Nominee can’t fulfill duty.

[Guest Maymette Dolberry]

Slate of nominees for Officers was presented to organization, 45 days before upcoming annual election meeting on 8/12/19.  

Two weeks ago, the financial  secretary informed nominating committee that she could not fulfill the duties required,  due to job change.  It’s too late to submit another name. 

At this point, should we go ahead and vote on the prepared slate? (Usually it’s a unanimous vote that is cast at election )   Then after the vote, have the sec to resign and leave it to the incoming president to appoint a financial secretary?

Thank you for your timely answer!!

Rev. Maymette Dolberry 

dolberrym@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Richard Brown]

The answer to your question quite likely depends upon your own bylaws. We need more information.

For example, what do your bylaws say about nominations and elections? Exactly what do they say about a nominating committee? What, if anything, do your bylaws say about nominations from the floor? What, if anything, do your bylaws say about write-in candidates? Exactly what do your bylaws say about the nominating process? Is absentee voting or voting by mail permitted or does all voting take place at a meeting? Last, what do your bylaws say about filling vacancies?

Edited August 2, 2019 at 07:18 PM by Richard Brown
Added second sentence in second paragraph

[Gary Novosielski]

7 hours ago, Guest Maymette Dolberry said:

Slate of nominees for Officers was presented to organization, 45 days before upcoming annual election meeting on 8/12/19.  

Two weeks ago, the financial  secretary informed nominating committee that she could not fulfill the duties required,  due to job change.  It’s too late to submit another name. 

At this point, should we go ahead and vote on the prepared slate? (Usually it’s a unanimous vote that is cast at election )   Then after the vote, have the sec to resign and leave it to the incoming president to appoint a financial secretary?

I'm assuming you have a large number of special rules regarding elections, because the rules in RONR vary from this substantially.

If the rules in RONR apply:

• The report of the nominating committee (presuming where the "slate" came from) is not in fact a "slate" but rather a list of nominees for each the various offices.  
• After the report is provided, the chair must open nominations for these offices from the floor.  Nominations can be made by any member, and do not require a second.
• Elections for each office are conducted in the order that they appear in the bylaws. [Do your bylaws refer to voting by ballot for election?]  If desired, ballots may contain sections for each office, but these are treated as if each section is a separate ballot.
• Write-in votes are permitted.
• If a ballot is required in the bylaws, then a ballot must  be held even for candidates who are unopposed.  Motions that the secretary cast a unanimous vote are not in order..  If ballots are not required, or if the bylaws explicitly allow it, an unopposed candidate may be declared by the chair to be elected by acclamation, i.e., without a vote.

So RONR may not be very helpful if your bylaws or special rules of order supersede any of these rules.

Ordinarily RONR recommends that if a nominee withdraws and if there is time, the committee should reconvene to select a replacement.  It's not clear what "if there is time" means in your case.  If there is no time, nominations from the floor would solve the problem.  Failing that a write-in vote would do the job. It sounds like your custom rules may have ruled out all the solutions normally available.

Edited August 3, 2019 at 02:40 AM by Gary Novosielski