Democrats Abroad Argentina Concludes Their General Membership Meeting!
On February 16th, 2011 Democrats Abroad Argentina held their General Membership Meeting. As there were no other candidates running for National Chair Democrats Abroad Argentina, Vice-Chair or Treasurer the candidates were elected by acclamation.
Online, March 17, 2011 (Newswire.com) - We are happy to report that Democrats Abroad Argentina had their General Membership Meeting on February 16th and were able to complete their election of new officers.
Since the annual general meeting of Democrats Abroad Argentina and the election held on January 5th appear to have been properly called and absent a challenge thereto, the meeting and the election should have been held normally.
Since ballots were to be sent in by mail as well as voted in person at the meeting, under Section 15.5 of the DA AR Bylaws, no nominations could have been made from the floor of the general meeting for posts for which there were announced candidates.
It follows that since there were nominations for three people for three different positions, those candidates (Samuel Warde, Heidi Mathews and Bill Hammond) would have been elected by acclamation at the general meeting. However, since the election could not be completed or the annual general meeting held for lack of a quorum, the election was incomplete.
Robert's Rules of Order Revised specifically envisages these possibilities. What the non-quorate annual general meeting should have done and did not do (and indeed the only thing it could do other than adjourn) was to call another annual general meeting for completion of the election and approval of the accounts.
It is not that the election "failed", it is simply that the meeting was not quorate, and a second meeting to complete the election was entirely in order.
Under Section 19.2 of the Democrats Abroad Argentina Bylaws, a meeting for February 16th was called by one third of the Executive (5/3 = 1.666 and rounds up to 2). It was thus permissible for the outgoing Vice Chair and Counsel to make a call for that meeting before they left office to complete the election that was left unfinished by the non-quorate January 5, 2011 meeting.
The meeting of February 16, 2011 was quorate, and it then proceeded with the completion of the election. Since there could not be nominations from the floor for the posts for which Samuel Warde, HeidiMathews and Bill Hammond were running, they were necessarily elected.
We are really excited moving forwards with our plans for Voter Outreach, Community Outreach and more. We want to thank you for your participation and are eager to have Democrats Abroad Argentina make a difference.
Democrats Abroad Argentina Leadership:
Samuel W. Warde: Chair
Heidi Mathews: Vice-Chair
Bill Hammond: Treasurer
Eamonn Donovan: Counsel
Barbara Rutledge: Secretary
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