Basic knowledge of the parliamentary procedure can fall short in situations where the rules aren’t clear-cut, require special consideration, or just aren’t ingrained in the heads of board or committee members like multiplication tables or the ingredients for a good martini.
As the United States went through the 2018 midterms elections on Nov. 6, officials and voters were once again voicing concerned about the security and reliability of the nation’s voting systems.
When most people think of voting, the determining tally most of us think of is a simple majority. That is, whoever receives one more vote than half the number of voters is the winner.
When voting is mentioned in the United States, it’s a fair assumption that most people take that to mean that one person equals a single vote. After all, it’s the foundation of our system of democracy, right? Well, sort of.
In a political system that prides itself on the privacy of the vote, such as ours in the United States, it might seem unethical to assign your vote to another person because you can’t be present to cast it yourself. However, when the U.S. was little more than a collection of colonies with sparsely populated settlements, this process was tolerated – and sometimes encouraged – purely out of necessity.
Think about the last time you participated in an off-year election for your state or local municipality (let’s hope it was the last time one was held).
Discussions about voting don’t seem like they’d often turn toward houses of worship. But just like any large organization that depends on the governance of its members to run, religious organizations are faced with several the same challenges.
From the outside looking in, churches might not seem to be the sorts of places where the process of voting regularly comes into play.
But anyone who has worked within a religious organization understands that along with matters of the soul, houses of worship regularly deal with more earthly challenges that involve the approval of church leadership, the setting and passing of budgets, and the care of a physical plant in the form of the house of worship and its accessory buildings.
When it comes to voting and accuracy, smaller associations and governing bodies have a decided advantage. Whether voting by voice, ballot or show of hands, it’s unlikely that anyone’s vote will get overlooked or improperly counted.
The nominating process for political office is, in many places, mired in traditions that don’t lend themselves to efficient and accurate voting.
