Sorry, I should have been more clear about who can vote. What I meant was that you check YOUR bylaws to determine who is eligible to vote; then implement a plan based on that. Yours is very broad - everyone who attends the meeting. Ours was paid members. And members were per family. One vote per family.
The PTO I belonged to at the time did have nominal dues ($5). Being a member gave you the right to vote and to hold office. (Although voting was never a big deal with a single slate.) Beyond that, the group was totally inclusive. Everyone was considered a stakeholder, everyone could attend events and volunteer. Many groups have no dues and "everyone" is a member. Even so, you'd need to check your bylaws on what exactly that means (if you don't know).
Then your group does has a formal way of determining who can vote: anyone who attends a meeting. :0)
Our bylaws state that only paid members may vote and that it is one vote per person, not family. However, we have yet to have more than one person run for any particular officer position, so it's not been needed.
I'm sorry, but this seems a little sterotyped to who can be apart of the PTO. I'm somewhat new but have been attending all the PTO meetings at our school and have found if you set up as an organization that is seperate from the school and not a helping hand you will get less interaction from the parents. Our PTO slates that all parents that come to a meeting have a say and a vote. They also have a right to run in any seat. This seems to do well and keeps our parents involved in the school and PTO.
The formality of the election itself can vary. I've been involved in 3 parent groups and all had a single slate of officers each year. We never had a situation where two people were determined to "run" for the same job. So in that case, the election was a mere formality. Verifying voting members wasn't a big deal. General meeting with room full of people (strategically scheduled before some school program for maximum attendance); call out the slate of officers; have verbal vote.
However, in an election where you have multiple candidates, then you need to control the election. You'll have to verify who is able to vote. If you have paid membership, usually those who paid are those who vote. Or maybe everyone is a member. Is the vote one per person or one per family? Who exactly is "everyone"? What about friends/grandparents? Go back to your bylaws and determine who can vote.
Then you need to make sure only the members vote. If voting by ballot, give ballots only to eligible voters. If using verbal votes, you may want to hand out colorful cards to those eligbile. To vote a person needs to raise his/her hand with card in it.
We hold our nominations in April, elections in May, and then both (old and new) boards get together for the budget in June for the following year. Our nominations can be submitted in writing if a parent knows that they can't make it to the meeting, or we just nominate someone verbally at the meeting. The only stump in the road that we have run into, is someone nominated for president, but hasn't been on the board before (which our bylaws state that need to be on the board for one year before getting the president position), therefore we amend the by laws so that person can be nominated.
I would also think, you have to be careful of how your by laws are stated in about your elections. I hope this helps.
Hello,
Are there written rules and/or guidelines on how to run a PTO election or does a group run the election based on how it's written in their bylaws?
