Zoom and co option when more than one candidate applying for one vacancy

Question

Just wondering how a parish council should handle a co-option with zoom?

If two or more people apply for one casual vacancy on a parish council after the vacancy has been advertised,
How should it be done fairly and honestly with a zoom meeting?

Answer 1

Zoom need not change anything. Is there any reason you cannot follow your normal procedure?

Answer 2

To be honest I don’t now what the correct procedure is? Lost time we wrote our preferred candidate on a piece of paper and then put that in a blank envelope and then the chair counted the votes and the one with the highest vote filled the vacancy, can’t see how this would work with zoom?

Answer 3

Why not put the candidates back into the 'waiting room' whilst you do the voting. Voting can be done in the normal manner used to decide a resolution.

Answer 4

The co-option does not have to be in a meeting, you could arrange individual zoom interviews with each candidate and a panel and “score them”. Then compare the scores.
If you would like them both, you could have a waiting list ready for the next vacancy,

Comments

...but you'd still need to advertise the next vacancy.

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Of course, I was looking at the process after you have had your applications submitted

Answer 5

We had a co-option meeting via Zoom with 4 candidates for 2 positions.  They were invited to dial in at a specified time to be interviewed and then placed in the waiting room at the other times.  Councillors then undertook voting using the poll facility on Zoom.  We always advise our candidates of the results after the meeting and so we had no issues at all with this methodology.