Can an active board cancel an ongoing election and start a new one by them. ( no election committee formed)

[Guest Carla]

Can an active board cancel an ongoing election and start a new one themselves ( no election committee formed)

[Guest Puzzling]

32 minutes ago, Guest Carla said:

Can an active board cancel an ongoing election and start a new one themselves ( no election committee formed)

Not completely sure what happened but in general only the meeting that does the election can postpone the elections by reopening nominations or to do some other urgent business (by laying the election on the table) 

Can you give more details (what is the election assembly)  and also include what your bylaws state about this. (Copy verbatim do not paraphrase) 

[Richard Brown]

Probably not, but we need more information and it depends on your bylaws.  The “probably not“ is so strong that some of my colleagues might even answer with a simple “no“.

For starters, why don’t you tell us why the board wants to cancel the election, at what point are you in the election process now, and what do your bylaws say about when the election shall be held? 

Edited April 11, 2021 at 04:51 PM by Richard Brown
Typographical correction

[Guest Carla]

Our bylaws say:

1. TheExecutiveBoardshallappointaNominatingCommitteeattheFebruaryBusiness meeting. The committee shall consist of no more than five persons from the membership at large.
2. AllnominationsshouldbesubmittedbytheMarchgeneralmeeting
3. TheslateofOfficersnominatedwillbepresentedtothemembershipattheMarchgeneral
meeting and published in the newsletter prior to the election of Officers.
4. NewofficerswillbeannouncedattheAprilgeneralmeeting.
5. Votingwillbebysecretballot.
6. Asimplemajorityofthevotescastisrequiredtobeelected.
7. A quorum: At least two-thirds of the Rheinland-Pfalz Quilt Guild must vote before the
elections become valid.
8. Officers’termofofficewillbefromMaytoApril.
9. IntheeventthatanExecutiveBoardmembercannotfulfillacompleteyearofcommitment,
the vacated office will be filled by a Presidential appointee with Executive Board approval.

The voting is 4 days shy of ending. All requirements have been met.

 

[Josh Martin]

1 hour ago, Guest Carla said:

Our bylaws say:

...

The voting is 4 days shy of ending. All requirements have been met.

Based upon the facts provided, I believe the answer to the original question is still "No," although we still have not been told why the Executive Board feels it is desirable to cancel the original election, which might be relevant. Obviously the Executive Board can't cancel the election just because it feels like it (nor can anyone else). If the allegation is that some rule was violated, my opinion based upon the facts provided is that the Executive Board would still lack the authority to cancel the election, although if the rule violation was sufficiently grave, the matter could potentially be addressed by the full membership.

[Guest Puzzling]

Your bylaws state a lot but not how the elections are held. 

Also it does not allow the elections to be cancelled or postponed.

Your election regulations miss out many necessary points. So the rest is all based on guesses.

I guess you hold the election by mail ? (The quorum points in that direction

Your regulations don't say what to do:

- if not enough candidates get a majority.

- how the elections are held (if not at a in person meeting)

And so on

 

[Richard Brown]

Guest Carla, thank you for the additional information.  There is, however, some pertinent information lacking.  For example, the bylaw provisions you quoted do not tell us when or how the elections are to be conducted, other than by secret ballot. I assume from your last post that voting takes place over several days rather than on the day of the March or April meeting. How is this?   What bylaw provision permits that?  Is the voting in person over several days?  By mail?  If by mail, do the bylaws authorize mail or some other form of absentee voting?  Voting by mail is prohibited by RONR unless authorized in the bylaws.

Besides the bylaw questions, why does the executive board want to cancel the election?  What reason is being given?  Is a new date being proposed?

Guest Carla, based on the information we have so far, i stand by my original answer that the board probably does not have the authority to cancel the election and I agree with the response by Josh Martin.  Additional pertinent information might cause me to change my answer.

 

 

[Guest Guest Carla]

The executive board decided to cancel the ongoing voting ballot because they were not told by the voting committee how many people have been contacted. They were told several times that the  current membership list was used. This and a lack of productive communication between the board and the committee, led to the boards action to do the new election. We voted via electionrunner.com and even the committee can’t see who voted for whom. A new date is already set, from today, noon, until Wednesday 6pm. The first election runs through Thursday 1pm. 

[RSW]

The committee can't see who voted for whom, but they *should* be able to get ahold of the list used for electionrunner.com and verify that the ballots were sent to (a) all eligible members, and (b) only eligible members. That's a valid question. If you discover that half the existing membership didn't get a ballot, there would be ample grounds to challenge the election on those grounds.

Assuming these things are true:

• the first election is otherwise compliant with your bylaws
• the voting committee *did indeed* send the voting credentials to the entire membership, as they stated
• the quorum is met by EOD Thursday in the *original* election
• it's possible to tell clearly who the winner is

I'm not sure what authority the executive committee would be operating under in holding a new election. And running a different election *at the same time as your original election* sounds like a colossally bad idea, even if the board has the authority to do it.

[Josh Martin]

35 minutes ago, Guest Guest Carla said:

The executive board decided to cancel the ongoing voting ballot because they were not told by the voting committee how many people have been contacted. They were told several times that the  current membership list was used. This and a lack of productive communication between the board and the committee, led to the boards action to do the new election. We voted via electionrunner.com and even the committee can’t see who voted for whom. A new date is already set, from today, noon, until Wednesday 6pm. The first election runs through Thursday 1pm. 

Thank you. These facts do not change my previous response. The board appears to have acted improperly.

4 minutes ago, RSW said:

The committee can't see who voted for whom, but they *should* be able to get ahold of the list used for electionrunner.com and verify that the ballots were sent to (a) all eligible members, and (b) only eligible members. That's a valid question. If you discover that half the existing membership didn't get a ballot, there would be ample grounds to challenge the election on those grounds.

Even if such a thing occurred (and we have been provided no facts which suggests that it did), the proper venue to raise such a challenge would be at a meeting of the membership.

[RSW]

1 minute ago, Josh Martin said:

Even if such a thing occurred (and we have been provided no facts which suggests that it did), the proper venue to raise such a challenge would be at a meeting of the membership.

Presuming that a meeting of the membership will even be occurring. In a normal election, the election would typically be conducted, announced, and closed in a given business meeting or a multi-day session. But given that many organizations are playing very fast and loose with rules in the online environment, it feels like this online vote thing might result in an announcement of the winner via a similar method (email, etc.), at which point the candidate(s) is stated to have been elected - with no meeting being held.

Given that very little seems proper about this whole course of events, I'm logically interpolating that the proper time to at least lodge the objection regarding the improper procedure *regarding the original election* would be immediately after the result of the vote is announced. Same as with a regular business meeting where you realize there's a problem.

The proper time to lodge a protest of the board's authority for the new election is *immediately*, in the same sense that you'd lodge a protest in a meeting at the time the breach occurred.

Either way, I agree with you that there needs to be a meeting for the *membership* to figure out what they want to do about this mess, preferably after the initial election is concluded so there can be a determination of fact regarding whether anybody was validly elected in the first election.

[Guest Guest Carla]

Thank you all for your replies. 

[Gary Novosielski]

On 4/11/2021 at 8:17 AM, Guest Carla said:

Can an active board cancel an ongoing election and start a new one themselves ( no election committee formed)

Unless your bylaws are quite unusual, the board is elected by, and subordinate to, the general membership.  Elections take place at general membership meetings over which the board has no control.  In this case, not only can the board not cancel an election, but can't overturn any decision of the membership. 

(It sounds to me like an election is overdue, and some board members need to be voted out.  But that's just me. and of course see disclaimer below)