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Thank you all for your responses it had helped me out greatly!

Ok, I am trying to follow here. If the membership feels as though the nominee isn't qualified and chooses not to vote for him/her by leaving the box blank on the ballot that is an abstention? How then would that nominee fail to get a majority vote if blanks are counted as abstentions? For example, Nominee X and Nominee Y are on a ballot and there are two positions to be filled and election requires a majority vote, there is also a spot for a write in. There are 10 members present at the meeting who cast a ballot. On that ballot 10 checked the box for Nominee X and only 1 checked the box for Nominee Y and there were no write-ins. My understanding is that having not received a majority vote, Nominee Y has not been elected. Is that correct?

Atul, In the instance of category (4) from above in Rob Elsman's post, "cast a blank ballot", is that not in effect saying that you don't choose either of the nominees and therefore it would be counted?

Thank you, I will take a look again. I did look earlier but couldn't seem to find anything pertaining to my question even though I thought I had previously read something similar to your answer.

Thank you! This has been informative and a great help! Would you provide me the page numbers so I can research this?

Thank you both for your responses! Regarding the second round of voting and any necessary subsequent rounds, is the nominee that failed to be receive the majority vote eligible for election in the next round? Or are the subsequent rounds only for floor nominations/write-ins?

Each year prior to the Annual Meeting the Nominating Committee will research and nominate candidates to run for positions. Many times, these nominees held the position previously and their term had just expired so they are running again. The Nominating Committee doesn't make it a practice of nominating more candidates than there are available positions open, however, the membership can make a nomination from the floor if they feel someone else may be qualified for the position. Majority vote is required for election. With that background information here are my questions. For example, there are two nominees on the ballot to fill two open board positions and the some of the membership does not feel that one nominee is qualified and therefore does not check the box next to the nominees' name. The result is that the nominee receives less than a majority of the votes cast in the affirmative. Does that nominee fail to get elected? Or because there are two open positions and two nominees each will get elected regardless of votes received?

Josh, Thank you for the reply and the link it is greatly appreciated!

I have been a part of a Board of Trustees (BoT) and Church Council (CC) for over ten years. It has always been my understanding that RONR was our parlimentary authority for these two bodies. Our bylaws are silent on any parlimentary authority for any boards, committees, or councils, however, it does state that RONR is the parlimentary authority for all congregational meetings of the Church, so perhaps this is where my understanding came from that it is our authority for BoT and CC meetings. What has come up is that people are wanting to phone in to meetings or join using WebEx (generically speaking for video conference) and our bylaws make no provision for this. I mentioned that those members would not count towards a quorum because they are not present at the meeting. I have been told by our Chairman that our bylaws only address quorum requirments for congregational meetings of the Church, and he is correct in saying this. He said that the BoT and CC can meet and use apprpriate measures to conduct and do its business as needed. He also stated that formal action can be taken if a quorum is assembled in a manner that the members can be heard and participate in a vote. This all seems resonable but it just seems to open us up to not knowing how meetings are supposed to be ran. You all know this is a recipe for disaster and leads itself to be very subjective. My question is this, how can I go about encouraging the BoT and CC to adopt RONR as the parlimentary authority? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Very informative and very clear! Thank you all for your responses!

Thank you all for your responses. It is clear that reports should not be approved, with that being said what harm is there in approving them? I am not advocating to approve them, but if I am going to recommend not approving them I will be asked why we should change the way it is currently done.

Bruce, Yes, the reports for the Annual Meeting go out a week in advance.

Weldon, Thank you for the feedback, it is greatly appreciated. And for what it is worth I agree that all reports shouldn't be approved at the same time, the same way I don't agree with casting a unanimous ballot, but I have lost that battle long ago. jstackpo, The approving of the TR is what I was writing about, not the Auditor's Report. It has been common practice at our church to do that for as long as I have been a member.

At our Annual Meeting, in an effort to save time the Chairman asked for a motion to approve all reports. Whether good or bad, this was done so that all the reports wouldn't have to be read through and take so much time. However, in that group of reports was the Treasurer's Report and it was approved without the Treasurer presenting the report, which is usually done. Later in the meeting the chairman was informed that the Treasurer did not give the report and therefore was invited up to give the report. Upon completion of the report the Chairman asked again for a motion to approve the Treasurer's Report, MSC. My question is, how does it get reported in the draft minutes? Does the second motion to accept the Treasurer's Report get recorded? Or should it just be left out? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.

Josh, are you saying that speaking rights for non-members would be done by following that? Or would that be to suspend the rules? And to ask a second question pertaining, if the you can suspend the rules for the order of business can the same be done for other areas of the bylaws such expenditures, voting requirements, quorum etc.? Thak you for your input!