Last week we had our last meeting of the year where we traditionally bid farewell to our out going 2nd Year President and vote in our new 1st Year President.
Our Board consists of a Secretary (1 yr term), Treasurer (1 yr term) and 2 Presidents who both serve 2 years consecutively but come into office 1 year apart. I hope that made sense.
The ByLaws state:
-To become a member.....you shall register with the (PTO) secretary.
-Voting shall be limited to members.
-Voting shall take place at the June PTO meeting by voice vote, in person, if a single candidate is presented for each officer position. If more than one person is running for an officer position a ballot vote, in person, shall be taken. Ballots should be tallied/counted by two (2) Nominating Committee members at the June PTO meeting and reported before the conclution of the June PTO meeting.
-RROO, revised, shall govern the PTO meeting when they are not in conflict of these bylaws.
-Unless specifed elsewhere in these bylaws, all decisions of the PTO shall be decided by vote of a simple majority of Members present and in person.
-The Co Presidents shall....enforce these bylaws.
Now that you have the background, this is what occurred:
The meeting went in order and then when we got to then end of Committees and should have segwayed into Old Business, an announcement from the outgoing President was made for a nominee for 1st Year President was made. I will call this person Jane Doe. It went like this..
We have a nomination for 1st Year Co President. John Doe has nominated Jane Doe for 1st Year Co President. Is this something you want? ("Sure." Answered out loud.) Do we have any other nominees? (Silence from the group...count to 3.) Then it looks like Jane Doe is our next in coming 2019-2020 1st Year Co President, congratulations.
Business then went on for roughly 1 hour.
Then we observed the outgoing President tearing up pieces of paper. She began walking around the room and handing them out. When she was asked what was going on by two (2) people her answer was "you'll see".
She then sat back down with the Board, picked up her phone, looked at it and announced there was some "breaking news" and another nominee had been submitted for the 1st Year Co President position. The name was announced, I will call him Joe Shmoe, who accepted the nomination, and we now needed to vote by ballot.
The Nominating Committee was not present, so the outgoing President appointed two (2) people to count the votes.
Now this happened lightening fast, and all of us in the room on complete autopilot, voted.
Jane Doe lost. Joe Shmoe was congratulated as the new 1st Year Co President.
Side note and I think worth mentioning, last year the 1st Year Co President also ran unopposed. The meeting minutes state, "no vote necessary. One person was nominated for each position."
What happened??
Shouldn't Joe Shmoe have spoken up when the President put the question of 'are there are other nominees'?
Does the fact that the President officially recognized and congratulated Jane Doe, make her the 1st year President and not Joe Shmoe?
Is this election valid?
