Some railway museums are organized on a "membership" basis. There's some qualification to be a member; the members then elect a Board of Directors.

Some of those vote by mail. A paper ballot is mailed to members. This includes a ballot, and a ballot envelope. You mail the ballot back to the museum, or alternately you carry it to the membership meeting.

However it occurs to me that's not the way all membership nonprofits work. I don't know how common it is.

How do things work at your membership nonprofit? (needn't be a railway museum,

Both Orange Empire Ry. Museum and Pacific Railroad Society (in Southern Calif.) use paper ballots returned by US Mail (or by hand to association offices). As I recall, Seashore and Illinois Ry. Museum do also.

Western Railway Museum is mailed ballot.

Michigan Transit Museum, Southern Michigan Railroad Society, Steam Railroading Institute and Bluewater Michigan Chapter are all mail-in ballots.

Connecticut Trolley Museum is a paper ballot mailed to members who have renewed their membership. New members are not eligible to vote, but upon renewal, they are.

The Conrail Historical Society Inc, uses printed paper ballots mailed out to our members. I don't think we include return envelopes. Maybe we should...

At the Ct Eastern RR Museum we have no board, only executive committee. EC members are voted in by majority of quorum (minimum of 12 CERRM members and 3 current EC members) during the December business meeting, list of proposed members up for election released at the November business meeting others for consideration can stand up at that meeting to be added to list. Voters must be full CERRM & NRHS members to qualify, not CERRM Friends member. EC members being voted for must also be CERRM & NRHS members to hold office.

It has worked for us so far.

Rich Cizik
MoW Foreman
Blacksmith Shop Co-Head
Ct Eastern RR Museum
Willimantic, Ct 06226
www.cteastrrmuseum.org

P.S. Can anyone list the Advantages & Disadvantages of Board of Directors vs. Executive Committees as far as Non-Profit Museums go? Only physical difference I know of is that B.O.D.s tend to be made of the movers and shakers of the community and help to get stuff done (money & donations) while EC members tend to be drawn from the working/active museum membership.

The Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. & Museum is just in the process of converting to a member elected board with voting by mail. Previously, we had a self-perpetuating board - the board elected their replacements.

This is an extremely important and positive change to our organization. Our goal is to more actively involve members and volunteers in setting goals, raising funds, and managing the railroad museum. Everyone will have a real 'ownership interest' in the Maine Narrow Gauge.

Membership will now mean something - you get a vote. We hope to agressively sell memberships to get more people actively involved.

The board spent a year studying the pros and cons and just this week voted to convert to a non-profit corporation with members. We remain a Maine not-for-profit corporation and an IRS 501(c)(3) tax exempt educational organization.

All of us are pleased as punch with this change. But it does mean the members and volunteers have to step up to the plate regarding fund-raising, grants, etc.

The Sumpter Valley Railroad in Oregon, has mail in ballots for the election of board members.

Taylor

IRM does not use mailed ballots for electing directors; votes must be cast at the annual membership meeting in person or by proxy. Only those who attended the previous membership meeting in person may vote by proxy, so there are never more than a handful of proxies and they tend to be scattered around.

[I reported in a previous version of this question on some Group. Because of all the answers, I can't vote in the above poll.]
Branford Electric Railway Ass'n. - Shore Line Trolley Museum: Voting in person by current members, no proxies.
Electric City Trolley Museum Association: Voting in person by Director Members who pay a $100 donation to become one, and continue paying regular annual member's dues to continue as a Director Member. A Director Member attending in person may also exercise ONE written proxy.
Baltimore Streetcar Museum: Mailed proxies to a Proxy Committee are allowed, I forget if a member can appoint anyone else attending in person to exercise a proxy.
Pennsylvania Trolley Museum - Arden Electric Rwy.: Mail ballots.
Northern Ohio Trolley Museum: Mail ballots. They don't have electric operation yet, so there are not many eager candidates.
Metropolitan Philadelphia Rwy. Ass'n.: Mail ballots. I was in charge of preparing and distributing the ballots for what was supposed to be the last year of the club. I didn't know this, and included the dues notice and sample newsletter in the same mailing. So many members paid renewal dues and voted that the end had to be postponed a year. The officers wanted to merge the treasury with a potentially operating museum to which almost everyone also belonged.
Government elections in Pennsylvania: Mail (Absentee) ballots under certain conditions, or as required by Federal law. Must be canceled if voter is able to appear in person to vote. If a voter appears at the wrong location, a paper "Provisional Ballot" may be demanded. If the voter is valid, the ballot will be counted for any office for which the voter is allowed to vote.

Should? Depends on state law, parliamentary authority and common sense.

State law should be checked but it's usually not a barrier, since it tends to be very deferential to the nonprofit's good-faith choices in self-governance. Often mail ballots are not mentioned at all (Mich., Calif.)

So it falls to Bylaws. To keep the bylaws simple, they usually invoke some parliamentary authority like Roberts Rules of Order for the finer details of how to do things. Robert's Rules 10th Edition, page 408-411 covers this.

Robert's is very concerned with people who open the mail seeing the ballots.

Robert's says OUTER return envelopes must be unique and "specially recognizable". They can't be confused with normal mail, because they must be identified as ballots without opening them. They may not be opened prematurely. Not even if there's also an inner envelope. You can't open some, then days later open more.

In secret ballots, Robert's also calls out for INNER return envelopes which the voter must sign to authenticate his ballot. I'm not sure why Robert's is so concerned with the authentication signature not being viewable from the outer envelope, but they do specify it. Most organizations I know either forego the signature or have people sign the outer envelope, eliminating the inner entirely. Some even dump the signature, but damn it does stop fraud in its tracks.

It also calls out that when you send out the ballot materials, the ballots themselves must be pre-folded "a sufficient number of times that"... when returned refolded in the same manner, whoever opens the envelope can't see the vote. That sounds to me like at least 2 folds, crosswise, i.e. an 8x11 sheet folded to fit a greeting-card envelope. I have never seen a railway museum implement this part of the process. When I called out this requirement at one museum, staff sent the ballot flat unfolded. Nobody reads, nobody cares.

Heck, nobody even possesses the relevant parliamentary authority (e.g. Roberts Rules). Much as 'laws behind paywalls' annoy me, Robert's is only $13. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/073820 ... 0738203076 I've seen gold-plated top dollar election inspectors not possess the relevant $13 book. A direct result of not owning a book is not consulting the book, and that can cause big trouble.

If you are going to shortcut law or rules, dont do it ignorantly - do it knowing the rules. I once recommended to shortcut Robert's Rules to save costs, because of an expected noncontroversial election, only to later find there had been several irregularities, including bald-faced deviations from state law.

It sounds to me like "EC" is a Board by any other name. When law and your parliamentary authority (e.g. Roberts Rules) speak of "the Board" do you interpret that to mean the EC?

Nothing says a Board must be community leaders rather than internal leaders. In fact in every museum I've ever been involved in, the Board was dominated by working members. Placing a bunch of community leaders on your Board is a social experiment that has been tried at some railway museums. That would make a nice other thread.