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Illegal vote


Dottie

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At a recent 501c19 meeting (amvets) it was voted to not expand the current volunteer bartenders from 3 to 6. It is claimed this will be challenged at the next meeting because it is in violation of state law. There is no state law that I can find that pertains to volunteer bartenders. There is law applying to employees who are bartenders which I don't believe applies. I believe the vote should stand.

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Then be prepared to speak in favor of the vote standing if the Chair's ruling is Appealed.  Also, if those challenging the vote believe it should be null and void based on the State law you should refer them to RONR p. 251 because unless this State law is procedural the challenge probably won't fall within the five exceptions to the timeliness requirement.  That being said those making the challenge probably are free to move to Rescind or Renew the original motion (depending on how it was originally worded and decided).

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As suggested by Mr. Harrison, I suspect this law is not procedural.  In that case, even if the assembly thinks the motion violates the law, it is not null and void - execution of it is another matter, and that a motion committed the organization to doing illegal things is a pretty good reason to rescind, though.  What exactly is meant by "challenged" here?  A point of order, or a motion to rescind?

I suspect that the motion was not in order, since I'm taking it to have been phrased "I move that we not expand..." or something like that.  It's too late to complain about that, though.  If the motion was to expand and was voted down, then it's not clear what could be rescinded or what point of order could be made, although the motion could be made again, and I guess that would also qualify as a 'challenge.'

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Actually it was phrased as the exec. Committee presented it in their minutes....The motion was to "expand the bartenders from 3 to six" to supposedly comply with some law..membership voted "no " unanimously  ..subsequent motion was to hire an alternate bartender to fill in when there is a sickness or absenteeism..the real case here is that the personal motive for the challenger was to get a volunteer bartender job for someone, and tried to find a law that supported it..thank you for your input. It's clear to me that our vote was totally legit...

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Of course, the motion can be made again at the next session, and the next, and so on.  They can claim in debate that it's necessitated by state law - it will still be up to the assembly to vote on the motion, as usual. There's no special "you can't vote no on this motion" card in RONR, although if a motion is, in fact, needed to comply with a law, it would probably be a good idea to vote yes on it.

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