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Tied Election For President


Guest Jerry Wiley

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The by-laws for our organization calls for a secret mail in ballot for officer positions. We are a rather large organization with over 1200 members. After all votes were returned and counted all postions were decided by large margins EXCEPT for the position of president. The two canidates were seperated by one vote. The election committee unamimously agreed to conduct a recount. The original vote tabulation used a excel program to tally the votes. The committee beleived that ensuring the accurrancy of the vote was of utmost importance and decided to conduct the recount of the vote by hand. After 2 manual recounts of the vote it was determined the vote was actually a tie. The election committee is very confident in this recount.

The question is how do we settle a tie? There is no mention of this in our by-laws and what I have read in Roberts Rules of Order seems to only talk about votes in a meeting, calling for revotes until someone changes thier vote. This is impratical for such a large organization and also expensive. Am I just not finding the appropriate section that addresses this issue? How can we settle this tie?

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The question is how do we settle a tie?

How? -- "Round Two."

There is no mention of this in our bylaws and what I have read in Roberts Rules of Order seems to only talk about votes in a meeting, calling for revotes until someone changes thier vote.

You got that right!

This is impratical for such a large organization and also expensive.

Am I just not finding the appropriate section that addresses this issue?

How can we settle this tie?

No, you found the right solution. -- How another round of balloting. That is the official Robert's Rules tie-break mechanism.

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Thanks for the reply and frankly I had hoped there would have been some sort of tie breaker other than a revote, purely for the expense part of having another vote.

A follow up question: because of the vote being a secret ballot, we have no way of ensuring that only the people who voted originally vote in the revote. Is this even a consideration? We will have to send the 2nd ballots out to all members even though only about half of the membership returned thier ballots in the first vote.

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Thanks for the reply and frankly I had hoped there would have been some sort of tie breaker other than a revote, purely for the expense part of having another vote.

A follow up question: because of the vote being a secret ballot, we have no way of ensuring that only the people who voted originally vote in the revote. Is this even a consideration? We will have to send the 2nd ballots out to all members even though only about half of the membership returned thier ballots in the first vote.

Absolutely. All eligible voters should receive ballots even if they abstained on the first ballot. The tie result may convince them that their vote matters!

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Since your society already conducts absentee voting by mail, the society might want to consider amending it's bylaws to explicity allow for electronic voting methods which will save the mailing expense in case of a tie or an inadequate number of candidates receiving a majority vote (which happens often in voting for multiple board positions).

Is it a panancea? No. But having it as a primary option or an option in case of another vote being necessary might not hurt.

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If you amend your bylaws to account for a tie vote, there will be.

We have discussed this option. However, we are unsure if we can do so for this election or only for subsequent elections. In other words, are we allowed to change our by laws at our next meeting and before this particular elections is final, so that a revote can take place by another means?

Thanks again all for the input. As the Chair of the election committee I only want to ensure that an accurate vote is counted, regardless of the outcome.

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The by-laws for our organization calls for a secret mail in ballot for officer positions. We are a rather large organization with over 1200 members. After all votes were returned and counted all postions were decided by large margins EXCEPT for the position of president. The two canidates were seperated by one vote. The election committee unamimously agreed to conduct a recount. The original vote tabulation used a excel program to tally the votes. The committee beleived that ensuring the accurrancy of the vote was of utmost importance and decided to conduct the recount of the vote by hand. After 2 manual recounts of the vote it was determined the vote was actually a tie. The election committee is very confident in this recount.

The question is how do we settle a tie? There is no mention of this in our by-laws and what I have read in Roberts Rules of Order seems to only talk about votes in a meeting, calling for revotes until someone changes thier vote. This is impratical for such a large organization and also expensive. Am I just not finding the appropriate section that addresses this issue? How can we settle this tie?

It's a little late now, of course, but the organization should have prescribed in the bylaws some form of preferential voting if repeated rounds of mailed voting is impractical. Take a look at RONR (10th ed.), pp. 411-414.

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... because of the vote being a secret ballot, we have no way of ensuring that only the people who voted originally vote in the revote.

Is this even a consideration?

No.

You never go back to an obsolete roster to determine who can vote.

The question, "Who can vote?" is answered by consulting the roster that is CURRENT.

• Thus, in theory, you may have had 1,000 members lapse between Round One and Round Two. -- And those 1,000 expired members CANNOT vote.

• Thus, in theory, you may have had 1,000 new members join between Round One and Round Two. -- And those 1,000 new members CAN vote.

We will have to send the 2nd ballots out to all members even though only about half of the membership returned their ballots in the first vote.

Underline the word "all". -- All CURRENT members, regardless of their status last month, last election, last round of balloting, etc.

You are NOT to take into consideration that they did/didn't vote last time around. Nor that the new members know who is running for what.

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In other words, are we allowed to change our by laws at our next meeting and before this particular elections is final, so that a revote can take place by another means?

In theory, yes, but in practice, amending the Bylaws typically requires some form of previous notice, so it may be difficult to amend them for this election. You will have to look at your amendment process to determine whether this is feasible. If it is feasible, it will be up to the organization to decide if it is advisable or fair to do so.

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Jerry, our union recently had elections and had to do a second round of voting for president. You really should consider amending your bylaws to account for this. In our case, we require a majority to win, but no candidate received it. Our bylaws state exactly what we need to do for the next round. And the suggestion for moving to electronic balloting is an excellent one; we've done that recently, too. We have approximately 15,000 members.

