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Nomination Problem


Larry

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This is the section of the bylaws in question:

“The Nominating Committee shall propose a slate of officers at the same time. Officers will be elected by the new Board of Directors after the Annual Meeting.
Each nominated Director or Officer must be approved by two-thirds (2/3) of the Nominating Committee.
A proxy with the board nominations listed will be mailed to each member no later than two (2) weeks prior to the Annual Meeting.
The Membership may propose alternate candidates for the Board of Directors by submitting a slate supported by ten (10) member signatures. Alternate candidates may be written onto the proxy mailed to members..”

A prospective candidate for the board submitted a petition with only his name as a nominee, not an alternate slate. The question is, is the petition not in good order and therefore void because he did not submit it with an alternate slate?

Edited by Larry
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A problem with your bylaw rule is that a "slate" is not defined in RONR  --  it is defined in your bylaws?

RONR, in general, allows for write-in votes but doesn't require that you write in names for all, or even a subset, of the positions.  Or that potential write-in names be endorsed (or nominated) by 10 people.

But clearly, no matter what you mean by a "slate", it does appear that a slate's worth of "alternate candidates" have to be nominated by 10 people.  But the next quoted sentence raises the question of who does the writing "onto the proxy" - the voter when he gets the ballot or the people who prepare the ballots to be sent out.

You, your association collectively, are going to have to figure out what your bylaw means yourself, then amend them to say what you mean.

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This is the preceding section of the bylaws:

“A proxy with the board nominations listed will be mailed to each member no later than two (2) weeks prior to the Annual Meeting.”

The entire section is now part of the question listed above.

Since it was implied in the first section that a slate consists of candidates for all open positions, the petition being submitted must include an alternate slate. Not just one name.

Edited by Larry
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A nomination petition is not a proxy.  Nomination petitions are used to nominate a person to be on the ballot.  There is no reason¹ why it would contain more than one name. 

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¹ The only exception I'm aware of is the petition to run for POTUS, which also contains the name of the VPOTUS candidate, and the names of a slate of electors pledged to that candidate,  who, if elected, would vote in the Electoral College, but that has nothing to do with ordinary societies.

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6 hours ago, Gary Novosielski said:

A nomination petition is not a proxy.  Nomination petitions are used to nominate a person to be on the ballot.  There is no reason¹ why it would contain more than one name. 

We are told, however, that the organization’s rules provide that “The Membership may propose alternate candidates for the Board of Directors by submitting a slate supported by ten (10) member signatures.” (emphasis added) It may well be that this rule does require members to submit a full slate in order to nominate candidates. I do not think this is the only possible interpretation, but I do not think it is unreasonable. If this is correct, it appears the member will need to find nine friends (if there is still time to submit a new petition) or run a write-in campaign instead.

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10 hours ago, jstackpo said:

And I would also suppose that the required "full slate" could comprise all but one candidate from the original slate, plus the one new name.

A fine loophole if ever there was one.   If only it were possible to track down the originator of this whole notion of"slates", hop into a time machine, and strangle him in his cradle. ⚰️

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