Question: valid nominee

our bylaws state that a person can nominate themselves or be nominated by another person with that person's permission. If the nominee was asked "can you help out?" with no mention of being nominated, then her name was placed on the ballot, is this a valid nomination? would/could the election be invalidated? (this person was genuinly surprised to have been nominated for a board position.)

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
Robert's Rules allows members to be nominated for office (by someone else) if they don't attend the meeting at which elections are held. In that case, the elections aren't final until the person accepts the office. It sounds like your situation is similar, and I'd recommend treating it that way. You certainly don't want someone taking up an office she doesn't want. You're better off looking for a new nominee and holding elections when someone steps forward.

Community Advice

schooldad writes:
Simply put ,No it is not valid and perhaps it should be informed permission. Hopefully when you approach the nominee she will say"no problem " then all is well. In the future you might want to have a Nominating committee the Chairman of which can approach potential nominees with specific job descriptions for the open offices.Best of luck to you.

Community Advice

S Smith writes:
I agree with School Dad. This is similar to what happened at our school. Bottom line is, no one was helping due to one board member running our school like said person was the only one capeabe of doing anything. Be patient, titles are not important to most people of character and by allowing the process to follow by laws and Roger's Rules, hopefully your school will again have active participants.