The Ames Community School Board called a special meeting Thursday to discuss what to do about a recent election of a new president for the board.

At the meeting, president Gail Johnston stepped down as president. However, she was nominated to resume her position, and after a short discussion led by the other nominee, Michael Murray, votes were written down, signed and announced. Johnston won the vote, 4-3.

The previous election, held Sept. 17, was also between Johnston and Murray.

“We held several verbal voting rounds, with discussion in between,” Johnston said.

The first few rounds of voting, all verbal, resulted in a tie, with three votes for each candidate.

“Normally, this can’t happen, since we have seven board members, but one of the members was absent due to a death in the family,” Murray said.

After several verbal votes, paper ballots were handed out. After multiple rounds of paper voting, Johnston won, 4-2. However, one of the ballots was not signed, which made the election in violation of the Open Meetings Law of Iowa.

“The knowledge of who voted for who had to be made public at that meeting, and it wasn’t, which makes that meeting out of compliance with state law,” said David Putz, of Ames, one of the first people to inform the board it did not act in accordance with the law.

Section 21.3 of the Iowa Code states that all public meetings must have a record which “shows the result of each vote taken . the vote of each member present shall be made public at the open session.”

Johnston said it was just a mistake on the part of the board.

“This is an oversight on our part, and we are meeting to discuss how to handle it,” she said.

Putz has been following the district on his own for the last three years, and believes that there was no malice in the vote.

“I don’t think the board is intentionally keeping things secret,” he said.

Barbara Mack, associate professor of journalism and communication, said that it is good the board realized their own mistake before any other parties were involved in the situation.

“What they did is illegal, but I am happy to see the board members acknowledge the issue, and work to address it,” she said. “Every public servant needs to have the courage of his or her conviction, and vote openly and publicly on all issues.”

Murray just wants to be able to resolve the issue.

“Everyone on the board said, ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’ as soon as it was pointed out to us. We regret it, but at the same time we have to clear it up,” he said after the meeting Thursday.