Nomination rule changes

[AFS1970]

Almost every organization I have been involved with, even those that claim to follow RONR have required seconds to nominations, as well as generally not allowing for self nomination. I myself only found out within the last year or so that RONR does not require a second for a nomination. My current organization has the custom of requiring a second except for the slate proposed by the executive board. Self nomination has also not been the custom. Last year we had someone nominate themselves for several positions and have a great deal of trouble getting a second but finally got the second. This year there has been much talk about a bylaws amendment that would ban self nomination and require a second. My general feeling is that this is a knee jerk reaction to try and prevent this member from running for office. They have proven to be a very unpopular and largely inactive and ineffective officer. However I am generally against making a rule that seems to be for or against a single individual. 

So the question is, can an organization adopt such a change that goes directly against RONR while still attempting to follow RONR is most other rules? I have seen many bylaws that say they follow RONR unless otherwise specified but this seems to me to be a big conflict. I am not sure which way I would personally vote on such an amendment, simply because I have dealt with one way traditionally but have come to understand the reasoning behind RONR doing it another way. 

[Joshua Katz]

34 minutes ago, AFS1970 said:

So the question is, can an organization adopt such a change that goes directly against RONR while still attempting to follow RONR is most other rules?

Yes. 

[J. J.]

While you referred to a bylaw amendment, if the bylaws are silent regarding nominations, then a special rule could prohibit self nominations.

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

On 12/24/2018 at 6:06 PM, AFS1970 said:

My current organization has the custom of requiring a second except for the slate proposed by the executive board. Self nomination has also not been the custom

An obvious power grab by the board, which does wish to see competition with its anointed candidates. In fact, this whole business of a "slate" (which many organizations mistakenly believe they must vote up or down) reeks of tyranny.

[Joshua Katz]

1 minute ago, Guest Who's Coming to Dinner said:

An obvious power grab by the board, which does wish to see competition with its anointed candidates. In fact, this whole business of a "slate" (which many organizations mistakenly believe they must vote up or down) reeks of tyranny.

Maybe, but I'm not completely sure. The rule, of course, is that nominations do not require seconds (unless this bylaw passes) but it's unlikely, I think, that someone will win an election if there's no second for the nomination. Also, it's a "custom," so my guess is it developed from the most common source of customs like this: someone misunderstanding the rules, and everyone else listening, then pack behavior taking over. 

In any event, it is probably the body, not the board, which will need to approve this bylaw, so even if it's a power grab, it will be ratified by the members 😉

 

[Guest Zev]

1 hour ago, Guest Who's Coming to Dinner said:

An obvious power grab by the board, which does wish to see competition with its anointed candidates.

I get the impression you meant to say "does not wish to see competition with its anointed candidates."

1 hour ago, Guest Who's Coming to Dinner said:

In fact, this whole business of a "slate" (which many organizations mistakenly believe they must vote up or down) reeks of tyranny.

Election by slate is actually fairly common in that some regular organizations have taken a cue from the business community that conduct their elections in stock corporations by this method. A stockholder votes for a slate that determines which set of individuals will constitute the board of directors and then that board elects the officers. Its very likely not the best method for non-stock organizations, but many of them just do not have a better model to follow. So I would chalk this up to ignorance and a lack of creativity rather than anything nefarious.

On ‎12‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 6:06 PM, AFS1970 said:

However I am generally against making a rule that seems to be for or against a single individual. 

Yes, it seems a little bit silly to create a rule or bylaw provision against someone that few people are going to vote for anyway. However, I am trying to think of something positive flowing from a prohibition of self-nominations but I cannot come up with one.

[Joshua Katz]

11 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

Yes, it seems a little bit silly to create a rule or bylaw provision against someone that few people are going to vote for anyway. However, I am trying to think of something positive flowing from a prohibition of self-nominations but I cannot come up with one.

I don't know. To an extent, it's also silly to have candidates no one will vote for, and the organization may, for whatever reason, perhaps fears about strategic voting, want to declutter the ballot. I don't agree with it, but I can see it.

11 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

Election by slate is actually fairly common in that some regular organizations have taken a cue from the business community that conduct their elections in stock corporations by this method. A stockholder votes for a slate that determines which set of individuals will constitute the board of directors and then that board elects the officers. Its very likely not the best method for non-stock organizations, but many of them just do not have a better model to follow. So I would chalk this up to ignorance and a lack of creativity rather than anything nefarious.

On 12/24/2018 at 9:06 PM, AFS1970 said:

I also suspect it's not nefarious, but to be fair, stock corporations are a prototypical example of boards having immense power, and the general membership very little. Even most activists are powerful because the board takes their calls, or because they can elect a board, rather than through votes at the shareholder meeting.

[AFS1970]

I may be using the term slate wrong, our executive board acts as a nominating committee and puts forward one candidate (unless they can't find one) for each office, however we still elect each office separately. Last year they only came up with 2 out of 3 candidates for members at large of their own body and of those two, one was also running for President. This seems to be less about a power grab then the membership seeing the incumbent board (who generally nominate themselves) as having more knowledge in this area but still holding the right to nominate someone against their chosen candidate. That being said, in my short time in the organization I have found them to be largely clueless about who should and should not hold office.  

As for a candidate that nobody wants, we don't always have enough candidates to have any real opposition for most offices. Often we get people nominated for multiple offices so they decline the lower ones once they win the higher ones. The end result is that people may not get as high up the ladder as they want but they usually stay in office and sometimes get promoted without even trying. This year the candidate nobody seems to want got nominated for a promotion by the executive board, nominated themselves for two other positions, and only got seconds because the president waited a long time and people thought the meeting would not move on if someone didn't second the nomination. Then of course another custom (see below) kicked in and this member was nominated for 5 our of 7 positions. Two of the other candidates were really bad and didn't get enough votes to even be considered competition. 

As for a cluttered process, we have another odd custom, which I didn't believe until I saw it happen. It makes no sense to me, and serves for a very cluttered balloting process. We have 7 officers, Someone invariably moves that all nominees for office also be nominated for all lower offices. This means for the lowest office we have at least 7-9 nominees until we start getting them to decline as they win higher offices.

Thanks for the quick answer pof yes we can do it. Now the real art comes into play of should we do it. 

 

 

[Joshua Katz]

6 minutes ago, AFS1970 said:

Thanks for the quick answer pof yes we can do it. Now the real art comes into play of should we do it. 

 

Indeed.