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The input has been excellant, thanks everyone. From what I have read on here, a revote in the same manner as the original vote is what we will have to do, that is of course unless one of the candidates decides to withdraw or concede and I dont see that happening. I wished we had foreseen this possiblity and amended the by-laws before the election, but hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?

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The input has been excellent, thanks everyone. From what I have read on here, a revote in the same manner as the original vote is what we will have to do, that is of course unless one of the candidates decides to withdraw or concede and I don't see that happening. I wished we had foreseen this possibilty and amended the by-laws before the election, but hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?

No, Robert's Rules does not require you to re-vote in the same way. (But of course, for your organization, it might be that the only practical way to vote again is the same way. But think ab out your options. Such as, if the bylaws are amended to allow another method, before the re-vote comes up.)

And no, the requirement for another vote cannot be set aside, even if any of the candidates decide to withdraw. Or concede. Or get eaten by crocodiles. All the candidates are valid; and, if it's a ballot vote, any voter can vote for anyone, period (okay, limited by your organization's particular rules.).

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No, Robert's Rules does not require you to re-vote in the same way. (But of course, for your organization, it might be that the only practical way to vote again is the same way. But think ab out your options. Such as, if the bylaws are amended to allow another method, before the re-vote comes up.)

And no, the requirement for another vote cannot be set aside, even if any of the candidates decide to withdraw. Or concede. Or get eaten by crocodiles. All the candidates are valid; and, if it's a ballot vote, any voter can vote for anyone, period (okay, limited by your organization's particular rules.).

The original post stated, "The by-laws for our organization calls for a secret mail in ballot for officer positions." Therefore, the revote would have to be a mail ballot.

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From what I have read on here, a revote in the same manner as the original vote is what we will have to do, that is of course unless one of the candidates decides to withdraw or concede and I dont see that happening.

If you are asking whether the Bylaws provisions regarding voting for the election also apply to subsequent rounds of voting, the answer is yes. :)

And as Mr. Tesser points out, the revote is required even if some of the candidates choose to withdraw, since members could cast write-in votes.

I wished we had foreseen this possiblity and amended the by-laws before the election, but hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?

Indeed it is.

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And as Mr. Tesser points out, the revote is required even if some of the candidates choose to withdraw, since members could cast write-in votes.

If a candidate chooses to withdraw, he may request that his name not appear on the next ballot, presuming a printed ballot is being used.

But, by "conceding" he cannot eliminate the need for the re-vote, since his withdrawal doesn't change the fact that nobody got a majority on the prior ballot.

He cannot cause any votes for him to be counted in favor of anyone else. They're not his to control.

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  • 5 months later...

We held an association vote for our executive committee secretary which resulted in a tie vote. There is nothing in our bylaws addressing this issue. The VP did not vote, does she have the right to break the tie? If not, does this mean a re-vote? Thanks.

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We held an association vote for our executive committee secretary which resulted in a tie vote. There is nothing in our bylaws addressing this issue. The VP did not vote, does she have the right to break the tie? If not, does this mean a re-vote? Thanks.

While a tie vote simply defeats most motions, an election is different. A tie vote in an election means the election is incomplete and you need to vote again (and as often as necessary). Any member who is present can vote, whether or not they voted in previous rounds of voting. Everyone votes at the same time.

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We held an association vote for our executive committee secretary which resulted in a tie vote. There is nothing in our bylaws addressing this issue. The VP did not vote, does she have the right to break the tie? If not, does this mean a re-vote? Thanks.

The VP would have had the right to break the tie if the VP was presiding, and the vote was not by ballot. If the vote was by ballot, then everyone should have cast a ballot who wished to. But at this point after the meeting ended, no.

A tie vote is not a special "issue" so you would not expect to find anything specific about it A tie vote is simply less than a majority, so nobody got elected. To be elected the winner must get MORE votes than all other candidates put together. If everyone gets less than that, you vote again. It is not a re-vote, and not a new election, it is a "second ballot". There might be a third, fourth, fifth, etc.

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  • 3 years later...

Absolutely. All eligible voters should receive ballots even if they abstained on the first ballot. The tie result may convince them that their vote matters!

any chance someone has anything specific (section, rule #, anything) that says a tie in an election of an officer is broken by a re-vote of all eligible voters?

involved with an organization that just had a tie for Pres, and the Board to it upon themselves to break the tie...

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any chance someone has anything specific (section, rule #, anything) that says a tie in an election of an officer is broken by a re-vote of all eligible voters?

involved with an organization that just had a tie for Pres, and the Board to it upon themselves to break the tie...

See page 441, first paragraph. Also, see page 446, which normally prohibits the board from resolving election disputes but specifies that the body can refer an immediately pending dispute to a committee or board.

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any chance someone has anything specific (section, rule #, anything) that says a tie in an election of an officer is broken by a re-vote of all eligible voters?

involved with an organization that just had a tie for Pres, and the Board to it upon themselves to break the tie...

 

The board would have the burden of proof that they have this power.  They will find no support in RONR, so I presume they would have to find it in the bylaws.  Boards have only the powers delegated to them in the bylaws, and no others.

 

A tie election has no majority, and so nobody is elected.  It is resolved by a second (or third, or fourth, or....)  ballot.

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