Voting and then resigning before the end of the vote

[Guest ALF]

If a member votes and then quits a day before the vote closes, does the vote count?

[Weldon Merritt]

Your organization appears to be conducting votes differently than contemplated by RONR, under which the polls generally are not kept open for multiple days So RONR has no directly applicable rules. However, voting is a fundamental right of membership, so I would venture to say that unless your organization has a rule to the contrary, if a person was a member at the time theirs vote is cast then the vote should be counted.

Others may have a different view, and if so, I hope to hear from them. I certainly am open to being persuaded.

 

[Gregory Carlson]

I would offer an argument that the society has the ability to void the vote but that it should be done formally during a meeting. 

The society has the ability to accept the resignation of the member.  We need more details to understand how a multi-day vote is occurring, and if a meeting of the society is going to be occurring when the result is announced.  A member could raise a point of order that a vote was cast by a nonmember, or the Chair could make an appealable ruling on the vote by citing 25:9 :  "Thus, since it is a fundamental principle of parliamentary law that the right vote is limited to members of an organization who are actually present at the time the vote is take in a regular or properly called meeting (45:56), the rules cannot be suspended so as to give the right to vote to a nonmember..."

The question is then, if the resignation formally accepted, was the vote valid since it was cast when they were a member?

To answer that question, I think it helps to look at 45:8: "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 but he unanimous consent of the assembly requested and granted, without debate, immediately following the chair's announcement of the result of the vote."

In reading that rule, I would argue that a member, knowing that if they became a nonmember that their vote would no longer count, has thus changed their vote under this rule by resigning before the result was announced.

This process might be more complicated if the society is somehow accepting the vote result outside of a meeting.  If the vote was by secret ballot, and if 1 vote would make the difference, I think it would require a revote.

Edited October 18, 2023 at 04:22 AM by Gregory Carlson

[Gary Novosielski]

On 10/17/2023 at 11:59 PM, Gregory Carlson said:

The question is then, if the resignation formally accepted, was the vote valid since it was cast when they were a member?

And the answer is pretty clearly, "Of course!  They were a member." 

The business about vote changing is unpersuasive.  I think all that rule tells us is that once the resignation is accepted, he can no longer change his vote.  But neither can anyone change it for him.  I see nothing there that suggests that there was anything illegal about the vote, and I do not think it should be changed even if it could be identified with certainty.  

A revote!?  Based on what rule?  I think that's a pretty fanciful interpretation.

[Gregory Carlson]

I respectfully disagree. There is a substantive difference between the member resigning and the resignation being accepted before the vote was declared by the chair, and resigning and the resignation being accepted after the vote was declared by the chair, as the former has not been made official.   

I believe the following would be in order:

Polls are opened.  Members vote.  Member resigns.  Privileged motion to raise a question of privilege affecting the assembly that a resigning member can no longer affect the vote.  Incidental motion to accept the resignation is adopted.  Resigning member (now nonmember) vote declared illegal.  Polls are closed.   Chair declares the result.

If the resignation of the member was accepted after the vote was closed and the Chair stated the result, then the vote of the resigning member would count.

Edited October 18, 2023 at 06:37 AM by Gregory Carlson

[Atul Kapur]

I also find @Gregory Carlson's line of logic unpersuasive. The member was a member when the vote was cast. There is a world of difference between changing one's vote and having it deemed not to have been validly cast when it was made.

In the OP's situation, many organizations that have voting over multiple days - and especially when voting is done by mail or electronically - set a date of record, so that members as of that date are eligible to vote. Since Guest ALF's group did not do that in advance, I recommend that if the question arises, they designate the day the polls opened as the date of record. And in the future make it explicit ahead of time.

Edited October 18, 2023 at 10:46 AM by Atul Kapur

[Gary Novosielski]

On 10/18/2023 at 2:00 AM, Gregory Carlson said:

There is a substantive difference between the member resigning and the resignation being accepted before the vote was declared by the chair, and resigning and the resignation being accepted after the vote was declared by the chair, as the former has not been made official.  

If there is a difference, it is apparently not substantive enough for BG Robert and his successors to have taken notice of it.  If they had, they might have said that the voter must be a member "at the time the result is announced", but what they did say was "at the time the vote is taken".  And they identified this as one of the "fundamental principles of parliamentary law." [25:9] <emphasis in original>

You are, of course, free to disagree with what they said, but I don't think you can disagree that it is what they said.

[Weldon Merritt]

On 10/18/2023 at 8:54 AM, Gary Novosielski said:

You are, of course, free to disagree with what they said, but I don't think you can disagree that it is what they said.

I certainly don't disagree that they said it, nor with what they said. What I disagree with is your interpretation of 
"at the time the vote is taken." And I am not going to speculate about what they might have said, but didn't. 

[Gary Novosielski]

On 10/18/2023 at 11:17 AM, Weldon Merritt said:

I certainly don't disagree that they said it, nor with what they said. What I disagree with is your interpretation of 
"at the time the vote is taken." And I am not going to speculate about what they might have said, but didn't. 

Well, we seem to have reached the same conclusion, i.e., that the vote should be counted.  So your interpretation of my interpretation seems to have fallen mercifully within the margin of error.  😇

But yes, if this voting period, as it seems, stretched over a period of days, I think "at the time the vote is. taken" applies to that entire period.  Do you not agree?

[Weldon Merritt]

On 10/18/2023 at 9:28 AM, Gary Novosielski said:

But yes, if this voting period, as it seems, stretched over a period of days, I think "at the time the vote is. taken" applies to that entire period.  Do you not agree?

Yes, I agree with that. And I apologize if I misunderstood your point. I thought you were saying that the vote should not be counted. An error I would not have made if I had looked back at your earlier response.

[Josh Martin]

On 10/16/2023 at 9:22 PM, Guest ALF said:

If a member votes and then quits a day before the vote closes, does the vote count?

In my view, a member's vote is valid so long as the person was a member at the time their vote was cast. Ultimately, however, I think this will be a question of interpreting the organization's own rules.

On 10/18/2023 at 1:00 AM, Gregory Carlson said:

I believe the following would be in order:

Polls are opened.  Members vote.  Member resigns.  Privileged motion to raise a question of privilege affecting the assembly that a resigning member can no longer affect the vote.  Incidental motion to accept the resignation is adopted.  Resigning member (now nonmember) vote declared illegal.  Polls are closed.   Chair declares the result.

If the resignation of the member was accepted after the vote was closed and the Chair stated the result, then the vote of the resigning member would count.

I would first note that interruptions of a vote are not permissible, so it generally will not be possible to resign during the taking of a vote. Conceivably, this might occur if the vote is taken by ballot, which is the one circumstance in which other business can be conducted during a vote.

In any event, however, a resignation is not retroactive. The individual was a member at the time their vote was cast. So there is no reason to declare the vote invalid.