It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Robert’s Rules says when something’s official, it needs to be official. Which means, the tellers report—we’re talking about the on-paper vote count—can’t just exist on the back of a spare copy of the agenda because you couldn’t find anything else to write on.
The tellers report is . . . (drumroll) . . . an official, organized report that goes in the minutes. I’ve talked in recent posts about how to count ballots. Today, I’m going to help you with how to collect that information and place it in a formal report that you can share with the members.
Step 1: Determine the number of votes cast.
Step 2: Identify any illegal votes.
Step 3: Count the ballots marked for each candidate or position.
Step 4: Fill out the tellers report.
There are four categories of information on a tellers report:
- number of votes cast
- number of votes necessary for election
- number of votes received by each candidate or position
- number of illegal votes and the reason(s) they are illegal
And, before we go any further, here’s some clarification: The number of votes necessary for election is more than half of the votes cast for a specific candidate or position (unless your bylaws say otherwise, of course).
So, let’s say you just held an election for president and vice-president, with both offices listed on the same ballot. Here’s what your tellers report should look like:
| President | |
|---|---|
| Number of votes cast | 51 |
| Necessary for election (majority) | 26 |
| Perfect Patty | 30 |
| Loser Larry | 3 |
| Mediocre Matt | 15 |
| Illegal Votes | |
| Wanda Wannabe (disqualified and ineligible) | 2 |
| Two ballots folded together for Mediocre Matt | 1 |
| Vice-President | |
|---|---|
| Number of votes cast | 56 |
| Necessary for election (majority) | 29 |
| Sam Second String | 14 |
| Chad Champion | 33 |
| Greta Good Sport | 6 |
| Illegal Votes | |
| Illegible write-in votes | 3 |
Two things to note here: The number of votes cast is specific to a candidate or position. Just because members vote for several offices on one ballot doesn’t mean that the number of votes cast is the same for each office. Members might vote for vice-president but not president.
And, the report shouldn’t include the number of members eligible to vote or the number of members abstaining.
Step 5: Give the report to the chairman.
One final word. Tellers don’t announce who won. The chairman does.
I get that you’re excited about the utter greatness of your tellers report, but don’t go running into the meeting room and spill the beans about who won. In parliamentary procedure, the announcement, like everything, is a specific process.
- You tell the chairman that you’re ready to read the report.
- On her cue, you read the report out loud to the group and then hand the report to the chairman. (Remember, the report doesn’t say who won. It just says the number of votes for each candidate.)
The chairman will then re-read the report out loud and end it by declaring the winner for each office.
