Election when Election Committee Fails

[Guest Outgoing Officer]

Our group has a Bylaws that specifically state that if it isn't covered in the Bylaws, we default to RRoR. In our Bylaws we specify that for our annual elections our membership appoints an Election Committee and a time frame and the election committee must run an election (by US mail) within that time frame. The Election Committee was appointed and  called for nominations but then failed to run an election. As I understand it, there was only 1 nominee in all offices but one. How do we now proceed? Can we move to accept the unopposed candidates by acclimation and do a vote on the one contested office? Something else? Would this now move to our procedures for vacancies?

[Atul Kapur]

"If the bylaws require the election of officers to be by ballot and there is only one nominee for an office, the ballot must nevertheless be taken for that office unless the bylaws provide for an exception in such a case. In the absence of the latter provision, members still have the right, on the ballot, to cast “write-in votes” for other eligible persons." RONR (12th ed.) 46:35

[Richard Brown]

1 hour ago, Guest Outgoing Officer said:

How do we now proceed? Can we move to accept the unopposed candidates by acclimation and do a vote on the one contested office? Something else? Would this now move to our procedures for vacancies?

That all depends mostly on your bylaws.  It may be that you simply conduct the elections, although belatedly. Agreeing with Dr. Kapur, please tell us EXACTLY what  your bylaws say about your elections.  Please quote exactly, don't paraphrase.  Although it is ultimately up to your organization to interpret its own bylaws, we don't know enough to even give you our opinions of what you should do.  Is it possible for you to do a copy and paste of the relevant provisions?  You may disguise the name of the organization.

btw, you said there was only one nominee for all offices except one.  What about that one office?  Were there several nominations for it or were there no nominations at all?

[Guest Outgoing Officer]

Let's take the easy question first: The one contested election has 6 nominations for 4 seats. Everything else has only the 1 nomination. Nominations have closed and the Bylaws does not allow for write in names.

With respect to our Bylaws, as a co-author of them, I don't think we quite covered this situation. This would be a biennial election. The election start and nominating period was noticed. From the Bylaws :

1. For biennial elections:

B.1 The Election Committee shall issue a ballot to each Member in good standing with election privileges. The Election Committee must distribute ballots, either by US Mail or email.

....

1. All vacancies shall be filled by election at the next Caucus meeting after the vacancy occurs. If no candidate is nominated at that meeting, the election shall be held at the next Caucus meeting at which there is at least one candidate.

2. Vacancies shall be noticed as part of the meeting noticing process.

 

[RSW]

1 hour ago, Guest Outgoing Officer said:

Let's take the easy question first: The one contested election has 6 nominations for 4 seats. Everything else has only the 1 nomination. Nominations have closed and the Bylaws does not allow for write in names.

It feels like the balloting requirement for this particular election is at least implied by B.1.

No matter what you do it's almost certainly going to boil down to one of two options, which you seem to be trying to mix and match.

Depending on how you interpret your bylaws (having a hard requirement for a ballot vote or not), *either* your organization can

1. Determine that the election committee didn't do their job properly, and that you need to actually hold that ballot vote. In that case the ballots go out by mail / email per your bylaws, and must be voted upon - with all the rules specified by your bylaws and RONR for ballot votes. The fact that there's only 1 nomination for an office doesn't make anything easier in this case, other than only having one name printed on the ballot. And as Mr. Kapur notes, unless your bylaws specifically prohibit it elsewhere, write-in votes are still allowed. Nothing you've quoted above prohibits write-ins from what I can tell.
2. Dispose of that election entirely and treat it as a vacancy. In this case, the fact that there was only one nomination *in the election you voided* is irrelevant, because it's a new election. Those candidates could all be proposed as nominees for the new election, but there wouldn't be anything to prevent other people from making nominations from the floor. In fact, "if no candidate is nominated at that meeting" pretty much explicitly indicates that the bylaws expect the nominations to be from the floor for filling of vacancies.

[Atul Kapur]

57 minutes ago, RSW said:

Dispose of that election entirely and treat it as a vacancy.

I disagree with this option. It takes the authority to elect away from the membership and gives it to the caucus meeting, which sounds like a dangerous usurption of authority.

2 hours ago, Guest Outgoing Officer said:

the Bylaws does not allow for write in names

Nothing in what you have quoted suggests that there is a prohibition. If your bylaws are silent regarding write-in's then RONR prevails and it says that write-in's are allowed.

Question: If "The one contested election has 6 nominations for 4 seats," then why wasn't an election held?

[Guest Guest Outgoing Officer]

18 hours ago, Atul Kapur said:

Question: If "The one contested election has 6 nominations for 4 seats," then why wasn't an election held?

If the Election Committee had done it's job there would have been an election. The Election Committee was constituted, the nominations were noticed, nominations were received and the process stopped. Why they were dysfunctional I honestly don't know. Yet here we are. I thought I would be out of office months ago. 

So it sounds like we can either rerun the election or treat it as a vacancy for all offices depending on how we interpret the Bylaws?

[Atul Kapur]

5 hours ago, Guest Guest Outgoing Officer said:

So it sounds like we can either rerun the election or treat it as a vacancy for all offices depending on how we interpret the Bylaws?

I don't think I've seen enough to answer this. My initial response is that you should conduct a belated election (you can't "rerun" them since you never ran them the first time).

[Gary Novosielski]

On 4/17/2021 at 7:38 PM, Guest Outgoing Officer said:

Let's take the easy question first: The one contested election has 6 nominations for 4 seats. Everything else has only the 1 nomination. Nominations have closed and the Bylaws does not allow for write in names.

With respect to our Bylaws, as a co-author of them, I don't think we quite covered this situation. This would be a biennial election. The election start and nominating period was noticed. From the Bylaws :

1. For biennial elections:

B.1 The Election Committee shall issue a ballot to each Member in good standing with election privileges. The Election Committee must distribute ballots, either by US Mail or email.

....

1. All vacancies shall be filled by election at the next Caucus meeting after the vacancy occurs. If no candidate is nominated at that meeting, the election shall be held at the next Caucus meeting at which there is at least one candidate.

2. Vacancies shall be noticed as part of the meeting noticing process.

 

I don't see where the bylaws prohibit write-in votes.  Is that in some other part?

[Guest Zev]

On 4/17/2021 at 7:16 PM, Atul Kapur said:

It takes the authority to elect away from the membership and gives it to the caucus meeting, which sounds like a dangerous usurption [sic] of authority.

Is there the possibility that the "membership" and the "caucus" may actually be the same group? 

[Atul Kapur]

1 hour ago, Guest Zev said:

Is there the possibility that the "membership" and the "caucus" may actually be the same group? 

I suppose it is possible, but all the comments suggest otherwise. For example, if the caucus meetings are the same as membership meetings, why would they need to do an election by US mail (as per the OP) when it would be easier to conduct it at a caucus meeting?