Voting/Spoiled Ballots in Club, Canada

The Constitution & bylaws of the club state the following for voting procedures.

Subsection 7 - Voting for the election of officers shall be by secret ballot. Voting by proxy shall not be permitted. One ballot and one ballot envelope shall be mailed to every voting member with the February News. Each member voting shall complete the ballot and seal it in the Ballot envelope. The ballot envelope shall then be closed in an outer envelope and forwarded to the Recording Secretary by April 1st. One outer envelope will be supplied per valid voting membership address, and in the case of Regular Family Memberships where both persons elect to cast votes, both ballot envelopes may be placed into the one outer envelope for return to the Recording Secretary. This outer envelope only is to be marked with the sender's name via return address labeling. Where only one individual of a Regular Family membership casts a vote, the name of the nonvoting member is to be stricken from the outer envelope before it is returned to the Recording Secretary in order to enable accurate publication of voters lists, and this requirement will be issued to members along with balloting materials via enclosing a copy of this Article IV, section 7 of the by-laws, and any other by-law(s) that pertain to the Election of Officers. The Recording Secretary shall check the sender's name against the eligible voters list and forward the ballot envelopes unopened to the President who will appoint two scrutineers to open and tabulate the ballots. The selected scrutineers will not currently be, or ever have been, owners or judges, and further the President will cause their names and city/province of residence to be published in News with the election results. The result of the vote and a signed statement from the scrutineers verifying ballot numbers is to be in the President's hands by April 25th.


My question is, if a ballot comes in and is not enclosed in a Ballot envelope is it a spoiled ballot.

You all have to agree how strictly you want to enforce those rules--and all should agree on what standard applies.

But technically it does not comply and is not valid