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Member changing their vote before the voting is finished


Guest Cathy Guest

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Please bear with me on this...Under Roberts Rules, during a mail vote, (not at an in-person meeting) would you be able to change your vote, before the vote ends? We have a vote occurring without a meeting. It is abundantly clear that email voting is NOT permitted in our Bylaws,  but the Board is not withdrawing the vote so the members are voting.

There is a member who wants to change their vote while we still have five days left, and the a Board member is saying that this is not permitted under Roberts Rules to change your vote. Can you comment on this as to whether this is allowed?

If it were a mail ballot vote occurring after a motion made at a meeting, would changing your vote (before the time limit of the vote) be permitted? If so, what reference would this be under? Thank you. 

 

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Quote

45:8
Changing One’s Vote. Except when the vote has been taken by ballot (or some other method that provides secrecy), a member has a right to change his vote up to the time the result is announced but afterward can make the change only by the unanimous consent of the assembly requested and granted, without debate, immediately following the chair’s announcement of the result of the vote (see below).

It's not clear whether the vote you're talking about was a mail vote or an email vote, so I don't know if this rule applies or not, but that's the rule.  If it was an email vote and your bylaws do not allow those, then the question is moot, since no matter what the vote tally was, the vote was null and void.  If your bylaws allow voting by mail using secret ballots, that's quite different from voting by email, where secrecy is problematic.

I can see that an argument might be made that in the case of a mail ballot vote where the outer envelopes are still sealed, a second vote received from one voter could be identified by the postmark, and used to replace the original envelope.  But in general, the problem with changing ones secret vote is that there is no way to prove which way one voted to begin with, and the request could be used by an unscrupulous voter as a method of effectively casting two votes.

Edited by Gary Novosielski
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On 3/21/2023 at 10:58 AM, Gary Novosielski said:

I can see that an argument might be made that in the case of a mail ballot vote where the outer envelopes are still sealed, a second vote received from one voter could be identified by the postmark, and used to replace the original envelope. 

I think it would be a very good argument, since RONR explicitly permits this when the "double envelope" method is used.

"Should the recipient of the ballots receive two evidently sent in by the same voter, the above procedure permits the voter to be contacted for a determination of which is the voter's true vote and, if both are, which (the most recent) is to be counted." RONR (12th ed.) 45:61

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On 3/21/2023 at 12:59 PM, Josh Martin said:

I think it would be a very good argument, since RONR explicitly permits this when the "double envelope" method is used.

"Should the recipient of the ballots receive two evidently sent in by the same voter, the above procedure permits the voter to be contacted for a determination of which is the voter's true vote and, if both are, which (the most recent) is to be counted." RONR (12th ed.) 45:61

Yes, I'm not sure that counts as permission to change a vote, but it accomplishes the same result.

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