Weldon Merritt

A belief in which I wholeheartedly concur. I haven't dealt with many groups that have co-officers or co-chairmen, so I can't speak from extensive experience; but I suspect that in most instances, one of the co-whatevers assumes the primary role and the other acts more live a vice whatever. So it is much better to set it up that way in the first place.

First of all, for e-voting to be allowed, it must be authorized in your bylaws (or higher authority, such as an applicable statute), not just in your policies and procedures. Second, if it is properly authorized, the provision authorizing it should spell out whether it requires 100% of the votes cast, or 100% of the full membership. If ambiguous, you need to figure out what it means, and then amend the provision to resolve the ambiguity.

Of course not! From the phrasing of your question, I assume that the votes already have been cast, and maybe even counted. But regardless, the votes for the withdrawing candidate cannot be transferred. The are still counted as part of the total votes cast. If that prevents one of the other candidates from receiving a majority, you have an incomplete elections and must vote again.

And even whether or not they were board members at the time the minutes were taken.

It worked for me.

I have a PDF copy of the article by Dr. John Stackpole from the July 2009 Parliamentary Journal, but when I tried to copy and paste it, all I got was gibbersih.

I agree. So if you don't want her to be president, nominate and vote for someone else.

So far as RONR is concerned, that answer is no. It is possible that the statute under which you are incorporated allows it, but that seems unlikely.

That's a new one for me, Richard. Is that an actual term that I missed learning, or is it a typo?

Any change to the wording of the bylaws must go through the amendment process specified in the bylaws. And BTW, there is no such thing as "a 2/3 majority vote." A majority is one thing (more than half), and 2/3 is another thing (at least twice as many "yes" votes as "no").

I believe my previous answer is more accurate. See RONR 9:24: (Emphasis added.)

Generally speaking, yes. I suppose an organization could have a rule that all meetings, or specified parts of a meeting, are held in executive session, and if so, a formal motion might not be necessary. But that would be unusual. And in any event, it often is done by unanimous consent. If it is a Main Motion (which it amost certainly will be), yes. All main motion (except those that were withdrawn) are entered in the minutes. As with all main motions, the name of the mover (unless you have a special rule of order that the maker's name will not be recorded). the exact working of the motion as it stood immediately before the vote, and the result of the vote. I sense that you may be concerned about having the minutes of the open session revealing matter that should be kept confidential. The way to make sure that doesn't happen is to not include that information in the motion. As far as motions that are made during the executive session, they are recoded in the minutes of that session, which are maintained separately from the minutes of the open session.

As always, interpretation of an organization's bylaws can be properly done only by the organization. But I don't see anything in what you posted that would lead me to think it would be a conflict. Generally speaking, anyone (even a non-member) can serve as secretary pro tem if they are willing and the organization elects them.

For example?

If he is willing to serve as secretary pro tem at every meeting, what is it about the official position that causes him to decline? Are you assigning the secretary a lot of extraneous duties?

Not quite. If we are talking about a committee or a small board (no more than about a dozen members), the chair (assuming he or she is a member) can participate as fully as any other members. Otherwise, the chair should refrain from making motions (and exercising most other membership rights), to maintain an appearance of impartiality.

And if previous notice is given, adoption of that motion requires only a majority vote. Otherwise, it requires either a two-thirds vote or a majority of the entire membership.

Certainly they should have done so. I am not so willing to assume that they did do so.

Oops! My bad. I have corrected the typo in the meantime, but I like your sense of humor.

Clearly, RONR prohibits proxies for voting, unless authorized by some superior provision. I am not so sure that the prohibition would extend to a proxy in the sense that Guest Dee is using the term: someone to stand in for the installing officer as he or she installs the officers of an organization in which the installing officer also is one of the officers being installed. But I agree that RONR does not mention installing officers. So far as RONR is concerned, how, or even whether, the officers are "installed" has no bearing on the legitimacy of their assumption of office.

Looks fine to me.

And if necessary, again, and again .... Eventually, someone will get a majority. Also, nominations could be reopened. That might result in the nomination of an acceptable compromise candidate.

And if it's a tie vote on an election, you vote again, as often as necessary, until someone receives a majority. And by the way, you can have a tie vote even if you have an odd number of members, since someone may be absent, or abstain.

Only with the permission of the assembly.

Maybe so. But I still find it hard to believe that any rational person would seriously propose doing so, even for the ostensible purpose of testing the FD's response time. Of course, if we assume that most of the members are rational, it probably wouldn't take long for the motion to be soundly defeated even if it is not ruled out of order.