Can the chair require signatures on paper ballots?

[Guest Gail Kappenman]

Our church uses Robert's Rules per our constitution. Recently, our pastor wanted to get an idea of who would be in favor of moving our midweek service from Thursday to Wednesday. Rather than a count of "aye" or "nay", and rather than a show of hands, he opted to pass out pieces of paper to only the voting members (about 20 people). Then he said for each member to write their name and then either Wednesday or Thursday. Some members were not comfortable having to put their names on the ballot, so those votes were deemed not to count. Votes that said "either" also did not count. My question is this: If this happens again, can a member from the floor request that anonymous ballots be counted? 

[SaintCad]

p 429: Straw polls not in order.

For RONR to apply a motion would have to be made to move the service to Wednesday.  A member can move that the vote be taken by secret ballot (p 285).

[Josh Martin]

1 hour ago, Guest Gail Kappenman said:

Our church uses Robert's Rules per our constitution. Recently, our pastor wanted to get an idea of who would be in favor of moving our midweek service from Thursday to Wednesday. Rather than a count of "aye" or "nay", and rather than a show of hands, he opted to pass out pieces of paper to only the voting members (about 20 people). Then he said for each member to write their name and then either Wednesday or Thursday. Some members were not comfortable having to put their names on the ballot, so those votes were deemed not to count. Votes that said "either" also did not count. My question is this: If this happens again, can a member from the floor request that anonymous ballots be counted? 

There are so many problems here.

As Saint Cad has suggested, a straw poll is not in order - as you say, the pastor wanted to "get an idea," which does not sound like a binding motion to me. Additionally, there should have been a clear motion regarding changing the service to Wednesday. Since the current service is on Thursday, those who wished for the service to remain on Thursday could have voted "no."

But back to your questions, it was quite improper for the pastor to order members to write their names on the ballots (or for the pastor to order that ballots be used in the first place). The assembly may order a ballot vote, and the vote is presumed to be a secret ballot unless a "signed ballot" (which is really a form of roll call vote) is specified and there is no purpose for a signed ballot except in an assembly which is responsible to an interested constituency. Unsigned ballots should have been counted. I agree that votes which were marked "either" should not have counted - those seem to be in the nature of abstentions.

[J. J.]

5 hours ago, Josh Martin said:

There are so many problems here.

As Saint Cad has suggested, a straw poll is not in order - as you say, the pastor wanted to "get an idea," which does not sound like a binding motion to me. Additionally, there should have been a clear motion regarding changing the service to Wednesday. Since the current service is on Thursday, those who wished for the service to remain on Thursday could have voted "no."

But back to your questions, it was quite improper for the pastor to order members to write their names on the ballots (or for the pastor to order that ballots be used in the first place). The assembly may order a ballot vote, and the vote is presumed to be a secret ballot unless a "signed ballot" (which is really a form of roll call vote) is specified and there is no purpose for a signed ballot except in an assembly which is responsible to an interested constituency. Unsigned ballots should have been counted. I agree that votes which were marked "either" should not have counted - those seem to be in the nature of abstentions.

This would be out of order within a meeting context, but I am not sure this occurred within a meeting.