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  1. I'm a member of my local County Democratic Party. We adopted a bylaws amendment and standing rules a year ago that allowed us to adapt our meetings to an online medium (we happen to use Zoom). Ever since the McGovern-Frazier DNC reform of 1971 (where they discovered that ballot-box stuffing at the county and state levels was widespread enough to change who the DNC nominated in 1968), no level of the Democratic Party has been allowed to use secret ballots. We instead use signed ballots or roll call votes when voice votes or a show of hands are not appropriate. However, due to concerns regarding the inability to audit electronic ballots or the ability to tamper with them, our standing rule for electronic meetings only allowed for absentee electronic ballots (such as an email vote) if the Central Committee (our general membership body) is not in session (in case we wanted to vote on whether we should use Zoom or another medium for electronic meetings, for example). Our standing rule also requires that the membership be given 7 days prior notice (along with the meeting agenda), instructing them how to access the electronic medium chosen to conduct the meeting in and instructing them how to access and participate in any voting method being used. This has not previously been a problem as we have, 'till this point, only used unanimous consent (which requires un-muting all members and waiting ten seconds), voice vote (although any single member can demand a division), or roll call votes. At our April general membership meeting, right after we adopted the meeting agenda, the Chair announced during the meeting that a new electronic balloting system was going to be used later during the meeting for our votes on endorsing candidates for officer positions of our State Democratic Party. I objected with this comment: “Where does the Standing Rules for Electronic Meetings allow for the use of electronic ballots? The Standing Rules only allow voice votes, unanimous consent, or roll call.” Our parliamentarian replied: “The standing rules can be suspended, and we just did.” The Parliamentarian further elaborated that since agenda item VI, 1, was written as: "Action Item: State Democratic Party Officer Endorsements...Electronic Ballot," the inclusion of the words "Electronic Ballot" constituted a motion to suspend the rules and to alter the method of voting. I objected that the agenda did not clearly state a motion to suspend the rules and alter the method of voting. It was neither clearly stated that it was a motion, nor did it clearly state what the effect of the motion was. My question: without clearly stating any motion, and without clearly signifying that a motion is included in the agenda as distributed, can adopting an agenda both suspend the rules and also alter the method of voting? For reference, our bylaws state: For reference, our standing rules state:
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