Suspension of Election

[Guest Monica]

Hello.  I have a unique situation that has taken place within my college alumni association.  I was elected as the National Historian and another alum was elected as the National Corresponding Secretary two years ago.  Our terms were for two years as were the other elected officers.  We all serve on what is called the executive board.  Our nominations for officers was held in January 2019 during the general alumni meeting and the new election was supposed to have taken place during the month of March 2019 .  During the nomination process, both myself and the corresponding secretary did not seek re-election so we were not put on the slate for the election.  In February 2019, the nominating chair abruptly resigned due to irregularities that affected her from doing her job.  The President hand selected a new chair without the approval or vote by the executive board.  The new chair dragged out the election process and by late March, no election was held.  A conference call took place and all of the members with the exception of myself and the Treasurer were not on the call and they voted to suspend the election until after December 2019.  On April 7, 2019 the President called me and the secretary and asked us if we wanted to remain in our office since we originally were not seeking re-election and now the election had been suspended.  We both verbally stated that we did not want to continue after the expiration of or term.  The President never asked us to put it into writing, did not inform the board of the phone conversation, the board never voted to accept our statement, and she removed us from the board before the expiration of our term.  We later wrote and asked to rescind our verbal statements so that we could work towards helping the board hold an election before December 2019 because the general alumni body had called for an earlier election.  The President rejected our letter to rescind and pretty much told us thank you for time served.

Question#1 - Was our statements valid since it was not in writing, not presented to the board, and not voted on?  We never used the term "resigned".

Question#2 - What happens  to the officers when an election is suspended?

Question#3 - Roberts Rules speaks to an officer remaining in office until the board accepts its resignation, is this the case hear?

Question #4 - Was the President correct in dismissing us before the expiration of our terms?

Question #5 - Are we still legal members of the board?

[Josh Martin]

33 minutes ago, Guest Monica said:

Question#1 - Was our statements valid since it was not in writing, not presented to the board, and not voted on?  We never used the term "resigned".

No, the resignations are certainly not valid. A resignation is either submitted in writing or orally during a meeting, and neither of these things occurred. Even if the resignations had been validly submitted, they must be accepted by the board (assuming the board has the authority to fill vacancies) before they are final, and until the question has been stated on accepting the resignations at a board meeting, the resignations may be withdrawn.

I don’t think the fact that the specific word “resigned” was not used matters so long as the intent is clear, but the resignations are still not valid, for the reasons stated above.

33 minutes ago, Guest Monica said:

Question#2 - What happens  to the officers when an election is suspended?

It depends. Please quote exactly what your bylaws say regarding the term of office and the time at which elections are to be held.

33 minutes ago, Guest Monica said:

Question#3 - Roberts Rules speaks to an officer remaining in office until the board accepts its resignation, is this the case hear?

Without additional facts (see Question 2) I cannot definitively say whether the officers would remain in office, but if they are no longer in office, it has nothing to do with the resignations. As noted in Question 1, the resignations are not valid.

33 minutes ago, Guest Monica said:

Question #4 - Was the President correct in dismissing us before the expiration of our terms?

It is not yet clear to me that the dismissal happened before the expiration of your terms, since you say that elections were supposed to occur in March of 2019, but if this is indeed what occurred, this was not proper.

33 minutes ago, Guest Monica said:

Question #5 - Are we still legal members of the board?

It may or may not be the case that you are no longer members of the board because your terms have expired (see Question 2 above). Assuming your terms have not expired, however, it would appear that you are still members of the board.

Edited June 12, 2019 at 10:00 PM by Josh Martin