Our annual members meeting includes the nomination and voting of the next year’s Board members.
This is the process for Board member voting:
Nominations
Nominations may be submitted until the vote happens during the annual members meeting. Nomination may be either via another member or self-nomination. Nominees who are nominated prior to the meeting may submit a written message outlining why members should vote for them to be one of next season’s Board members.
Nominee Statements
Each nominee has the opportunity to make a brief statement expressing why they believe members should vote for them to be a part of the next MGHA Board.
Red Flag Discussion
At this point, all nominees are ushered to a breakout room (or a separate room if meeting in-person).
Back in the main room, the moderator opens the floor to the members to address any red flags with any of the potential nominees. This is a time to bring up any concerns with any nominee that would potentially make them unfit to be a Board member. The moderator should work to keep opinions to a minimum during this portion of the meeting.
Voting Begins
Because the Board member vote is a secret ballot, we use Google Forms to hold the vote. All members in attendance, including the nominees, are allowed to vote once.
Voting works like this:
- Votes in the affirmative (yes) earn the nominee a point.
- Votes in the negative (no) reduce the nominee’s score by a point.
- Abstaining results in neither a positive nor a negative point.
Voting Results
Two people (the moderator and one other official) will have access to the voting results. While the rest of the members take a break, those two individuals are responsible for tallying the votes.
Scores are tallied as noted above for each nominee. For example, if Blake has received 29 positive votes, 2 abstentions, and 2 negative votes, they have received a score of 27 (29 positive minus 2 negative).
After the break, the two representatives will come back to the membership with a list of the scores. This list should NOT include the names of the nominees, only the scores. For example:
- 29
- 27
- 27
- 24
- 24
- 23
- 20
- 13
- 12
The representatives may either recommend a break point or ask another member to recommend a break point. This break point represents a natural cutoff where the amount of positive votes seems to turn to negative votes. If there is an overabundance of positive votes, it may instead represent where the best turn into the very good. In the example above, a good natural break point would likely be between 20 and 13. You may also argue that another break point exists between 23 and 20.
After the break point(s) are suggested, a brief discussion may happen around the impacts of those break points. If a consensus isn’t reached during that brief discussion, a vote on which break point to use may take place amongst the members (not including the nominees).
Nominees above the break point are officially elected to the Board of Directors.
Board Announced
The nominees are summoned and the new MGHA Board of Directors is announced in alphabetical order.
Note: Vote tallies are not shared with the nominees, but the representative should keep the Google Form results for the next month.