How late can a late vote be made?

[Guest lavasusan]

I am a member of a college senate, which meets on the first Monday of each month during the academic year.   At our March meeting, a member was absent and did not send a proxy on a specific motion, which failed for the lack of one vote, as announced. The April meeting was held and this motion was not renewed. The member has now located the "late vote with the permission of the assembly" language in ROR 4th (quoted below and referred to on our website), and wants to know if she can ask the May meeting for unanimous consent to cast her vote, which would be in favor of the motion, thereby changing the outcome of the March meeting vote.

The specific language she quotes is:

"A member has the right to change his vote up to the time the vote is finally announced. After that, he can make the change only by permission of the assembly, which may be given by general consent; that is, by no member's objecting when the chair inquires if any one objects. If objection is made, a motion may be made to grant the permission, which motion is undebatable."

I am trying to line up the specific issues I see with this request, and your input would be appreciated.

1) An absent member does not cast a vote, and therefore cannot be said to "change his vote," therefore this section would not apply at all.

2) The adjournment of a regularly scheduled monthly meeting concludes all business acted upon at the session, so the March motion was completed at that time (is there a better way of phrasing this?) and cannot be reopened for a late vote at a later session.

Any other issues that I should bring up?

There is a reluctance in practice in our assembly to put an identical motion back on a subsequent agenda and simply revote without any change in the wording of the motion or its underlying facts, simply because people did not like the outcome, although this is not stated in our bylaws. As I understand it, as our assembly meetings are regularly scheduled, each monthly meeting is its own session. As a practical matter, therefore, I did not see anything in the rules that would prevent the identical motion being moved at a later session. My tentative suggestion therefore would be to ask her to ask the same motion at the May meeting and vote again. Would you suggest different advice?

 

 

[Hieu H. Huynh]

I suggest getting a copy of the right book and looking at pages 408-409.

[jstackpo]

1 hour ago, Guest lavasusan said:

 

There is a reluctance in practice in our assembly to put an identical motion back on a subsequent agenda and simply revote without any change in the wording of the motion or its underlying facts, ...  Would you suggest different advice?

Nope,  renewing a defeated motion is perfectly proper so go for it!  Page 336, in the 11th edition, which you really ought to get (it's not on the web).  A fair amount has changed since 1915, in case you hadn't noticed....

[Guest Thanks]

Thanks for our prompt input. I really appreciate it. I have pointed out to the executive board the need to get a current copy of the book.

As I don't have access to my college library for the next three days due to the holiday and the weekend, what is the substance of pages 408-409?

[Dan Honemann]

8 hours ago, Guest Thanks said:

Thanks for our prompt input. I really appreciate it. I have pointed out to the executive board the need to get a current copy of the book.

As I don't have access to my college library for the next three days due to the holiday and the weekend, what is the substance of pages 408-409?

What is said on these pages makes it clear that if a member wishes to request the assembly's permission to change his vote after the result has been announced he must make that request immediately following the announcement of the result of the vote.

[Richard Brown]

17 hours ago, Guest lavasusan said:

I am a member of a college senate, which meets on the first Monday of each month during the academic year.   At our March meeting, a member was absent and did not send a proxy on a specific motion, which failed for the lack of one vote, as announced. The April meeting was held and this motion was not renewed. The member has now located the "late vote with the permission of the assembly" language in ROR 4th (quoted below and referred to on our website), and wants to know if she can ask the May meeting for unanimous consent to cast her vote, which would be in favor of the motion, thereby changing the outcome of the March meeting vote.

The specific language she quotes is:

"A member has the right to change his vote up to the time the vote is finally announced. After that, he can make the change only by permission of the assembly, which may be given by general consent; that is, by no member's objecting when the chair inquires if any one objects. If objection is made, a motion may be made to grant the permission, which motion is undebatable."

I am trying to line up the specific issues I see with this request, and your input would be appreciated.

1) An absent member does not cast a vote, and therefore cannot be said to "change his vote," therefore this section would not apply at all. . . .  (remainder of post omitted)

 

 

15 hours ago, Guest Thanks said:

Thanks for our prompt input. I really appreciate it. I have pointed out to the executive board the need to get a current copy of the book.

As I don't have access to my college library for the next three days due to the holiday and the weekend, what is the substance of pages 408-409?

 

6 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

What is said on these pages makes it clear that if a member wishes to request the assembly's permission to change his vote after the result has been announced he must make that request immediately following the announcement of the result of the vote.

I agree with Mr. Honemann and would point out to guest lavasusan that the language being referred to applies to allowing a member to CHANGE his vote.  In this case, as I understand it, the member did not vote at all and now, two meetings later, wants to reopen the polls to change a vote which she never cast.  I don't think that is a permissible use of "changing one's vote".  One must  have first voted in order to change a vote.

Question:  RONR does provide for reopening the polls (pp 283 ff) for such things as to allow late-arriving members to vote, but can the polls be reopened two meetings later in order to allow a member to vote on the issue for the first time?   I don't see an express prohibition, but doing so seems rather unorthodox.  It seems to me the member should move to renew the motion if she wants a chance to vote on it.

[Dan Honemann]

33 minutes ago, Richard Brown said:

Question:  RONR does provide for reopening the polls (pp 283 ff) for such things as to allow late-arriving members to vote, but can the polls be reopened two meetings later in order to allow a member to vote on the issue for the first time?   I don't see an express prohibition, but doing so seems rather unorthodox.  It seems to me the member should move to renew the motion if she wants a chance to vote on it.

"Incidental motions relating to methods of voting and the polls: .....

"When applied to a vote which has just been taken, ...  can be moved from the moment the chair has reported the vote (see p. 48, ll. 18–23) until the announcement of the result is complete, or immediately thereafter (see pp. 408–9)."        (RONR, 11th ed., p. 283)

[Richard Brown]

20 minutes ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

"Incidental motions relating to methods of voting and the polls: .....

"When applied to a vote which has just been taken, ...  can be moved from the moment the chair has reported the vote (see p. 48, ll. 18–23) until the announcement of the result is complete, or immediately thereafter (see pp. 408–9)."        (RONR, 11th ed., p. 283)

Well, duh, yeah, I guess that covers it!  And I guess I overlooked that part.