CHN Governance

Current Bylaws
​Duties and Conflicts of Interest Policy
​Homelessness and Street Behavior Resolution
Treasurer's Report for FY2020 Q3

2020 Corbett Heights Neighbors Annual Board Election Procedures

Approved April 8, 2020

                                               

 

These procedures are keyed to the Bylaw amendments approved by the Board March 11, 2020, which remain pending approval of the membership.

 

VOTER ELIGIBILITY 

 

1. Under the bylaws, the election of Board Members takes place annually at the “Annual General Membership meeting.”  Board members are elected for 1-year terms and begin serving at the close of the Annual General Membership meeting at which they are elected.¹ The date of the “Annual General Membership meeting” shall be announced and posted on the website at the beginning of each calendar year.

 

All officers are selected annually by the newly elected Board¹ at a later time.

 

 

2. To be eligible to vote, households must be qualified per the bylaws: they must live or own property or a business within the boundaries listed and have been a paid member for a minimum of 90 days. The last day to become a member household eligible to vote in the Board elections shall be determined by the date of the Annual General Membership meeting and announced and posted on the CHN website no later than 120 days prior to that meeting.  

 

By historical practice, only one vote may be exercised by each eligible member household.

 

 

BOARD CANDIDATE ELIGIBILITY

 

3. The bylaws specify that the Board shall consist of no less than 3 members and no more than 12.¹

 

The number of Board seats for each coming year shall be determined by the Board. In the absence of any contrary announcement by the Board, the number of seats shall be 12. In the event there are fewer than 12 qualified Board candidates who declare their intention to run by the deadline (see below), the number of Board seats shall be the same number as there are candidates. 

 

4. Prior to 2019, the Board put forth most/all names of Board candidates. However, the current as well as the prior bylaws also provides/provided for the submission of additional names by any member of CHN.³

 

Any member of CHN may submit their or another’s name as a candidate for election to the Board.¹ Pursuant to the bylaws, names nominated for election to the CHN Board are required to be submitted to the Secretary, in writing, no later than 30 days prior to the election.¹ The last date to submit a name in nomination shall be determined by the date of the Annual General Membership meeting and shall be announced and posted on the CHN website no later than 120 days prior to the General Membership meeting.

 

 

5. As provided by the bylaws, in order to be eligible for nomination, an individual must be a member and eligible to vote.  Therefore, any Board candidate must have been a member for at least 90 days prior to his or her nomination and have at least one of the three stated associations with a location within CHN’s boundaries, as listed in the then current bylaws.¹

 

The latest possible date for a Board candidate to join shall be determined by the date of the Annual General Membership meeting and announced and posted on the CHN website no later than 120 days prior.

 

 

6. No person who has declared their candidacy to be a member of the Board may be disqualified from appearing on the ballot unless they 1) do not meet the requirements stipulated in the bylaws to qualify as a voting CHN member, or 2) fall under an excluded category listed below.  

 

Eligibility shall be determined by the Secretary and the Treasurer, based solely upon the factual evidence relevant to 1) the date the member joined and/or 2) the true location of their primary residence, the lot(s) to they own or business of which they are the owner and/or, if applicable, 3) whether the candidate is known to fall into an excluded category listed below. In the event the two officers cannot agree, the determination shall be made by a simple majority vote of the total number of Board members then holding office. In the absence of such majority vote the candidate shall be disqualified.

 

Excluded Categories:

 

1.    Only one person per member household may hold a Board seat at any one time. Partners, wives, husbands and roommates/housemates are prohibited from serving simultaneously. In the event, despite this prohibition, a nomination which could cause this provision to be violated is received, the first nomination received by the Secretary via written communication shall take precedence over any subsequently received. Those subsequently received shall be deemed ineligible.      

 

A decision by the Secretary and Treasurer to qualify or disqualify a candidate may be appealed to the full Board by the proposed candidate or by any member. The Board, at their discretion, may consider the Appeal, in which case they may overrule the Secretary and Treasurer’s decision. Alternatively, it may choose to not consider the Appeal.

