Member voting: elections and bylaw amendments

Members can elect officers and board members and vote on changes to your bylaws, online or from a QR code at a meeting. Go to Nonprofit → Governance.

**1. Upload your governing documents.** Add your bylaws (and articles or policies), then upload the PDF as the adopted version. To propose an amendment, upload the new text as a proposed version. Each version is kept exactly as uploaded, so a ballot always points at the text members voted on.

**2. Record your voting rules.** Turtini never assumes a rule. Record what your bylaws say and which provision says it:
• Who may vote: any current member, or only members who joined a set number of days before voting opens
• Quorum: a number of ballots, a percentage of eligible members, or the voting members present
• Elections: most votes wins (plurality), or a candidate needs more than half (majority)
• Yes/no questions and amendments: the share needed (more than half, or a fraction such as 2 of 3) and what it is a share of

What a share is a share of changes results, so read your bylaws closely. "Votes cast" counts only yes and no. "Ballots cast" counts every ballot returned, so an abstention works against. "Members present" uses the attendance you enter when you close the ballot: 13 yes, 5 no and 2 abstaining is 72% of votes cast but 65% of 20 members present.

A ballot cannot open until you record who may vote. Anything else left unrecorded makes that result undetermined, never passed. Under a majority rule, a seat no candidate won more than half of is left unfilled; what happens next, such as a runoff, is your organization's call.

**3. Build a ballot.** Add elections (seats and candidates), yes/no questions, and amendments (pick the proposed version). Choose whether anyone with the link can read it, and whether it is a secret ballot. Save it as a draft.

**4. Preview, then open voting.** While a ballot is a draft, Preview shows it at its real link to your admins only, with voting disabled. Opening fixes the ballot and your rules for this vote. Print the QR code: it opens /vote on your website, which shows whatever is open for a vote right now, so one printed code works at every meeting. Each ballot also has its own link for an email. Members sign in on their phone and vote once; a second vote is refused. Someone who is not a member is offered your membership tiers to join; whether a new member may vote in this ballot depends on your rules.

**5. Close and count.** If your rules measure against the members present, enter how many voting members were present. Results then appear: who was elected, which questions and amendments were adopted, and whether quorum was met. A tie for the last seat is reported as a tie for you to resolve under your bylaws.

**Secret ballots.** Who voted and what they chose are stored separately, with nothing linking them. No one, including your admins, can see how a member voted.

**Members who joined offline.** If someone paid at a meeting or by check, record them under "Members who joined offline" with the email they will sign in with and the date they joined.