nomination of the President

[Guest Richard Greatwood]

There was a nomination for president that was not seconded and no one else wants the position.  What do we do next?

[Richard Brown]

A nomination does not require a second (unless your own rules require it), so it appears to me the person has been nominated and that there are no other nominees.  However, you must still hold the election unless your  bylaws contain  a provision for the chair to declare a candidate elected if he is the sole nominee.  Absent such a bylaw provision, you must hold the election.  Nominations can always be re-opened and write in names must be permitted if the vote is by ballot unless prohibited by your bylaws.  If your bylaws require election by ballot, a ballot  vote must be taken even if there is only one nominee.

Edited to add:  See pages 431-432 in the 11th edition of RONR for more information

Edited January 19, 2019 at 08:34 PM by Richard Brown
Added last paragraph

[Gary Novosielski]

5 hours ago, Guest Richard Greatwood said:

There was a nomination for president that was not seconded and no one else wants the position.  What do we do next?

Nominations do not need to be seconded.  The person is nominated.  What do you normally do next?  Hold an election?

[Alexis Hunt]

What happens depends a lot on your election procedure. As others have said, nominations do not require seconds. Consequently, you should proceed to an election with only the one candidate. If your bylaws have a provision to declare him elected automatically, he is elected. If they do not, a vote must be held. If the vote is by ballot, then write-in votes are permitted and a majority of the votes (not just a plurality) are required for the candidate to be elected. See Robert's Rules for full details on how to count the vote in an election (I don't have my copy on hand so I can't provide a page reference; perhaps someone else will). Ultimately, if the membership does not want this person to be President, someone else must stand up and challenge the nomination.

If the members want more time, such as for a group to band together and decide who will take one for the team and run for President, then someone can move to Postpone the election---if the bylaws provide that the chair can declare a sole candidate elected, then this should be done before nominations are closed. It might also be advisable to first set up an adjourned meeting sooner than your next regular meeting (with a motion to Fix the Time to Which to Adjourn), if that would be far away---this would be required if your meetings are less frequent than once a quarter.

What happens to the position in the meanwhile depends on your bylaws. If they say that the President holds office either "for <length of time>" or "for <length of time> or until their successor is elected", then the office becomes vacant when their term expires and will remain so until the assembly successfully elects a new President. The Vice-President does not automatically succeed to the position because failing to elect a new President is not the same as a vacancy. If, on the other hand, the President holds office "for <length of time> and until their successor is elected", then the current President remains in office until after the new election is finished, or they resign. Depending on how integral the office of President is to your organization, this may or may not represent a big problem---for instance, any action that must be approved by the President personally cannot be done without a President.

Edited January 20, 2019 at 09:28 AM by Alexis Hunt