Setting up Bylaws to not require a vote by ballot.

[Guest Pat]

We are doing a re-write of the our Club Bylaws and a question was brought up on which we'd like your comments. In a Non-Profit Club of over 300 members, many of which seldom if ever attend a meeting, apparently we set can up the Bylaws so that voting in elections does not require voting by ballot, especially the costly ballots sent by mail to all voting members. Can you give some verbage that we can put in our Bylaws to allow for this as we've not seen this before?

[Josh Martin]

We are doing a re-write of the our Club Bylaws and a question was brought up on which we'd like your comments. In a Non-Profit Club of over 300 members, many of which seldom if ever attend a meeting, apparently we set can up the Bylaws so that voting in elections does not require voting by ballot, especially the costly ballots sent by mail to all voting members. Can you give some verbage that we can put in our Bylaws to allow for this as we've not seen this before?

Sure. The following excerpt is from the Sample Bylaws in RONR. An organization with such a provision would have ballot voting at a meeting - no absentee ballots would be used. It should be included under the article on officers.

"The officers shall be elected by ballot to serve for one year or until their successors are elected, and their term of office shall begin at the close of the annual meeting at which they are elected." (RONR, 10th ed., pg. 567, lines 14-18)

If you strike the words "by ballot," then the assembly doesn't even need to use ballot voting at all, and can use whatever method of voting it desires at the annual meeting. Then just strike any other references to absentee or mail voting in the Bylaws and you're good to go.

[Gary Novosielski]

We are doing a re-write of the our Club Bylaws and a question was brought up on which we'd like your comments. In a Non-Profit Club of over 300 members, many of which seldom if ever attend a meeting, apparently we set can up the Bylaws so that voting in elections does not require voting by ballot, especially the costly ballots sent by mail to all voting members. Can you give some verbage that we can put in our Bylaws to allow for this as we've not seen this before?

Well, if you don't want go to a meeting, and you don't want to vote by mail, just how do you want to vote?

[Josh Martin]

Well, if you don't want go to a meeting, and you don't want to vote by mail, just how do you want to vote?

I don't know where the poster suggested that he didn't want voting to occur at a meeting. He merely stated that many members don't show up to a meeting. This is common in many societies, and still many of these societies follow the principle that those who show up to meetings make the decisions.

[hmtcastle]

Can you give some verbage that we can put in our Bylaws to allow for this as we've not seen this before?

I would think you'd want to encourage as many members as possible to vote in the elections. If they're unable to attend meetings (perhaps because they live too far away?), you might consider authorizing voting by proxy. It's kind of a compromise between voting in person and absentee voting.

If you can't afford to mail a notice to 300 members, you might want to think of charging an annual dues of 44 cents. Make it a dollar and you've covered the cost of the paper as well.