest Linda J]

9 minutes ago, Gary Novosielski said:

What does go in the minutes is the Teller's Report.

Does this report include the number of yeses or just the statement that the officers and trustees were elected? this was a closed ballot.

[Clurichan]

9 minutes ago, Gary Novosielski said:

What does go in the minutes is the Teller's Report.

Which (in a ballot election) would list illegal ballots cast for "No Confidence"?

[Gary Novosielski]

15 minutes ago, Guest Linda J said:

Does this report include the number of yeses or just the statement that the officers and trustees were elected? this was a closed ballot.

There should be no "Yes" or "No"  votes in an election.  If the vote was by ballot, that ballot would contain the names of those nominated, with space for write-in votes.

 

14 minutes ago, Clurichan said:

Which (in a ballot election) would list illegal ballots cast for "No Confidence"?

I don't believe so.  I would treat them as not indicating a preference, which RONR advises that the tellers should ignore;

Quote

In recording the votes cast, the principle followed is that a choice has no mandate from the voting body unless approval is expressed by more than half of those entitled to vote and registering any evidence of having some preference. Accordingly, the tellers ignore blank ballots and other ballots that indicate no preference, treating them as abstentions.

 

But stay tuned for other opinions.

[Guest Linda J]

15 minutes ago, Gary Novosielski said:

There should be no "Yes" or "No"  votes in an election.  If the vote was by ballot, that ballot would contain the names of those nominated, with space for write-in votes.

So the minutes would reflect just that officers and trustees were elected? Or... __votes for so and so and __abstentions?

[jstackpo]

See RONR page 417 for a sample Teller's Report of an election.  Abstentions are not recorded in that report, or ANY tellers report.

[Guest Linda J]

3 hours ago, jstackpo said:

See RONR page 417 for a sample Teller's Report of an election.  Abstentions are not recorded in that report, or ANY tellers report.

Since this was a nomination list with one person for each position and a closed ballot...after reading page 417...I would surmise that the minutes need to reflect votes cast, votes received and illegal votes for each position. Is this correct? Votes necessary to win would be one, so would this line be left off? Also what do I tell the few divisive people who insist that they want their no confidence protest recorded? Do I tell them that their votes were illegal and will get recorded as such?

[Dan Honemann]

34 minutes ago, Guest Linda J said:

Since this was a nomination list with one person for each position and a closed ballot...after reading page 417...I would surmise that the minutes need to reflect votes cast, votes received and illegal votes for each position. Is this correct? Votes necessary to win would be one, so would this line be left off? Also what do I tell the few divisive people who insist that they want their no confidence protest recorded? Do I tell them that their votes were illegal and will get recorded as such?

On pages 417-419, RONR explains what a tellers' report should contain, provides examples, and tells us that the tellers' report is entered in full in the minutes.

We don't know what the tellers reported at your convention, but the minutes of that convention should reflect exactly what the tellers reported, even if what they reported was gibberish.

The minutes reflect what actually happened, not what should have happened or what you would like to have happened.

 

 

[Guest Linda J]

19 minutes ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

On pages 417-419, RONR explains what a tellers' report should contain, provides examples, and tells us that the tellers' report is entered in full in the minutes.

We don't know what the tellers reported at your convention, but the minutes of that convention should reflect exactly what the tellers reported, even if what they reported was gibberish.

The minutes reflect what actually happened, not what should have happened or what you would like to have happened.

 

 

The tellers didn't make a 'report'. The President just announced that the officers and trustees were approved by wide margins. Someone ran up after the meeting and told the tellers to make sure  that the no confidence votes were put in the minutes. Why should those 'votes' be recorded if they were illegal? This wasn't a no confidence vote?

[Dan Honemann]

3 minutes ago, Guest Linda J said:

The tellers didn't make a 'report'. The President just announced that the officers and trustees were approved by wide margins. Someone ran up after the meeting and told the tellers to make sure  that the no confidence votes were put in the minutes. Why should those 'votes' be recorded if they were illegal? This wasn't a no confidence vote?

The minutes can't contain a report that wasn't made, but the minutes can and should reflect what the President announced as being the result or results of the election.

 

[Guest Linda J]

5 minutes ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

The minutes can't contain a report that wasn't made, but the minutes can and should reflect what the President announced as being the result or results of the election.

 

Thank you!

[Guest Linda J]

If the tellers had made their report correctly, would the ballots with no confidence written across them be recorded as illegal votes?

[Dan Honemann]

No - I agree with Mr. Novosielski that these ballots should be treated as abstentions. In this connection, see RONR Official Interpretation 2006-5.

And by the way, a while back you said something to the effect that, if your tellers' report had been correctly prepared, you believed that the votes necessary to win would be one, and based on this belief asked if this line (the second line in the example on p. 417) would be omitted from the report. 

Your assumption that the votes necessary to win would be one is incorrect. The votes necessary to win in an election is a majority (more than half) of the votes cast, as reflected in the example.

[Guest Linda J]

48 minutes ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

No - I agree with Mr. Novosielski that these ballots should be treated as abstentions. In this connection, see RONR Official Interpretation 2006-5.

And by the way, a while back you said something to the effect that, if your tellers' report had been correctly prepared, you believed that the votes necessary to win would be one, and based on this belief asked if this line (the second line in the example on p. 417) would be omitted from the report. 

Your assumption that the votes necessary to win would be one is incorrect. The votes necessary to win in an election is a majority (more than half) of the votes cast, as reflected in the example.

Let's see if I have this right. We have a list of nominees-one person per position- closed ballot. Let's say 100 people voting-10 people write no confidence across their ballots. No one writes in any other candidates. The teller's report would reflect...for each position...

Number of votes cast...90   Necessary for election...46    So and so received...90     Illegal votes...0

[jstackpo]

I do believe she's got it!     (Although I don't think it necessary to include the "Illegal Votes" tabulation when there were none.)

[Dan Honemann]

31 minutes ago, Guest Linda J said:

Let's see if I have this right. We have a list of nominees-one person per position- closed ballot. Let's say 100 people voting-10 people write no confidence across their ballots. No one writes in any other candidates. The teller's report would reflect...for each position...

Number of votes cast...90   Necessary for election...46    So and so received...90     Illegal votes...0

I gather you used only one ballot, in which event there should have been a separate section on the ballot for each office to be filled. The tellers then prepare a separate report for each office. If the voting for each office was identical, then each of these reports would show what you have indicated.

I agree that, since there were no illegal votes cast, that last line isn't needed.

 

[Guest Linda J]

4 minutes ago, jstackpo said:

I do believe she's got it!     (Although I don't think it necessary to include the "Illegal Votes" tabulation when there were none.)

 

 

[Gary Novosielski]

9 hours ago, Guest Linda J said:

Let's see if I have this right. We have a list of nominees-one person per position- closed ballot. Let's say 100 people voting-10 people write no confidence across their ballots. No one writes in any other candidates. The teller's report would reflect...for each position...

Number of votes cast...90   Necessary for election...46    So and so received...90     Illegal votes...0

I'd leave off the illegal votes, since there weren't any.  The business about one vote needed to elect is only true in the case that there is but one vote cast (or no votes cast) .  

• If one vote is cast, a majority is one, since one is the smallest integer more than one half of one.  In that case, one vote is needed to elect, and the candidate is elected.  
• If no votes are cast, the smallest integer more than half of zero is still one, so again, one vote is needed to elect, but in this case, a majority was not reached, and so nobody is elected.  

The abstentions are not counted as votes, and don't raise the number needed to elect, but you've clearly got that point right.  

Good luck.