Officer Election Procedures

1. The Election of Officers shall be conducted by two persons who shall not themselves be standing for election nor eligible to vote. These persons shall be appointed by the Board at the meeting at which the election of officers is to take place. These persons shall be known as the ‘returning officers’.
2. The Chair of the Meeting shall vacate the Chair to the returning officers for the duration of the election.
3. The Meeting shall determine, prior to the opening of nominations, the time to be allotted to each nominee for statements and the time allocated for questions.
4. The returning officers shall conduct the election according to the following procedure:
   1. The returning officers shall ask Board Members for verbal nominations for each officer position in the following order:
      1. President
      2. Vice President
      3. Secretary
      4. Treasurer
   2. Nominations may be verbal only.
   3. A person may nominate himself/herselfthemselves.
   4. A person must be present in order to be nominated.
   5. A nomination shall be phrased “I nominate [name] for [name of officer position]”
   6. An acceptance/declining of a nomination shall be phrased “I [name] accept/decline the nomination”.
   7. The returning officers shall announce the opening and closing of nominations for each position.
   8. Once nominations for each position have closed the nominee(s) shall be given the opportunity to make a statement regarding their suitability for the position. At the conclusion of the statement questions may be directed to the nominee by Board.
   9. When all nominees for a position have spoken had an opportunity to make their statement, the voting for that position shall take place. The, so that the voting for President shall take place before nominations, speeches and questions for Vice -President, then Secretary, and concluding with the nominations and voting for Treasurer.
   10. The returning officers shall prepare a ballot paper for each position upon which will be the names of all nominees for that position.
   11. All voting shall be by secret ballot.
   12. A nominee shall be elected if theys/he shall poll 50%+1 of all votes cast.
   13. In the event of there being more than two candidates on the ballot and a candidate failing to achieve the 50%+1 required for election, the candidate polling the fewest number of votes shall be eliminated from the ballot and a second round of voting shall take place and so on until a candidate polls 50%+1 of the votes cast. In the event that there is a tie in the final round, voting shall be postponed until the next meeting of the Board. Where candidates shall tie for the fewest number of votes all shall be eliminated from the ballot unless only one candidate would remain, in which case voting shall be repeated until a tie for the fewest number of votes no longer exists.
   14. Where there shall be only one nominee, said nominee must still achieve an “aye” in respect of 50%+1 of votes cast.
   15. The returning officers shall announce the numbers of votes cast for each candidate when giving the results.
5. When all results shall have been announced the returning officers shall vacate the Chair.
6. The Board may, by consensus, or majority vote, resolve to postpone the election in whole or in part prior to the appointment of the returning officers and this option shall be specifically drawn to the attention of the Board by the Chair of the meeting.
7. By consensus the Board may resolve to accept the nomination and proceed with voting for candidates who shall not be present.

Approved: by the Board 10.05.98