 

All decisions, procedural and substantive, shall be determined by a simple majority of Board members then holding office.

 

7. Candidates for Board membership are encouraged to submit a statement to the Secretary of up to 200 words, which shall be distributed by the Board to eligible member households in conjunction with the distribution of ballots. At the discretion of the Secretary and Treasurer, statements in excess of 200 words may be returned to the candidate for revision or will be shortened by eliminating every word following the 200^th. Their decision shall be final.

 

 

BALLOTING

8. Pursuant to the bylaws, the Board Secretary, or his designee under the Secretary’s supervision (“designee”), shall prepare a ballot and distribute to eligible member households in advance of the General Membership meeting. The Secretary, or the designee if any, shall also prepare a ballot for eligible members in attendance at the General Membership meeting, who have not voted in advance.

 

Eligibility to receive a ballot shall be determined by the Secretary and the Treasurer, based solely upon the factual evidence relevant to 1) the date the household or member joined and 2) the true location of its/their primary residence, the lot(s) they own or business of which they are the owner. In the event the two officers cannot agree, the determination shall be made by a simple majority vote of the total number of Board members then holding office. In the absence of such majority vote the household or member shall be disqualified.

 

A decision by the Secretary and Treasurer to qualify or disqualify a household for voting purposes may be appealed to the full Board by the affected household or by any member. The Board, at its discretion, may consider the Appeal, in which case it may overrule the Secretary and Treasurer’s decision. Alternatively, it may choose to not consider the Appeal.

 

All decisions, procedural and substantive, shall be determined by a simple majority of Board members then holding office.

 

9. Ballots shall be distributed at least 10 days in advance of the General Membership meeting.

 

10. Nominees shall be listed alphabetically on the ballot by surname.

 

11. Ballots may be distributed initially to all eligible members electronically, by email. Paper ballots shall be available at the General Membership meeting for any eligible member who has not voted by email. Any member may request to receive a paper ballot in lieu of the electronic ballot. Should any such request be received, such paper ballot shall be issued pursuant to a written standardized procedure and controls established and announced by the Secretary.  

 

12. To be counted, official ballots received by eligible member households in advance of the General Membership meeting, must be returned directly by the household to the Secretary via the means specified in the balloting instructions by no later than noon the day of the General Membership meeting or as otherwise stated in the balloting materials.  Any executed ballot received by the Secretary from a third party, or otherwise in contradiction of balloting instructions, shall be so identified upon receipt and is subject to disqualification, at the discretion of the Secretary.

 

A decision by the Secretary to disqualify a ballot may be appealed to the full Board by the affected household or by any member. The Board, at its discretion, may consider the Appeal, in which case it may overrule the Secretary’s decision. Alternatively, it may choose to not consider the Appeal.

 

All decisions, procedural and substantive, shall be determined by a simple majority of Board members then holding office.

 

No more than one vote may be cast for any one candidate by any one voter.

 

 

VOTE TABULATION

13. The Secretary, and the designee, if any, shall make every reasonable effort, which is not inconsistent with the Secretary’s responsibility to oversee a valid election process, to avoid awareness of the preferences of individual household voters and, in addition, until all balloting is officially closed, knowledge of the evolving cumulative vote totals for individual candidates.

 

In addition, the Secretary, and the designee, if any, is prohibited from revealing, to any other person, any information about the voting choice of any member or, prior to the close of all voting, any information about the cumulative vote totals for individual candidates of which the Secretary, or the designee, if any, may have become aware.

 

Willful violation of this prohibition is grounds for the Board, if it so chooses, to remove the Secretary from office, by simple majority vote of the members then holding office, less one: that of the Secretary, who shall recuse themselves from any such vote.

        

14. The bylaws provide that voting results shall be tallied by multiple persons at the General Membership meeting and the results announced.¹ The intention of this language is that the results be announced at the same meeting.⁴

 

 

The distribution and collection of executed ballots and any related discussion shall be the first item taken up at the Annual General Membership meeting.  Members eligible to vote, who have not yet done so, and who are in attendance at the meeting, may vote using a ballot distributed by the Secretary.

