Nominations made from the floor

How do I nominate a candidate for director from the floor?"

We haven't done it in my HOA, but Tim's method sounds good. Remember,though, this is a meetings of your HOA's members, not a board meeting. So, the board president doesn't have complete control as he does at board meetings. You HOA members may make a motion to nominate XX and another member can 2nd your motion.

But do you have to have a quorum of owners present to vote in someone who's not on the ballot that went out in the mail? I know from your other post that the board only listed two names for three openings.

According to normally accepted parliamentary procedure, such as Roberts Rules (p 432), a second to a nomination is not required, although it is not out of order. This is perhaps the reason that in some societies the president does not ask for a second. The premise behind this is that a person's name can always be written on the ballot (write-in vote) when neither a nomination nor a second was made.

Thus "should say" is not correct under accepted parliamentary procedure.

Bruce & Kerry - The way our by-laws read is that 1 year vote for 2 directors and the next year vote for 3 directors. This year was the year to vote for 3 directors and the Pres. on put 2 directors position to be voted on this year. Me and 3 other owners went to their board meeting and finally got thru to the board that they were wrong and one of the directors came up with nominating the 3rd director from the floor. I said I would nominate him, but, I don't know how to word the nomination. I would like to say "I nominate _________as the 3rd Director to serve 2 years". Would this be OK because I want everybody there to know we are electing a Director. Thanks Nancy

Bruce, is the president does not invite nominations from the floor, may a member raise this topic?

Tim: There won't be any other nominations. Nobody wants to be on the Board. I suspect the person I'm nominating didn't want to stay on the Board but decided he would stay.
Thanks for you help.

So there you are, Nancy. If I understand Bruce right, if your bylaws permit nominations form the floor, and your prez doesn't invite them, one of you HOA members can go ahead and make such a nomination.

This is often done, and my be proper in some cases. If the bylaws require the election to be by casting a ballot, a motion to elect the directors by acclamation is out of order because it violates the bylaws. People sometimes don't realize this subtle fact.

Actually, according to Roberts Rules (page 443) if there are exactly as many candidates as there are vacancies, and there are no further nominations, a motion to elect the candidates by acclamation is not even necessary. As long as the bylaws do not require voting by ballot, the chair (or president) can simply declare the candidates elected by acclamation. However, it is also stated that if the bylaws require voting by ballot, that is what must be done. I once believed you could get around this by passing a motion to have the secretary cast one ballot. I posed this question on the official Roberts Rules website and was told that this, too, was improper because the purpose of a ballot is to allow for write-in candidates. This appears wasteful, too, since it is highly unlikely a write-in candidate will obtain enough votes to be elected.

Roberts was written to try to achieve a balance between the rights of the majority, the rights of the minority, and the rights of the individual. Unfortunately, perfect balance is not possible resulting in situations that don't always seem to make sense.

Also, according to Roberts, a candidate must receive a majority of the votes cast to be elected. As long as a quorum is present, the number of votes cast does not have to equal a quorum unless the bylaws require it.

In Connecticut, state law requires that association meetings be conducted according to Roberts Rules, so we gotta do what we gotta do.