Misuse of Bylaws for elections

[Guest Sherry DeVries]

My organiztion Bylaws state that nominations are to be complete by our spring meeting. Elections take place in September meeting. Up and until our election yesterday this process did not occur. Nominations and elections tended to take place during the same Sept meeting. Up until our election process yesterday people were nominated and there was no contention of the office with another person running. We had an election yesterday. Nomination had occurred at our June meeting which had been postponed from the typical May meeting...which in of itself lended confusion. There was one particular office that someone was nominated the day before the meeting under the assumption according to previous precident that a nomination could occur. During the meeting and voting it was stated that this additional nomination could not occur due to our Bylaws; of which this had never been followed in previous elections. Thus the election took place without the additional nomination. On the ballot were single nominations for all offices. My question is: since there was a precident set in previous years with an understanding by the membership of how elections and nominations occur; which stands...the bylaw or the precident?

Thank you for any reponse.

[Chris Harrison]

When there is a conflict between the bylaws and a custom the bylaws win (RONR p. 17). Also, it isn't a good idea to post you e-mail address on a forum with over 500 members and who knows how many guests. I believe since you are a guest that you can't edit your posting so hopefully one of the moderators will remove it for you.