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Let's say there is a Federation with governing bylaws, which has individual Associations who also have bylaws. When it comes to election/voting, if proxy voting nor absentee ballots are NOT mentioned at all in neither Federation bylaws nor Association bylaws, can a member vote proxy/absentee ballot if they're unable to attend the annual meeting when elections happen? And proxy voting and absentee ballots are not the same, correct? Meaning, if a bylaw did say proxy voting isn't allowed, that does not automatically also mean absentee ballots are not allowed?

Our Property Owners Association allows for absentee voting in elections. We allow this by mail and email, with a cutoff of midnight the day before the meeting/election. Can we start the count of the absentee ballots in a secure room by the tellers immediately before the meeting begins? For example, the meeting begins at 1 and one of the first agenda items is the election of the new board. The proposal is for the Tellers to convene at 11 on the day of the meeting, count all the absentee ballots, then collect the in-person ballots at the meeting, count those, add the totals and deliver their report to the chair before the end of the meeting. Last time there were 160 ballots and 5 directors were elected. There simply wass not enough time during the meeting itself to count all those ballots and deliver the results within the typical 2-hour window. Citation (or lack of any rule/specific direction) would be very useful. Thank you.

Are absentee ballots counted in determining a quorum? For example, if a quorum is equal to 100 members, but only 90 members are present and there are 15 absentee ballots, does that count as 105 members present in the meeting for a quorum to conduct the vote? Thank you.

Hello and good afternoon. We are relatively inexperienced in parliamentary procedure and appreciate any guidance. We are a small voluntary service organization (approx. 110 members) with a BOD with minimum of five elected officers but can be expanded up to 10 because of Chairs of Committees. Per bylaws, all people on BOD must be active, paid members of the organization. Our bylaws state we must have an annual meeting with elections. Bylaws also state that any membership meeting (which includes our annual meeting) must have 15 members for quorum. We just had our annual meeting and held elections. We had exactly 15 people present if you include BOD persons; we had 17 votes when you add in the mailed in absentee ballots. So we are not sure if we had quorum. One person states that BOD people don't count towards quorum. One person says that in membership meetings where BOD are required to members, that yes, they do count. Also, let's say only 14 people show up but we have over 15 votes because of mail in ballots, do the people who mailed in a ballot count towards quorum.