Reopening Nominations after President and Vice President have been elected

[rgodbey]

Some background before I get to the root of my query. We are a student government organization representing about 30,000 students. We recently had elections for President and Vice president. Our voting procedure is as follows:

Nominations are made. The following council meeting debates are held and the council votes. There are three rounds of voting; the first two rounds require quorum, the last requires simple majority. One the ballot the only options were the single ticket running, or to reopen nominations.

During the second round of voting the nominations were reopened, no other ticket was nominated, so nominations were closed. In the final round of voting, simple majority was reached for fear of repeat of round 2. 

Per our organizations constitution, any matter not explicitly discussed in the document requires strict adhesion to Robert's Rules.

 

My question is as follows. The council is extremely displeased with the President's performance during the debate and it has been called into question his ability to serve the organization as such. There is request from several members to reopen nominations and vote on a new ticket. Is there anything in Robert's Rules that would allow this? I know it is a strange situation but the council has decided that now that another candidate has expressed interest they would like to reopen nominations and elections. Is this possible being that there is a President and Vice President Elect; they are not to be sworn in until after the end of next council.

[Guest Zev]

There is no going back after the result of the election has been announced. There are some exceptions but they do not apply to this case. This election is a done deal. Your options at this juncture is to hold a formal trial and impeach the president in which case the vice-president becomes the president and a vacancy occurs in the vice-presidency which is then filled with a special election. The second option is to suffer with what has transpired and wait until the next election cycle. A third option is to try to convince the president to resign. The fact that a swearing-in ceremony takes place in the future does not change anything.

[Richard Brown]

26 minutes ago, rgodbey said:

Nominations are made. The following council meeting debates are held and the council votes. There are three rounds of voting; the first two rounds require quorum, the last requires simple majority. One the ballot the only options were the single ticket running, or to reopen nominations

I'm afraid I don't understand what you are saying in this paragraph about the voting process and requirements.  Perhaps others understand it, but I don't.  Can you elaborate?

28 minutes ago, rgodbey said:

My question is as follows. The council is extremely displeased with the President's performance during the debate and it has been called into question his ability to serve the organization as such. There is request from several members to reopen nominations and vote on a new ticket. Is there anything in Robert's Rules that would allow this?

No.  Once an election has been completed and the winners announced and the meeting adjourns, there is no provision in RONR for re-opening nominations and having a new election except in very rare enumerated situations and this  does not appear to be one of them.

[Gary Novosielski]

13 hours ago, rgodbey said:

Some background before I get to the root of my query. We are a student government organization representing about 30,000 students. We recently had elections for President and Vice president. Our voting procedure is as follows:

Nominations are made. The following council meeting debates are held and the council votes. There are three rounds of voting; the first two rounds require quorum, the last requires simple majority. One the ballot the only options were the single ticket running, or to reopen nominations.

During the second round of voting the nominations were reopened, no other ticket was nominated, so nominations were closed. In the final round of voting, simple majority was reached for fear of repeat of round 2. 

Per our organizations constitution, any matter not explicitly discussed in the document requires strict adhesion to Robert's Rules.

 

My question is as follows. The council is extremely displeased with the President's performance during the debate and it has been called into question his ability to serve the organization as such. There is request from several members to reopen nominations and vote on a new ticket. Is there anything in Robert's Rules that would allow this? I know it is a strange situation but the council has decided that now that another candidate has expressed interest they would like to reopen nominations and elections. Is this possible being that there is a President and Vice President Elect; they are not to be sworn in until after the end of next council.

Your voting procedure is riddled with errors, if the rules in RONR apply. You should carefully compare the rules in RONR with those in your bylaws, so that next time will run more smoothly.

But none of that is relevant at this point. The election is complete, and the President Elect and Vice President Elect have been, as the names imply, elected.  The swearing in is a ceremonial event that has no effect on the parliamentary situation. 

[Atul Kapur]

13 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

Your options at this juncture is to hold a formal trial and impeach the president in which case the vice-president becomes the president and a vacancy occurs in the vice-presidency which is then filled with a special election. The second option is to suffer with what has transpired and wait until the next election cycle. A third option is to try to convince the president to resign.

Well, whether you need to do a formal trial depends on the wording of the bylaws as to the term of office. See pages 653-4 which explains what you can do "If the bylaws provide that officers shall serve 'for __  years or until their successors are elected,' " (emphasis added)

I'm not sure but you may have to wait until the person's term actually starts to do this.

[Richard Brown]

14 hours ago, rgodbey said:

My question is as follows. The council is extremely displeased with the President's performance during the debate and it has been called into question his ability to serve the organization as such

 

50 minutes ago, Atul Kapur said:

I'm not sure but you may have to wait until the person's term actually starts to do this.

I'm under the impression that it is the current/outgoing president who the members are unhappy with, not the newly elected president.  If it's the newly elected president, then I think Dr.Kapur has a point.  But, if it is the outgoing president, it seems his term is about to expire and he will be out of office very soon, if his term has not already ended.  I don't see much point in trying to remove an officer whose term is expiring within a month or so, but that is a decision for this organization to make.   btw, there are options other than removal from office and formal disciplinary proceedings.  A non-disciplinary motion of censure is an option, for example.

[Guest Zev]

1 hour ago, Richard Brown said:

I'm under the impression that it is the current/outgoing president who the members are unhappy with, not the newly elected president.

Why would an assembly want to re-open nominations and elect a different president when they are pleased with him but displeased with the outgoing president? It makes no sense.

1 hour ago, Richard Brown said:

If it's the newly elected president, then I think Dr.Kapur has a point. 

Why would an assembly have to wait until the president-elect actually takes office before he can be impeached? It makes no sense.

 

 

 

[Atul Kapur]

I wasn't talking about impeachment / trial. I was talking about simply removing an officer (p. 653-4). The question is whether a person elected to an office can be removed before their term has started. I'll put you down as "Yes". 🙂

 

[Shmuel Gerber]

12 minutes ago, Atul Kapur said:

The question is whether a person elected to an office can be removed before their term has started.

Their term? 😀

[Atul Kapur]

Thou heard what I said (or is it thoust?)

[Shmuel Gerber]

4 hours ago, Atul Kapur said:

Thou heard what I said (or is it thoust?)

Actually, it would be "Didst thou hear what I said?", methinks.

[Gary Novosielski]

or "Hearest thou"

[Atul Kapur]

16 hours ago, Shmuel Gerber said:

Actually, it would be "Didst thou hear what I said?", methinks.

The question mark was within the parenthesis, indicating that the question was whether the word should be "Thou" or "Thoust".

The statement itself was a statement.

[Shmuel Gerber]

1 hour ago, Atul Kapur said:

The statement itself was a statement.

Ah, it was, was it? Sorry about that.