The problem here is that a principle was asked to collect the votes...and no one was "officially" declared a winner on Friday. In fact as a result of the vote count on Friday, the losing board members said that they were extending the election until Monday morning. (without PTO board approval) (They were obviously told of the count, and the opposing board members were not)

The Principal in question reported Friday's results to the Superintendent on Sunday evening, and the past President had lost by 4 votes.

To everyone's surprise, the same Principle landed up accepting "extra" ballots on Monday morning, which changed the results, and gave the Past President enough votes to win...

When confronted, the Principle is now saying this is a PTO matter, and that she was asked to collect votes and nothing more...the school board, and administration is tossing it back to the PTO saying this is our problem...

My thought process is that neither the principle, the school board, nor the board members running for the positions can extend the election over the weekend, and accept any votes on Monday.

Roberts Rules calls for a vote either by the membership of the organization, or the executive board, to extend the election am I correct here?

Small Town,
Obviously your bylaws don't address this. Referring to Robert's Rules of Order, once a vote has been tallied and a winner declared and the winner accepts the office the matter is closed. To reopen it would require a new election; not just adding the newly discovered votes.

We had an unpresidented mid year voted due to no interest in the spring. Consequently our fall board only had a President and Treasurer. Pressured by the Administration we held a mid year vote. All votes were to be tallied as per the date on the ballot which was Friday; we had a winner we will call Jane. On Monday they had mysteriously found some new votes and we had a different winner who we will call Doe. The amazing thing is that Doe's Friend, Doe's Principal of his or hers student, and Doe's Secretary of his or hers school were the ones in charge of the ballot counting. We understand that our school board can't take a stand in this issue because it is a Parent Teacher Organization. Our feeling is that what ever the vote was on Friday the date that the ballot was to be submitted should be the final vote. Has anyone had something similar to this situation who can help us out?

[ 12-09-2003, 01:31 AM: Message edited by: Small Town Politics ]