use of plurality vote

[Guest Karyn]

are there any hard and fast rules for the use of a vote by plurality in an election, rather than by a majority?

[Chris Harrison]

See RONR pp. 404-405.

[Atul Kapur]

The hard rule under RONR is that electing by plurality instead of a majority requires you to have already adopted a special rule to do so.

And if it's for the election of officers, then it has to be in your bylaws.

[Richard Brown]

Agreeing with my colleagues, an important distinction is whether you are electing officers. RONR says directors should be classed as officers, but some bylaws limit officers to only specified executive officers such as president, vice president, secretary , treasurer, etc. Your bylaws control. 

Edited to add: I don't have a copy of RONR with me at the moment, but I believe a requirement of a majority vote contained in the bylaws cannot be suspended but if it is contained in a special rule of order it may be suspended (at least as to non-officer elections).

Stay tuned to see if others disagree with either statement in the added paragraph. 😝

Edited July 30, 2018 at 03:11 AM by Richard Brown
Added "at least as to non-officer elections" to last paragraph.

[Steven Britton]

1 hour ago, Guest Karyn said:

are there any hard and fast rules for the use of a vote by plurality in an election, rather than by a majority?

RONR, 11th ed., p. 406:

 "A plurality that is not a majority never chooses a proposition or elects anyone to office except by virtue of a special rule previously adopted. If such a rule is to apply to the election of officers, it must be prescribed in the bylaws."

[jstackpo]

A similar statement shows up on p. 426, line 9-11, in the context of preferential voting as well.