 

Once all completed ballots are received and the vote “closed,” the ballots shall be opened and counted by the “vote counters” who shall be named at the time election procedures and applicable dates for that year are announced and posted on the website. These persons shall also announce the results.

 

All ballots shall be counted during the meeting in the presence of the assembled members. In no case may any partial count be announced or disclosed to any other person prior to the deadline for receipt of all executed ballots by the Secretary at the membership meeting.

 

There shall be no limit on the number of persons who may observe the vote tally process.  

 

 

RESULTS

15. Candidates must receive a minimum of 10 votes or 15% of the participating voters, whichever is larger, to be elected to a Board seat.

 

 

16. In the event the number of Board candidates receiving the minimum required number of votes exceeds the number of open Board seats stated in the ballot instructions, the candidates deemed elected shall be determined by those with the largest number of votes.

 

 

17. In the case of a tie vote, which would otherwise qualify two or more candidates for a Board seat, but result in a number of Board members exceeding that set by the Board in the Ballot instructions but not exceeding the 12 person maximum provided for by the bylaws, all candidates with an equal number of votes shall be deemed elected to the Board.

 

(Example: The Board declares that there shall be 10 Board seats for the upcoming year (2 less than the maximum number allowed by the by laws). Twelve persons are nominated, 11 of which receive a number of votes equal to or in excess of the number required to be elected, and 2 of the 11 receive the same highest number of votes. In this instance all 11 would be deemed elected.)     

 

In the case of a tie vote which would result in 2 or more candidates qualifying for a Board seat except for the fact that the total Board seats may not exceed 12, the candidate eliminated shall be determined by coin toss.  

 

(Example: The Board declares that there shall be 12 Board seats for the upcoming years (the maximum allowed by the by laws).  Fourteen persons are nominated, 13 of which receive a number equal to or in excess of the number required to be elected, and two of those 13 persons receive the same number of votes, (thus, qualifying 13 persons for Board). However, seating all would violate the bylaw-established maximum number of Board members. In this instance, a coin toss by the two candidates would be conducted to determine which candidate will be eliminated.  

 

18. Tallies and other pertinent records necessary to enable a third party to verify the outcome shall be retained by the Secretary for a minimum of 2 years.

         

TRANSPARENCY & NOTICE TO THE MEMBERSHIP

19. The bylaws require the Board to adopt written procedures under which Board elections are conducted and post those on the CHN website at least 90 days prior to the election. That date shall be determined by the date of the Annual General Membership meeting and announced and posted on the CHN website no later than 120 days prior.

 

 

 

AMENDMENTS TO ELECTION PROCEDURES

20. These procedures have been designed to implement the intention of the bylaws with respect to elections and are intended to reflect bylaw requirements to “ensure the integrity and transparency of the nomination and election process and the verifiability of the results.”  In adopting these procedures, the Board intends that they remain the fundamental guiding rules for future elections, refined and amended as necessary from time to time. 

 

As required by the bylaws, any future amendments should ensure (but not be limited to) the right of members to private/“secret” ballots, provisions not serve to create advantage for incumbents and that results are tabulated by multiple persons.

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¹CHN Bylaws adopted October 25, 2018 and as proposed to be amended May 11, 2020       

²Decision of the Board at its meeting of March 11, 2020

³Prior bylaws adopted 2016, and replaced by the bylaws adopted October 2018

⁴Interpretation of Board Bylaw Drafting Committee Members Dresner, Koelsch & Ryser

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020 Key Board Election Related Dates

Annual General Membership Meeting to be held September 14, 2020

 

May 17                       Board must announce and post final election procedures with key dates on website no later than May 17.

 

May 18                       To be eligible to be a Board candidate, one must be a member in good standing no later than May 18.

 

June 15                      To be eligible to vote, one must be member in good standing no later than June 15.

 

August 17                  Candidate names must be submitted to the Secretary no later than August 17.

 

August 26                  Any “Candidate Statement” must be received by the Secretary no later than August 26 to be guaranteed distribution with ballots. 

 

September 4             Ballots shall be distributed no later than September 4.