Recount needed

(FL) There was a single amendment voted upon for our annual meeting. To our collective amazement, this amendment failed to meet the required number of votes. It's not that there were a great number of negative votes, it's just that the total tally of pro-amendment votes was so low. It wasn't until after the meeting that it was discovered that a proxy ballot with enough votes to pass the amendments was not counted.

Obviously, a recount of the ballots is needed and the reasons for such properly documented, but I'm unclear as to the proper procedure for this as such a situation is not spelled out in FS720.

I'm inclined to document the recount, explain the change and save all ballots for future claims, and notify the membership via USPS as well as posting. Does this need to be done at a Board meeting, and if so, where is the justification for this in FSS?

Thank you for your thoughts.

Agree with Tim, except, given there was a count and those that counted found out after the first count that there were additional votes, I would insist on another Special Meeting, regardless of the announcement.

Explain, carefully, what happened ... have everyone involved sign off on a summary document noting what happened.

Complete transparency is the only thing that will prevent suspicion.

Geno,
Thank you for the useful information on the proxy deadline. If we go that direction, we won't have any issues there. With respect to the amateur mistake, that is certainly correct. We are all amateurs here. (To be fair, the people counting the votes were doing so for the first time, they saw the one ballot, saw an unusual number in a different location on the ballot, and rather than ask a question, they counted a single vote.) It is what it is and we move on.